Newbie looking for point and shoot for shallow water use

[FishCity]

I am not sure if this question belongs in the underwater photography forum or the snorkeling and freediving forum. Please be gentle.

I am a snorkeler/freediver and very casual picture taker. On land, I lately have just been using my Nexus 6p phone. I used a Nikon Coolpix S210 on vacations from 2008-2015 (the battery door finally broke off) and was happy with--the zoom was easy to use, the speed seemed ok. I hated the Nikon Coolpix S3700 I got in 2016 to replace it. It was hard and took too long to make adjustments, use the zoom, seemed slower once the button was pushed. I sold it to Amazon just to get rid of it.

I am looking for something new to use snorkeling and free diving (shallow) that has an easy to use zoom, easy to adjust settings, is reasonably fast. I have not shot much video, so that is not a must.

I have looked online at reviews for the "best" this and that and remain confused. I need to get something for two snorkel trips we have this fall, to once in a lifetime spots that I want some image records of (Wakatobi and Fiji).

I would like to be in the $250 or under range but if that is not going to get the job done, would go higher. Also, I would like it of the camera was a reasonable all around one so I would not need to get a different camera for dry land.

I have seen references on Scubaboard to the Olympus TG-4 ($299 range) and see there is a new TG-5 coming out at a hefty increase ($450) but am not knowledgeable enough to evaluate the differences.

Really, I am such a newbie that I am looking for ease of use and reliability. But zoom is important to me.

Suggestions, please?

Many thanks!

 

[Skeptic14]

IMO for snorkeling it's hard to beat a tg-4, waterproof to 50 ft so no need for a housing, the underwater modes do a pretty good job in camera but it shoots raw too, and the macro mode and microscope mode are pretty good for little critters.

The new tg-5 sounds like it has improved image processing capability and it actually has less resolution which sounds counter intuitive but that means each pixel will get more area of the sensor (same small sensor) so they should have better dynamic range with the more appropriate resolution.

Interesting, but at $450 I'll have to wait and see if the image quality improvement is worth paying that price where you can get into an rx100 ii with a way more advanced sensor.

 

[cmrangel]

+1 for the TG-4. The big improvements in the TG-5 are better low light performance (supposedly) and 4K video, neither of which seem to be work the additional $$ in your case.

 

[NYCNaiad]

+2 for the TG series. I have an older one that's still kicking so I use it quite a bit when shallow & on land. I've dropped it multiple times, been out in the rain, etc & it just continues to work. It has fantastic macro as well!

 

[northernone]

A tg series camera would be my commendation as well. Perhaps a used tg3 or 4.

 

[FishCity]

Thank you all!!!!