Product Review: Olympus Stylus Tough 8010 Camera

 

Back in the Fall we were looking for a waterproof camera to take to Balmorhea State Park. We wanted something with a fairly high megapixel count, and light weight, but mainly we needed it to be waterproof. After reading many Amazon reviews and talking to friends I selected the Olympus Stylus Tough 8010 Waterproof Shockproof Freezeproof Digital Camera. It is advertised as a great little titanium cased action camera, capable of putting up with any kind of crap you can throw at it.

I purchased the camera from http://www.buydig.com because they offered the best price I could find on the internet, free shipping, and they included a floating lanyard. I paid right around $200 shipped to my door. As I was writing up this review I checked Amazon and I see the price is currently reduced from $299 to $160.

Here are the specs from Olympus:

• 14MP Digital Camera - 5x Wide Angle Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD 

• Waterproof (33ft.) A revolutionary system of waterproof seals and gaskets keeps water out so you can take pictures as deep as 33 feet underwater.

• Shockproof. Life can be tough, this camera is tougher. Rugged metal body and innovative shock-absorbing construction are designed to withstand a 6.6-foot drop, bump, or other mishap.

• Freezeproof (14°F/-10°C) Boldly enter that winter wonderland without worrying about your camera. The Stylus Tough-3000 is winterized to perform at below-freezing temperatures.

• Crushproof (220LBF.) With a rugged body and reinforced LCD, the Stylus Tough-8000 withstands up to 220 pounds of pressure so your camera and images are protected.

• HD Video 720p A simple, one-touch button allows you to record movies with amazing clarity in high-definition, right from your camera.

 

At Balmorhea we used the camera both in and out of the water to take photos of the landscape, the pool, and the fish. The camera is light and easy to carry in a pocket without weighing down your shorts. The included floating lanyard is bulky, but when in the water I threw the camera around and it never let it go very far so it will more than serve its purpose. I would suggest keeping it in a bag or pack when not in the water. A few times grit got in the shutter of the camera, but by placing the camera lens up in water and opening and closing the shutter several times it was easily flushed out.

 

The screen is easier to see in bright sunlight than some LCD screens I have used before, including my iPhone, however it can be tough to see at times. My biggest hang up with the camera is that the internal software seems sluggish. It takes seconds for each photo to process before you can take another, which is inconvenient for action shots. Another gripe is the included internal photo editing software. This type of feature would be before served on a computer later, and save processing power and memory for the more integral features of the camera.

My final assessment after that trip and many continued months of use is that this is a great lightweight camera option for hiking, swimming, or rough terrain where you may not want to take a large expensive camera.

PROS:
Sand and grit is easily flushed from the lens
Hawaiian float lanyard keeps camera from sinking
Action Shot Mode: Takes a rapid succession of photos
Double latch & seal system keeps battery and memory card dry and clean.
Size and weight are great for hiking
14MP camera takes good quality digital photos

CONS:
Slow processing makes it difficult to take quick action shots
Photo Editing software wastes internal memory
LCD screen has typical sun glare problems
Float lanyard is bulky

 

10th Annual Texas Challenge - Ray Roberts State Park

N 33° 22.811 W 097° 01.973

From the event page: For 10 years, the Texas Challenge has become THE annual geocaching social event of the state of Texas. The contest itself has grown into a weekend of activities for both people wishing to participate in the challenge and those people who wish to only casually attend! Last year’s attendance was over 300 people! 

The 10th Annual Texas Challenge MEGA coin

The West Texas team began planning our trip to the Dallas Fort Worth area around the first of the year. Very few of us had ever attended a Texas Challenge before so we were going mainly on the rumors and chit-chat we had heard from past attendees and speculation as to what to expect. Being the smallest team registered with only about 30 Challengers we knew we had an uphill battle ahead of us. Also, as if that was not enough the weather forecast appeared to be going south as we approached the weekend. Regardless, we saddled up and made a wet drive over six hours to Denton, Texas just north of DFW. Along the way we found a few caches, ate some great burgers at Red Robin in Abilene and hoped for a break in the rain.


Friday night we arrived in Denton to moist ground and drizzling rain. We checked in at our hotel (thank goodness we didn't plan to camp) and drove to the park for a Friday night icebreaker and early registration. The park was already busy with cachers, there were swag bags, tee-shirts, vendors, and best of all.... FREE dutch oven cooked cobblers in all kinds of flavors. Definitely high on my list in the cold weather. The hosts were kind enough to cook burgers for us all and we socialized with old friends and made many new ones. As the evening ended, we drove back to our hotel still hoping for less rain and warmer temps.

Sunset over Lake Ray Roberts

The next morning we awoke early and had some breakfast in the hotel before driving out to the park. The rain was absent and the ground had dried somewhat which was very good. I had elected to get a breakfast ticket for that morning but in the end I was glad I had eaten at the hotel. Our team assembled under one of the many picnic pavilions and began to discuss strategy. At 9AM our leader Travis was given a USB stick with coordinates to 120 unpublished geocaches hidden throughout the park. They ranged in difficulty and terrain, from a container under a tree, to climbing a tree, to swimming out to an island )no one on our team was that brave). There were also Mystery Caches that involved doing tasks like darts, and disk golf. We were all given scorecards to track our finds and at 10AM sharp the flood gates opened and we spread out to divide and conquer. 

Tools of the Geocaching trade

Travis and I started in the northern section of the park. We quickly racked up four First to Finds (FTFs) before meeting all the other cachers that had the same idea as us. Luckily, one of those FTFs were scooped from another team that missed locating the cache. In each of these virgin containers we found FTF Pathtags which are very nice little metal coins minted just for this event. Our biggest mistake came next when we decided to stick to the trails and hoof it down to the southern unit of the park. Despite only being 1 mile as the crow flies, it ended up being over two miles on a horse trail with very sandy soil. Also, about the time we entered in the trail the rain started again. At first it was a very light mist, but soon enough there was a steady downfall leaking into all our clothes and gear. Undeterred, we continued, and climbed a tree or two with shoes quickly becoming blister-creating buckets of water. After 15 finds and a few misses we made our way out of the thick to the nearest First Aid point where we could turn in our scorecard. Unfortunately West Texas finished last this year when the scores were tabulated, but despite the rain and cold I think everyone had a good time... well as good a time as you could have in 44F weather with rain and mud and wind :P

Just a few of the braze souls who made it through the storm

Sunday morning we met back up at the park to eat some breakfast burritos and pick up litter all around the area we occupied for our event. Many bags of trash were collected and very little of it was created by geocachers I am proud to say. We always like to leave things better than we found them. After this CITO event we gathered up everything and made the long drive back to Midland. Since it was day light savings we lost an hour of sleep, but luckily the rain finally broke!

The slightly soggy remains of the West Texas Team - Post event

For a geocaching event to be considered a Mega Event over 500 geocachers must attend, these events take loads of organization and are few and far between. Almost 800 people had posted their intent to come to Ray Roberts State Park March 9-11, 2012. In the end terrible rainy weather reduced the total to just 575 fearless rain-loving crazy people.

Odessa Meteor Crater

N 31° 45.422 W 102° 28.675

 

My wife and I decided to finally visit the Odessa Meteor Crater Museum after living in Midland, TX for over a year. It is one of those things people bring up from time to time in conversation, but it is just far enough away to never make it to the top of your To Do list. As a Geologist however, it is a very interesting place to visit even if there isn’t much to see at the surface.


Entrance to the Odessa Meteor Crater Museum

We drove about 20 miles west of Midland to Exit 108 on Interstate 20. There is a brown State Historical sign that directs you off the Interstate, then you drive down what seems to be an oilfield road for a few miles to a nice green tin-roofed museum and visitor center. It was very breezy and cool so we elected to tour the museum first. There are a husband and wife couple that live on the site and run the museum, they were very nice and very eager to discuss the crater with us. We took out time looking at the exhibits which feature many meteorites (and meteorwrongs) from around the world as well as news clippings, photos, models, and movie posters. There is a small seating area with a TV where documentaries on meteorites play on rotation as well.

Do Not Pick Up!

There is a show on Science Channel I believe called Meteorite Men in which two rock hounds travel around the world looking for pieces of meteorites. They apparently recently visited the crater and found some of the newest specimens in a caliche oil field road. These are on display in a cabinet made especially for the show. Having seen a few episodes I thought that was pretty neat. One last note about the museum is that the facilities were very clean, and I attribute that to the fact that this is their home as well as their business. There is no entry fee but donations are greatly appreciated.



Meteorite Men Display Case

Lastly, we took a short hike through the crater itself. There is a self guided trail from the covered picnic areas that takes you down and across the main crater and around the western rim. All told this is only about a quarter mile mostly flat walk. There is only 15 ft of relief from the rim to the center of the crater. There is a cross section of the rock layers, the fenced off site of the original exploration shaft, and signs about the excavations and rock types. I would recommend allocating yourself two hours to fully enjoy everything Odessa Meteor Crater Museum has to offer. What this visit has done more than anything is increase my desire to travel to Arizona and see the large Meteor Crater which is believed to be the same age as this little cousin in West Texas.



Me at the original exploration shaft entrance



I still have three posts from last Fall to make, one will cover our family vacation to Gatlinburg, TN, one is a product review for our new waterproof camera, and lastly our trip home to Alabama for Christmas. Stay tuned.

Just a short walk on the rim

My New Years Resolutions

Everyone has Resolutions this time of year. Mine are pretty simple:

• Blog more
• Spend more time outdoors
• Be more fit.

I have several posts to make from the Fall and Winter that I have neglected, then I promise to find more exciting things to do with my time for my adoring readers... all two of you. :)

Guadalupe Mountains: Permian Basin Geology Field Course

I spent last week in the Guadalupe Mountains around Carlsbad, NM with a group of co-workers ranging in expertise from Geologists to Engineers. The purpose of our trip was to better understand the geology of the Permian Basin as it applies to oil and gas production in the subsurface. Since I have gone fairly in depth in the past on this area when my wife and I came over to the more touristy areas like Carlsbad Caverns I will make this post a photo journal of our trip instead of a long exposition.

Looking at gypsum and dolomite varves in the Castile Formation.

Creative graffiti on this piece of Permian age reef

Excellent exposure of Crinoid stem fossils

Exposed gastropod, not sure of the species

Hiding from the recent flash floods, see the mudline?

We found this guy hiding from the heat in a small grotto

View to the west from the Escarpment. To the left you can see part of the Brokeoff Moutains

Another view to the West from a small side canyon

A Horny Toad! He just flattened out and refused to move.

You have no idea how much the wind was blowing. See the rain coming in from the north behind me?

A Huge barrel cactus colony!

A view from the highway of the hills near Van Horn, TX. All this land is owned by the owner of Amazon.com

The Chinese Hat (previously know as The Breast of Venus). Every time I go to Carlsbad I want to touch this thing...

Maybe one day when I'm a Big Boy I can be a Park Ranger

Checkin' what's under the skirt in White City

Excellent fossil reef exposure near White City, in the middle of the picture... a Neptunian Dike. Make your own joke.

View of the Shadduck Escarpment from Dog Canyon Camp Ground in the north side of Guadalupe NP.

Sunset over the Indian Basin

Fantastic road cut of the Castile gypsum between Carlsbad, NM and Pine Springs, TX

My favorite picture of Capitan Reef. Taken from a rest area south of the park.

Most of our geology group, wearing our stylish safety vests.

Labor Day Weekend: Fort Davis National Historic Site (62)

N 30° 35.640 W 103° 56.707 

We woke up early and had a great breakfast at the Indian Lodge restaurant. I chose eggs cooked to order and bacon, while my wife braved the enormous "short stack" of homemade buttermilk pancakes. I think she maybe ate half of it, they filled her plate! Afterwards we decided to take an early morning hike up the trail that starts just behind the Lodge and goes up to the bluffs above. We didn't see any javelina this morning, and with no breeze in the canyon we were eager to get to higher elevations.

A rest at the top of the bluff

I was eager to make my way up to the bluffs that rise behind the Lodge as there was a geocache there that had not been found in over a year since it had been hidden. I also knew another geocacher, grumpyoldtexan, was planning to attempt this cache again today. Even though it was still early the temperature was quickly rising and you are almost in a box canyon at the trail head so there was little to no breeze. Luckily, once we reached the ridgeline a fair breeze was blowing which made the hike much more enjoyable. About half way up we ran into grumpy and his wife as I seached for another tough geocache and from there on we teamed up to finally find this elusive hide. With four sets of eyes, a leap of faith, and determination we did indeed find the cache after a fifteen minute search of ground zero.

View of the Indian Lodge from the bluffs above

N 30° 36.006 W 103° 53.496 

Returning from our hike we checked out of the Lodge and drove down to Fort Davis NHS. This is the 62nd National Park Unit that we have visited. It is not a very large park but it isn't near the smallest one we have been to before. (That would be Minuteman Missle which is only a single Cold War era nuclear missile bunker and silo.) We were greeted right away by a very friendly Ranger asking if we would like our picture taken together. This is a rare thing for us, most of our photos are of one or the other at the places we visit, because we travel alone mostly. We took her up on her generous offer and got an excellent shot with the large special occasion parade flag in the background. We then went to the theater and watched a short film on the history of the fort narrated by Kareem Abdul Jabar of all people. My wife had no idea who he was but I cracked up when he walked on screen in full regalia. We then stamped out National Parks Passport in the visitor center and walked around the grounds. I really enjoyed our short stop here, and hope to return in cooler weather.

Fort Davis National Historic Site

One last thing I wanted to mention was Murphy's Pizzeria at 107 Musquiz Dr. in Fort Davis. They came heavily recommended to us by grumpyoldtexan earlier in the day so we decided to stop for a bit. It is very tasty pizza with a super thin cracker-like crust. The toppings are all fresh and they have all you could think to had to a pizza. Although we did not order a salad I saw several brought to other customers and those looked amazing too, loaded with all kinds of toppings in very large bowls.

Tree in the patio at Murphy's Pizzeria

Labor Day Weekend: Davis Mountains State Park & McDonald Observatory

Sorry to delay posting the rest of our Labor Day trip. Sometimes RL "real life" gets in the way.

After a day of swimming at awesome Balmorhea State Park we had to cover some ground to get to The Indian Lodge in Davis Mountains State Park where we had a reservation for the night. Now the funny thing is I never intended to go to the Davis Mountains on this trip when I booked a room I thought the Lodge was in Balmorhea, oops... But happy accidents and all that, and we found ourselves there in the late evening. It was more than we had expected having stayed in many state park lodges in many states, the Indian Lodge is a beautiful adobe conglomeration of loosely connected rooms, breezeways, and different levels with great views of the valley. It was one of many structures built by the CCC in the park and we would highly recommend it. We ate dinner at the on-site restaurant which serves diner style Tex-Mex, it is reasonably priced and while it isn't the best place I have ever eaten it was certainly palatable after the long hours of swimming.

Courtyard at the Indian Lodge

Later after checking in and having dinner we decided to drive the Skyline road to grab a couple geocaches, but more so to see the fire damage and great a better look at our surrounding in general. The day was warm but a stiff breeze made it pleasant enough to drive with the windows down. From the crest of the road the 360 degree views are quite amazing. What shocked me most was that although the fires were widespread and devastating here there is new green growth to be seen everywhere. There hasn't been much more rain since the fires, but burned-out yucca and mesquite have new green sprouts and the ground is covered in little flowers. Even the pinons have new green needles it seems! The worst we saw of the fires was the destruction of the historic picnic area at the overlook. It has lost its roof and been cordoned off. Also, there are many antenna array up top that I assume are weather stations and temporary cellphone towers. Cell reception is poor at best and absent except on the highest points.

Wild Javelina in Davis Mountains State Park

As we walked a nature trail to find the Davis Mountains State Park Geocache we spooked a young whitetail deer and watched her easily pick her way through the desert foliage and down into the valley. She then leapt over a burned barbwire fence and made her way up the hill on the other side of the valley. This was the first but not the last major wildlife we would see in the park. Thankfully this must mean there is still enough food and habitat for them even with the fires destroying so much.

Historic Picnic Area on Skyline Drive

Greenery and life returns to the Davis Mountains

Dusk was falling, quick as ever when you are in mountainous terrain, we could see the McDonald Observatory in the distance from Skyline drive and decided on the fly to go check it out. Neither of us had ever been to a star party before, all I knew is I shouldn't drink any Kool-Aid offered by the host. It seemed to take a long time to get to there even though it was just over six miles as the crow flies because the road does anything but go straight between the park and the observatory. First we headed west, the north, and lastly we almost passed the observatory before turning off the highway and looping back around to the visitor center. We bought our tickets for the star party and sat outside watching the hummingbirds fly around in the waning light. As it turned out the clouds did not blow off as much as we would have hoped so they gave a "virtual star party" presentation in the theater and then let us take turns looking through the many telescopes behind the visitor center looking at fleeting star clusters and galaxies, nebulae, etc. peeking out of the clouds. The highlights of the evening were seeing the International Space Station pass over head and seeing several shooting stars. The moon was also visible as a waning crescent. My take home though was that I really want a green laser pointer, those things have amazing range!

Sunset at the McDonald Observatory