I’m thinking of buying my 4 year old daughter a tough camera for Xmas and I’m wondering how they fair as an alternative to a gopro.
I used to do it about 10 years ago with a non tough sony camera but it ended up shaking the insides apart and ruining the camera. The videos were pretty good though but I would expect them to be much better now.
It would be mainly used for photos but ideally I would like to occasionally mount it to my bars and follow her when we go to the bmx track or riding the local trails. It will also be used as the family camera on holidays in the sea and on the beach etc so I want to get her a decent one.

A couple i’m looking at are

Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-FT5
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-FT5-Compact-Camera/dp/B00BHCQE0K

Nikon Coolpix AW120
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-AW120-Waterproof-Shockproof-Freezeproof-Orange/dp/B00IAOSLLI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418900412&sr=8-2&keywords=nikon+coolpix+aw120+camera

She currently uses my old sony dsc t200 and manages the basic settings so ease of use is important but as long as she can turn it on, zoom and take pics i can do the rest for her. It needs to be water resistant drop proof etc. Basically 4 year old proof.

I don’t expect it to be as good at action video as a go pro but maybe worth a try.
Any thoughts?

Or maybe this one
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1917116.htm?CMPID=GS001&_$ja=cgid:12525696650|tsid:59158|cid:200291090|lid:94832286290|nw:g|crid:49890996530|rnd:3507694585282010351|dvc:c|adp:1o2|bku:1

I’ve got the older version of that Nikon and to be honest am quite disappointed with it.

Compared to my similarly priced non-tough Nikon compact the picture quality is nowhere near, it’s slower and white balance is frequently miles out. I wonder if I got a duff one.
Bit of a waste of money.

I played around with a Panasonic one while deciding what to buy (I think it was the model down from the one you link to) and it was so slippery that I could barely keep hold of it in the shop, let alone when it’s wet. But, that one didn’t have as many erm, rugged features on the case as the one in your link.

A mate of mine used to work for Fuji and I’ve played around with a few of their tough cameras (but quite a few years ago now). Outright picture quality was nothing to right home about, but they seemed pretty good.

There’s an Olympus one that normally tops the reviews and a few people on here have got good results from, I seem to remember; Olympus TG-2, perhaps?

EDIT – no idea about suitability as a Go Pro alternative, but would probably be OK. Much narrower field of view though.

The narrow field of view is a big problem if you want to mount it on a bike / helmet / rider etc. It’ll be very hard to keep it pointing the right way and the resulting footage will tend to look rather wobbly and slow.

I don’t mind a bit of picture quality compromise for the ruggedness. For the amount of video I will likely do it would probably be ok. I may experiment using an old sony dscv1 i have and see how it looks. I don’t mind shaking that one to bits.

I have a Panasonic FT4 and attempted to use it like a GoPro once. Once was enough. Field of view is not wide enough and despite the built in image stabilisation, produces very shaky footage. I now also have a GoPro. I’d second that the picture/video quality on these cameras is much worse than a similarily priced ‘non tough’ camera. It is nice to be able to take a camera out when its wet and muddy but the photos are normally crap in those conditions anyway!

How come they are so compromised in picture quality? Is it to keep the size similar to a normal camera they cant fit as much inside the tougher case?

andysredmini – Member

How come they are so compromised in picture quality? Is it to keep the size similar to a normal camera they cant fit as much inside the tougher case?

The rugged case & waterproofing adds cost to building them. I suspect making a piece of consumer electronics that can be taken down to 10’s of metres and remain waterproof & usable is no mean feat.
So, they have to compromise on other components (slower processor chips, cheaper sensors etc.) to meet a particular price point.
Most of them have small lenses and sensors as well that are stuck behind a glass window and don’t ‘extend’ when the camera is turned on, so the lens is probably quite compromised as a result.