Action fans: Olympus TG Tracker films your extreme exploits, gives you the data on how radical you were!

 

 

For years now, Olympus has been one of the key players in the rugged camera market. Now, the company hopes to parlay the great reputation of its solid, dependable Stylus Tough-series cameras into the action camera segment with the launch of the Olympus TG Tracker.

The unusual-looking TG Tracker, which looks for all the world as if it sports twin lenses on its front side, takes the rugged nature of past Tough-series models and combines them with a real-time information stream from numerous sensors to go beyond the simple action camera video. (Wondering what the second lens is for? It's an LED flashlight that doubles as a video light and flash.)

 

 

Your location, direction, altitude or underwater depth, the three-dimensional G-forces the camera is being subjected to and even the air or water temperature can all be recorded. And not just at the start of videos, either. With the sole exception of air temperature, all of these variables can be recorded throughout your video capture session, and then shown alongside the video feed.

Imagine being able to see the altitude you're flying at alongside your hang glider video, the speed for your downhill skiing video, or the number of Gs your car was pulling around a corner on a track day, all right alongside the video clip itself, and you begin to see the possibilities.

 

 

Of course, you don't need to be an extreme sports type to take advantage of all this. Even more sedate sports like, say, hiking could take advantage of the sensors, allowing you to view your track log and see a rolling total of the elevation change along your hike.

But perhaps the coolest trick of all will be most useful to the extreme sports crowd: The ability to separate video into chapters automatically based on spikes in the G-forces being recorded by the TG Tracker.

 

 

All things considered, the Olympus TG Tracker looks like a very interesting device with some unique advantages over rivals in the action camera space. Priced at around US$350, the TG Tracker goes on sale in the US market from June 2016.

If you want to know more, you'll find in-depth information on the TG Tracker's specifications, design and capabilities in our just-published Olympus TG Tracker preview!