2010 waterproof compact cameras

[DrMoab]

i've had a pentax optio for about 8 years, and its captured some really important events in both still and video.

VERY solid camera. If the new ones are the same quality, I'd just go with another pentax

Cheers!
Brian

I bought a Pentax P&S when a 5MP camera was the hot stuff. It was a great little camera, took photos that would rival a lot of cameras out today.

Then a couple of years ago I bought another Pentax Optio to replace it. 10MP. Total POS. Would never focus right, slow, super noisy. I decided I would not buy another pentax. Went to Canon for my P&S stuff and been happy ever since.

 

[BIGdaddy]

I bought a Pentax P&S when a 5MP camera was the hot stuff. It was a great little camera, took photos that would rival a lot of cameras out today.

Then a couple of years ago I bought another Pentax Optio to replace it. 10MP. Total POS. Would never focus right, slow, super noisy. I decided I would not buy another pentax. Went to Canon for my P&S stuff and been happy ever since.

good to know!

 

[HenryJ]

The Pentax Optio have been very good for me. I have an older W30 and a new W80.
The W80 is fast. Macro very good. Outdoor very good. Indoor under fluorescent lights is not good. Examples here Price to my door for the W80 was $175. I found that price and the features a very good investment.
The W90 looks great.

I would not hesitate to buy the Pentax Optio WP camera again.

 

[J*C*M]

I broke my sony T-300, so i thought it would be cool to get a waterproof camera, i had the Pentax W80 for a two weeks before buying another sony, the picture quality was absolute crap.
I do some serious photography, with my Canon 50D, so i am kind of a tough judge when it comes to quality, but I love the little sony point and shoots. I would not use another Pentax if someone gave it to me.

 

[chimivee]

If it's important to you, it's worth noting that only the Olympus, Panasonic, and Pentax go as wide as 28mm. For me, especially with go-anywhere cameras like these, I find the extra mm's on the wide end to be indispensable. It's awesome for travel photography to get a nice field of view in tight quarters or "documentary" type shooting, but also excellent for landscape and scenery.

The Panasonic looks promising to me. Thanks for the topic!

 

[LilKJ]

I have the new Canon D10... took it with me to Baja for 3 weeks and it did great without a hiccup. It's been dropped, spent most of a day underwater (oops), and generally abused. Battery life is good and picture quality is better than I expected. Goes alongside the DSLR's great.

 

[goodtimes]

My Canon G9 died right before a trip to Mexico, and the only waterproof camera I could get my hands on without paying through the nose for overnight shipping was the Fuji finepix. (yes, I know the G9 is not waterproof -- but I wanted a waterproof camera or a waterproof housing for the G9)

Bright friggin' green (ugly as sin).

It works. It put up with the abuse I gave it (including bouncing off of a reef in Cabo Pulmo -- oops).

Picture quality isn't spectacular. Underwater performance is, quite frankly, not that good -- but to be fair, I don't have anything to compare it to. The water was a bit cloudy too -- so that makes a difference.

The LCD screen was hard to see when under water, and the lens is located in the top left corner, making it easy to get your finger in front of the lens. Combine these, and your underwater pictures leave a *lot* to be desired.

Overall, for a cheap (sub $200) p&s that you can stuff in your pocket and not worry about -- eh . . . it's OK.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Picked up a Stylus Tough 6000 yesterday for $190 to try it out. So far I'm... somewhat unimpressed. I guess the pictures are ok, but the video I shot indoors in a very well lit room was darn near unusable. (I guess it's all a matter of perspective, but I don't see the point in taking poor quality images that aren't enjoyable to look at).

I'll test it out outdoors a bit more, decide if I want to keep it. So far it seems like my feelings on digital vs. film still hold true. 20 years ago, you could get a cheap P&S film camera that would take reasonable photos for less than $100. Even now, you need to spend probalby $400 to get comparable photos from digital.

The biggest problem is still noise. You could load 400 or 800 iso film into a camera, and get decent quality shots. But running a cheap digital cam at anything more than 100, and there's just way too much noise.

All I'm looking for is something that I carry in a pocket of my motorcycle jacket and not worry about banging around, or take outside in the rain, etc. If I'm indoors, I can use my Canon XT. But I was really hoping to be able to use it to shoot some video outdoors too and so far... not looking good.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

I have that Olympus, and I agree that other than outdoors, in bright sunny conditions, the noise is totally unacceptable.

I keep it with me in a jacket pocket alot, but I rarely use it because of the noise issues.

I'd love to find a P&S that can actually take some decent shots at night, be lightly waterproof and not be slow as sin! Until that day, I'll keep lugging around my big P&S, Canon 5D...LOL

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I like my Canon XT, as it's a DSLR that takes nice photos, and it really compact. It's also pretty inexpensive. But it's just too big to stuff into a jacket pocket, and not waterproof. A G11 is compact, but it's not waterproof either, and is more expensive than my XT!

Maybe I'll just return this, dig out my old Fuji 2MP (or whatever) P&S and stuff that in my pocket until it breaks.

I'm SOOOOO disappointed in the megapixel wars that destroyed the lower end of the market. Seriously... 10 years on, and this $200 camera takes similar pictures to my old $100 P&S. I mean really, what the hell is wrong with consumers that would be talked into buying a 10+MP P&S with the idea that they will be making 10x16 prints out of these POS cameras? Yes, you could make a large print with this camera, but with noise like that, why WOULD you? Not to mention, I used an old 32mb XD card in the Stylus, the card I used to use in my old Fuji that would hold about 80 photos or something, now only holds 10 in the Stylus. Even though, 99.999999% of the target market is really only interested in making 640x480 pictures for posting on the internet. I bought the 6000 specifically because I wanted to avoid the jump to 14MP currently underway that will make the situation that much worse.

If the 6000 at least takes decent photos, and video outdoors, then I'll keep it. It was the video in a very brightly lit room (HUGE picture window with the setting sun streaming in) that really upset me.

 

[XJINTX]

I have the Cannon D10... I kayak a lot and just completed a raft trip. It's nice to have a camera that I don't worry about getting wet or dropping.

takes nice enough pics for me especially at water level swimming or snorkeling below.

No gripes yet... and it floates

 

[R_Lefebvre]

After using it over the weekend on a motorcycle trip, I think I'll be keeping it. It's compact, and I can throw it in a pouch on my belt jacket, pull it out and snap some quick pics, with my gloves on even. No concerns about falling on it or getting it wet.

My main concern was being able to take pictures at 50 or 100 ISO (to eliminate noise) in the daylight with reasonable shutter speeds. Set at 50, I was typically getting around 1/200 in bright daylight, and down to 1/50 with heavy cloud overhead, but bumping up to 100 ISO I'd get back to 1/100 which was fine to me.

Indoors it's next to useless, but that's not what it's for.

Here's a sample photo, shot at 2M pixels and then compressed by Photobucket. After the compression, it's hard to tell the difference in clarity from my DSLR. All I want is something for getting web shots outdoors, is compact and durable.