As a casual underwater photographer I hope the Olympus TG series rugged compact cameras live on under the new owner. I know compact cameras are a dying niche market in general. But no one has figured out a good solution for using smartphone cameras underwater (there are waterproof housings but the controls are terrible and they don't really work with strobes or wet lenses). The housings for DSLRs and similarly sized mirrorless cameras are too bulky and extremely expensive.
I searched for water and am so glad someone else brought this up. When I read the article I was hoping to see something about it, but didn't.
I'm on my third TG and absolutely love it. We vacation on the beach and some of my better family photos were taken in the water with the camera. It is a tank that performs.
Six years ago took my son to the beach for the first time and had a blast with him and the other kids. Lots of great photos. Stupidly, I didn't wrap the camera around my wrist, but put it in my pocket. The Atlantic is unforgiving and it knocked me down and with it my camera escaped. Looking for it was hopeless and I went back to the hotel dejected.
Next day we're on the beach and someone walks up to me and hands me the camera. I jumped up and hugged them so hard. Turns out it washed up four hotels down and they reviewed the photos and found our room number and hotel. They were on the way to drop it off when they saw us on the beach. lol
Now I keep a wrist wrap and a floatie on it. Lesson learned.
I think there are only two lens options, but apparently they are very good, and should be pretty cheap now, since they were a niche offshoot of an already niche (and discontinued) product line.
The Nikon 1 AW1 was discontinued years ago and it is technically inferior to the Olympus TG-6. Lens options are moot anyway for underwater photography because you need special wet lenses that attach to the waterproof housing.
