Alert Underground Reader Gary pointed out the Underground’s Favorite Cheap, Waterproof, Point & Shoot Camera is on sale for $174 (the Pentax Optio W80), and because our single biggest concern in life is our reader’s happiness, we immediately passed this offer along to you:
Want a good deal on a nice waterproof digital camera? Click the picture.
In the interest of not receiving hate mail full disclosure, I’m compelled to point out that I don’t actually own a W80. Instead, the Underground is neatly decorated in photographs taken with my aging W10 (an earlier model), which continues to function just barely well enough to keep me from plundering Little M’s college account in the quest for a new one.
Looking for a near-indestructible, waterproof fishing camera that requires as much maintenance as your average doorstop?
Want something you can drop in the river without penalty?
See you behind the camera, Tom Chandler.
(More Full Disclosure: I receive no compensation for sales of this camera. I just do this because at the Underground, the giving never stops…)
I reviewed that camera awhile back. So, how long have you been using it? How deep does it go – either accidentally, or on purpose? Shannon
shannon(Quote)
Mine’s never been more than three feet deep (about as deep as you can drop it and still get it back without going swimming), though it has endured a whole chunk of daylong rainy day soakings.
How old is mine? It’s endured 3-4 years of getting beat up on fishing trips, road trips, and even the L&T’s backcountry ski trips. It is definitely starting to show its age, and at this point, I’m basically waiting for a winning lottery ticket
or an undeservedly wealthy Undergrounder to buy me a new one.Tom Chandler(Quote)
Do NOT under ANY circumstances buy this dismal spawn of previously great Optio lineage. It is a comparative P.O.S. I loved the W-10 and was pleased with the upgrade to the W-60. When the W-60 developed fogging “issues” I sent it in for warrantee repair and Pentax sent me a W-80 in its place.
For the sake of advertising they added a bunch of pixels. Seems they didn’t enlarge the sensor at the same time so the extra pixels don’t add squat to picture quality, in fact, they wreck it. Low light – forget it. Color rendition – ever seen a green wing olive?
I found a W-60 on ebay and am completely satisfied in every regard.
Ralph C(Quote)
Ralph: I got positive reviews from two folks over the W80. And I think every digital camera over the past few years has increased the density of the sensor (without increasing sensor size). Without any personal experience of this model, I can only hope you got a lemon…
Tom Chandler(Quote)
On sale because the spawn of the W80, the W90 was just announced….with microscope mode! Perfect for those green wing olive close ups!
http://moldychum.squarespace.com/home-old/2010/2/25/new-pentax-w90.html
El Guapo(Quote)
The photographer in me is excited by any increase in durability offered by a camera vendor. The fly fisherman in me is excited by terms like “shockproof” and “waterproof”. The photographer in me slaps the fly fisherman in me and says, “Wait a minute! DIGITAL microscope. I smell pixel doubling or in-camera cropping.”
No doubt, there are many readers of Tom’s blog who haul cameras along while fishing. I wonder how many of you would add to his thoughts on the W-10 or other “fishing friendly” cameras you might own. After much research and half-assed in-store testing, I selected the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 based upon lens quality, durability, size, and only vaguely upon video quality. So far, so good. Major complaints: small buttons, non-persistent timer mode, a bit pricey. Here’s a sample of video & stills (take into account Youtube compression) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfHG-V6m78.
Tom, thank you for sharing your thoughts on cameras. You should be getting paid overtime for this… but you aren’t. Yes, I am a bastard for pointing that out. Good times!
Jamie Fullerton(Quote)
Chevy or Ford (better yet, an AWD Volvo XC-70); Coors or Bud (obviously the answer is Shastafarian Porter); Pentex or Olympus.
You know my affinity to my Olympus Stylus (770 SW): Waterproof (to 33 feet!), crush proof, freeze proof (used it last week in the single digits of Utah at over 10,000′), dust proof, shock proof…pretty much frank-proof.
No, not on commission: it’s just the latest in my series of great cameras since my OM-1 from 36 years ago (and it still works).
BTW, the best accessory I have may be the tiny XD card reader that plugs into my netbook USB: no need to carry a cable and it conserves the camera battery.
A. Wannabe Travelwriter(Quote)