Opinions of inexpensive waterproof cameras

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m thinking about buying an inexpensive waterproof point and shoot camera. My friend has a Nikon CoolPix AW110 and it seems to take pretty great pictures. I’m not much of a scuba diver, so don’t need anything that goes super deep, but I like to get out on the water occasionally kayaking or sailing so it’d be great to have something waterproof. I occasionally go snorkeling so it would be great if it could go down to 10 meters or so, even though I never dive that deep.

I also go to Burning Man so I was thinking that it might hold up pretty good with the dust and all.

So, does anybody have good or bad experiences with underwater cameras? I’d like to spend around $200, but would be willing to go up. I’m pretty rough on cameras and tend to break/lose them pretty frequently, so I don’t want to spend too much.

2

Some smart phones are pretty good.
Panasonic doe good as does Olympus I hear.
I am old & only care about rain anymore…

I have no real good info but I do need the post count… :smiley:

3

I just picked up a second Fuji Finepix XP70 yesterday for my younger daughter. I go t one for my older daughter to take to camp and it’s a nice little camera.

Waterproof to 10m, shockproof, 16m pixels (albeit with a small sensor and slow lens), it even has WiFi to transfer pictures off. My favourite feature is that it uses a STANDARD micro-USB cable for both charging and data transfer. No proprietary cables or chargers to carry.

Not bad for $180!

4

What about a waterproof case for a regular P&S? They’re becoming more popular, so more available/affordable too. Like this.

5

My results from a similar question earlier this summer:

Used my Canon PowerShot D20 a little bit now, and I’m pretty happy with it. Took a bunch of shots of my wedding reception, and from what I’ve seen so far they’re the best pictures of all the amateur shots taken. It was drizzling or lightly raining and I didn’t worry about it getting wet for the outdoor portion.

My dad offered to drop it on the ground and kick it in the pool to really give it a test, but I declined…

6

Thanks for the feedback.

That thread points me to this overview.

I might pick up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS5/FT5 because I can get one from Amazon for $150 but the Olympus Tough TG-2 looks really great.

7

I ended up splurging for the Olympus Tough TG-3 since it got really great reviews and had a faster lens than all the others. It’s got an interesting side and top tap menu function which they say is good while wearing ski gloves. People also say it has excellent macro capability for a point and shoot so I also bought the circular lens ring flash adapter.