Olympus Stylus Tough 6000 10MP

[Chads93GT]

Granted you will run into problems trying to take pictures of large rooms with 1 flash and trying to paint the walls with everyting else, but the exposure it long enough that you can get a decent photo of a large room.

This is the Khartoum Room in the Rimstone River cave in Perry County, MIssouri.

[Chads93GT]

Oops I posted the wrong versions of these pics. I was playing wtih the contrast in these Eek!

[self-deleted_user]

Not bad - a bit pixily but it looks like crunching .jpg artifact not iso issues. Which model do you have exactly? Maybe the exact model matters?

[Billy]

darn handsome caver in those photos though...

on topic - I have an Olympus Stylus 770 SW, and I have to reiterate a theme here - takes decent video, lousy pictures.

[Chads93GT]

Billy was my model for those photos. they are also downsized quite a bit ill have to respot the originals later.

stylus 6020, 14mp is what i use.

[Chads93GT]

Keep in mind if you are just trying to take cave photos with the camera flash, the photos will suck unless you are in a bone dry gypsum corridor. the water vapor in the air will light up in front of the lense from the camera flash. you need a side flash to take good photos. painting just isnt the same, it snot intense enough for the exposure times on the point and shoot cameras.

Thanks for posing in the photos billy ;)

[self-deleted_user]

One thing that helps with caves that seem to be clear but are really muggy with the photos - it can be vapor from your breath so hold the camera out from your body and hold your breath for a bit. It's how I get a lot more good flash photos - the one I posted from Howard's Waterfall with the flash on - it was doing the steaming-up thing and I just held the camera out in front of me and didn't breath for a sec. Doesn't work in all cases, but in some, it's your own body messin' up your photos.

Also if you work in a lab and/or know what a KimWipe is - I tape a small piece over the flash which diffuses the light and also helps with no sparklies in the photos.

[Billy]

Thanks for posing

Hey! You calling me a poser?

[self-deleted_user]

Thanks for posing

Hey! You calling me a poser?

Not as good of a poser as me!

[Extremeophile]

Since we're sharing images, here are several taken with the Tough 6000. When you look at these on the little 2.5" LCD they look pretty good, but when I got home I was very disappointed. I won't go into detail about the problems with these, but the same shots with the same camera settings on my Canon would have been considerably better.

Bonus points if you can guess the 2 caves where these were taken - both are very popular caves in Kentucky.











Derek

[self-deleted_user]

(ot: how do you guys make it do that? the thumbnail link?!)

[Andy]

The first photo is Pine Hill Cave in Rockcastle County, KY - Main Entrance.

[Extremeophile]

Yes, Pine Hill. The other one is not so easy, but may be the most visited wild cave in KY.

To get the thumbnail I click the "Add image to post" link at the bottom of the Post A Reply window.

[self-deleted_user]

(holymoley tiny text says that! Never noticed it before I'm always trying to use the [img] tags and feeling sorry I can't spoiler the larger ones and sad I can't post anything bigger than 600 pxls at the widest! Thanks!)

[Amazingracer]

Chad and Racer,

Would you be willing to explain some of the tricks for using your Stylus Tough underground? You seem to be the only two people that like this camera for caving.

I have one of these cameras. While I agree that it is indestructible, I can't seem to get good results with it in cave. I love it for canyoneering and kayaking and underwater shots. Anything with natural light comes out great. In contrast, every photo I take with it underground is grainy, underexposed, and is really susceptible to dust/water spots.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Andy, I tend to avoid using the onbaord flash and try to paint with lights. I leave it in P mode and adjust the F stop to get the picture lighter or darker and go from there. I sometimes use the built in Night Mode if im trying to capture a large area. I have noticed that some pictures turn out grainy when using night mode, but less so in P mode.

The videos sometimes turn out noisy as well, but it seems to be hit or miss on that.