Stylus Tough: A Good Camera for College Visits

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Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010 08:50

Written by College Visit TravelingMom

If you've ever attended a college open house program or been on a group tour of a college campus, then you already know that it's not only high school juniors and seniors who travel to these events, family members of all ages tend to tag along. Having been part of a tour group that included younger, not quite ready-to-pursue-college-aged kids, I can attest to the challenges of keeping younger ones occupied.

One easy solution is to bring along a digital camera just for the kids. The Stylus Tough 6000 by Olympus is a good choice because it's kid-friendly and, well...tough.

• Concerned about your child getting too close to the bubbling fountain that serves as the centerpiece of the student quad and dropping the camera in the water? No need to worry about the camera, the Stylus Tough is waterproof to 10ft.
• Think stairs and stone walls present photo opps as well as opportunities for jumping? The Stylus Tough can take it. It's shockproof and can withstand a 5ft drop.
• Did you forget to check the weather and end up on a campus blanketed by snow or crystallized by ice? Dangerous perhaps for walking, but beautiful to say the least. The Stylus Tough can handle it—probably better than you can. It continues to function at 14º F/-10º C.

The camera is also good to take along on a college visit even when you leave the youngsters at home. This 10 mega-pixel camera has a 3.6x optical zoom and 2.7” display window. Since the body is so tough, you don't need a camera case which is great because that's one less thing you have to keep up with.

It also has a wide range of settings that allow you to adjust for any type of lighting, freeze on a face with its “smile shot” feature, and shoot a panoramic (which is a great way to get a memorable photo of campus). A fully charged battery can store up to 230 images. For more information on product specifications, click here.

Because I'm a mom and a blogger, Olympus loaned me a Stylus Tough 6000 last summer. They wanted me to find out for myself  just how tough this camera is. I'm happy to report it's both kid-tough and mom-tough. My kids and I have put it through the paces of our own set of quality control tests from exploring photography swimming pools, amusement parks, skateboarding and now while touring college campuses, it's become the first thing we pick up when head out on our next adventure.