Tour
The front of the Tough 6020
Back On the back of the camera we see the LCD screen and the controls. From the top, we have the zoom controls, the record button for movies, the grille that covers the speaker, the play button, the 4-ways controls and the menu and help buttons at the bottom.
The back of the Tough 6020
Sides On the left side of the Tough 6020 is the panel that covers the battery and ports. To open this, the switch has to be slid left and down, a design that minimizes the chance of accidentally opening it while trying to take photos of a passing shark.
The left side
There really isn't anything interesting on the right side of the camera.
The right side
Top If you look closely on the top of the camera next to the ON/OFF label, you can see three holes that cover the microphone that records sound in movies. Next to this is the power and shutter buttons.
The top of the Tough 6020
Bottom The only feature on the bottom of the Tough 6020 is the tripod socket. And that's only exciting if you happen to be a tripod. And even then, it's probably not that interesting, because I've never seen a tripod get that excited about one.
The bottom of the Tough 6020
Hardware
Viewfinder
There is no viewfinder on the Tough 6020: you view images through the LCD screen.
LCD
The LCD screen on the back of the Tough 6020 is a 2.7-inch model with a 231k resolution. That's pretty average for screens of this size, and is enough to get a reasonable view of images and previews. But it's not as sharp or clear as the higher resolution screens on cameras such as the Sony TX7.
Flash
To the left of the lens on the front of the camera is the small flash. Olympus doesn't give any figures for the range of this flash, and we were not able to test it at the PMA show where we looked at this camera. To the right of the flash is a small white LED which is used to help the AF system. It is also used in the S-Macro LED mode to illuminate the subject.
Lens Mount
The lens of the Tough 6020 is embedded deep within the body of the camera, safe from any unpleasantness. It's a 5x zoom lens with focal length of 5 to 25mm, which is equivalent to 28mm to 140mm on a 35mm film camera. That's a decent range, but we would have liked to see more at the wide end of the range: having a wide a view as possible is important when shooting underwater.
Jacks, Ports & Plugs
Two ports are located under the cover on the right side of the camera: a multi-purpose port on the left and a mini HDMI port on the right. This means that you have to have the cover open when copying files or viewing images on a TV.
Battery
The battery that gives the Tough 6020 its joie de vive is an Olympus LI-50B that can hold about 925 mAh of charge. Olympus makes no claims for how long this battery is likely to last, and we weren't able to test this.
Memory
Images captured by the Tough 6020 are stored either on SDHC cards or on the internal memory. The SDHC cards fit into the slot above the battery.
Unusually, the internal memory is pretty large: 1GB, about 600MB of which can be used for storing images and video, a lot bigger than the 50MB or so that we usually see. This provides a great backup plan for if your card fills up, or if you have a lot of photos you wan to keep on he camera to show off.
Other Features
Drop Proof - the Tough 6020 is built to withstand drops from up to 5 feet.
Water Proof - this camera is waterproofed to depths of up to 16 feet. If you need to go deeper, its big brother the Tough 8020 can go down to 33 feet under.
Cold Proof - temperatures down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius) won't phase this camera, although you might get a shorter battery life.
Design & Layout
Design & Appearance
The Tough 6020 has an angular, somewhat industrial looking design that feels appropriate for a robust camera like this. Although much of the case is made of plastic, it feels tough and components like the doors over the battery and memory card compartment are well built: they are not likely to snap off in use.
Size & Handling
The Tough 6020 is a medium sized camera that fits well into the hand, with the shutter button falling naturally under the index finger. When the camera is held in one hand, the thumb falls naturally onto the zoom controls on the back of the camera.
Menu
Olympus uses a tabbed design for their main menu system, with the options being separated into 7 sections. Two are for shooting settings, one for movie, one for playback and three for other controls. In addition, there is shooting menu that is accessed by pressing the OK button in the center of the 4-way controller. This provides quick access to a number of the more commonly used shooting controls, such as the ISO level, white balance, etc.
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Ease of Use
The Tough 6020 is a fairly straightforward camera to use; we found that it was easy to go from one more to another, and to access commonly used controls, such as the ISO level.
Modes
Auto Mode
Two auto modes are included: the iAuto mode and the standard P (for program) mode. In the iAuto mode, the camera makes all of the decisions, picking the scene mode that it thinks is most appropriate for the shooting situation based on what it detects. The user only gets to set a small number of settings, such as the Image size. In the program mode, the user can make more decision, setting the ISO level, white balance and other settings. If desired, these can be set to automatic, though.
Movie Mode
The Tough 6020 can shoot high definition video, with a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels at 60 frames a second. That is the same resolution as a 720p HDTV, but it is lower than the 1080p video that some over cameras can capture. Other options for lower resolution video are available as well.
The video is saved as a .MOV file that uses MPEG-4 compression. This means that it can be viewed using Apple's QuickTime software, and edited by most video editing programs.
Drive/Burst Mode
The Tough 6020 can capture a burst of around 3 frames a second at the full resolution of the camera. This can be increased somewhat by using the continuous Hi mode, which restricts the image size to 3 megapixels.
Playback Mode
There are a decent selection of playback features on offer on this camera: you can zoom in on images up to 10x, zoom out to view up to 30 thumbnails on the screen at once and create slideshows of images. These slideshows can have accompanying music. Images can also be sorted by date or by event, where the camera assumes that photos taken around the same time were taken at a particular event.
**Scene Modes
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18 scene modes are on offer from the scene mode option on the main menu, running the gamut from the common portrait and landscape modes to three underwater modes and a mode for shooting pets. That's a decent selection that will cover most shooting situations.
In addition, there are a number of other shooting modes, such as the Beauty mode (which softens the look of skin) and a panorama mode, which makes shooting panoramic shots somewhat easier by providing guides for how to to shoot the images so they are correctly aligned.
Controls
Manual Controls
There is no full manual mode on the Tough 6020, which means there is no way to directly set the shutter speed or aperture.
Focus
The Tough 6020 uses a contrast detection auto focus system that we found to be generally quite responsive in our limited testing at the PMA show. There are three focus modes: Face/iESP, Spot and AF tracking. In face mode, the camera detects faces in the frame and works to keep them in focus. In spot mode, the camera focuses on whatever is in the center of the frame. In AF tracking, the camera focuses initially on the object in the center of the frame, but then tries to keep track of the object as it moves.
Several macro modes are also offered, including a super macro mode that uses the LED illuminator to throw some light on the subject. In the super macro mode, the camera can focus to a closest distance of1.2 inches from the front of the camera: close enough to get a good view of a small object.
ISO
The ISO range of this camera goes from 80 to 1600: a decent range. In addition, there are two auto ISO modes: the standard ISO auto and High ISO auto (which uses the higher ISO settings where required).
White Balance
The usual presets for white balance are offered, including three fluorescent presets and three settings for underwater white balance. In addition, there is an automatic mode, but no evaluative mode.
Metering
Only two metering modes are offered on this camera: an evaluative mode and a spot metering mode. Many other cameras offer a center weighted mode, but the absence of this shouldn't be a big problem for most users.
Shutter Speed
The shutter speed range of this camera is from 1/4 seconds down to 1/2000 of a second. in most modes (the night mode extends this out to 4 seconds). That's a wide enough range for most uses, but some might find the maximum of 4 seconds rather limiting for night shots.
Aperture
The aperture range of this camera is a little limited: the widest setting at the wide angle of the zoom is f/3.9, or f/5.9 at the telephoto end.
Image Stabilization
This camera has what the company refers to as dual image stabilization: it includes both an sensor shift stabilization system that moves the sensor to compensate for camera shake and an electronic system that increases the shutter speed to minimize camera shake.
Picture Quality & Size Options
10 image size options are offered, ranging from the full 14 megapixel, 4388 by 4316 pixel resolution of the camera down to 640 by 480. In addition, two image size options are offered that use a 16:9 aspect ratio. Two options are offered for the image compression: high and normal. there is no option on offer for saving RAW images, which contain the raw data captured by the image sensor.
Picture Effects
This camera does offer a number of picture effects which produce unusual effects in images. The Magic Filter shooting mode allows you to show 5 effects: pop art, pinhole, fish eye and drawing. These effects are pretty self explanatory.
Conclusion
Meet the tester
Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.
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