I am about ready to purchase a Pentax 43Wr.
So...its a slow day at work and I run just 1 more internet search for opinions and I find cameras i had not been considering.
That being said is anyone familiar with the Casio gv-20 , Ricoh Capilo 300G or the Sony Cybershot DSC-U60??
Found a link comparing them but would like additional input if any is available.
http://www.ybw.com/pbo/digitest.htm
thanks in advance. -cris
Pentax 43
I have a friend who has this camera and it is a great camera for outdoor use. Takes great pictures. What has been my experience is to stay away from any camera that has a small shutter protecting the lens. Sand , salt, dust ect. gets into the shutter a make the camera useless.
FishHawk.
Camera reviews
Try this link, http://www.steves-digicams.com/ it might help you with your selection. FishHawk
Did you ever hear of “CNET”?
… Have you ever visited a web page named www.cnet.com? it is somewhat like P-Net, except no chat rooms. It is specifically for cameras and all kinds of electronic items. I researched my cell phone there before I got it.
… You go on the web page, along near the top is a margin with all kinds of electronic items listed. Next select cameras buy clicking on the word CAMERA.
… When you get to that page, you can select all kinds of search criteria, and see what everyone thinks about the item you are looking for.
… The “web page people” do their own review, and then other readers write in their own comments and reviews with their own opinions. Just be careful when reading other people’s opinions, as a beginner might rate an advanced item poorly, where an experienced person might rate it highly. A lot like reviews here on P-Net, you have to read into the reviews, to see if you feel the person who wrote the review really understands the item he/she is talking about. (No offense Meant to anyone).
Good Luck in your search!
Do yourself a favor
ANYTHING to do with digital camers, go to
www.dpreview.com
It is the paddling.net of the digital camera world. It has formus also by brand so you can ask other owners.
Look and compare ALL brands and ALL makes.
You will not be sorry.
yes
This and doubledippers’ links are very good review sites.
Love my Dimage 7i SLR…
good site
A friend recommended the Canon S1 IS to me and after reading the review I decided that it was the one for my uses. I don’t know if I will ever split with the $230 for the underwater case…
Simms makes a nice digital camera dry bag for $30.
Taj
Another wonderful resource is
Steve’s digital camera reviews. Great site!
http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html
Canon S1 IS – it’s a winner!
I just purchased the Canon S1 IS and am very pleased – 10x optical zoom is absolutely incredible. It’s only 3.2 megapixels but for my purposes, that’s plenty. I’ve ordered the Canon waterproof housing and it should be here in a couple of weeks.
I checked the online reviews for several weeks before making my decision – nearly everything that I read about the S1 IS was very positive.
A friend of mine recently purchased the Pentax 43WR and to be honest, I haven’t been overly impressed with the images. Considering the cost of this camera, a better choice might be to spend a bit more money and buy a combination of a waterproof housing and one of the Canon A series cameras (which are great) – and the A70, A75, and A80 models are very inexpensive now. Canon makes a good waterproof housing for this series that is very reasonably priced.
Here’s a few good online review sites that you can use for your research:
http://www.megapixel.net/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/
http://www.imaging-resource.com/
http://www.dcresource.com/
When “not impressed with images…”
…make sure you are comparing apples to apples. There are special image-quality comparisons available to camera shoppers which are created under controlled conditions, and these professionally-made comparisons are the ONLY way to compare images from different cameras or lenses. Maybe you saw something in those pictures your friend took which was pretty obviously wrong, but from a company like Pentax, I seriouly doubt that. Most “decent” modern cameras are fully cabable of taking pictures which can’t be distinguished (without great care and a lot of magnification) from those taken by the best cameras, and ANY camera is fully capable of taking bad picures. The list of “user errors” which can be responsible long enough, but the list of “logic errors” on the part of a modern automatic camera is a lot longer. It pays to learn the details regarding what your camera is “thinking” when it chooses settings, and what you can do to alter them.
Go with the Pentax
The Casio and Sony have no zoom, and they are both strictly wide-angle, which you will regret on the water. I can’t find the Ricoh for sale anywhere (they seem to be out of the digicam business). So that leaves… the Pentax, your original choice! It has numerous other advantages over the Casio and Sony.
In compact, no-housing waterproof cameras, I’ve heard nothing but good about the Pentax from the paddling community, and lots of it. That includes a range from near-pros to everyday snapshooters (like me). Check the Pentax reviews on Amazon. Google: the name of the camera + “review” for any of these cameras. For a near-pro and paddler who uses and loves the Pentax (among others) see http://www.cathyhartland.com/
I don’t think you can go wrong with the Pentax. But thanks for the stimulus to research further and confirm my original choice.
–David.
43WR
Recieved one last week. Popped in a 1gb SD card then robbed the rechargable cr-v3 out of a Nikon Coolpix and played around a bit.
This summer I watched my oldest daughter trash a Coolpix while paddling Assategue…so I began the search and after all was said and done the Pentax got the nod.
I got a Canon Elph and waterproof housing…way too heavy for my multipurpose life style which includes ultralightweight backpacking on the AT. The Coopix 3100 and 3200 are awesome cameras for picture quality but you know what happens when they get wet.
The 43WR so far has impressed me with not only picture quality but also weight…and now no worries with the splashing.
For fun I would suggest you get the 2gb SD card when they come out in the next week or two, it will give you probably around 30minutes of video with sound! dont quote me on the 30mins but its getting up there…so you not only have a good quality amateur splash proof camera but a dirt cheap video camera too.
The only think funky about the 43WR is its shape…it def. is square.
Pentax 43WR neo case
I’ve been very happy with the photo quality of my 43WR. It’s like any other piece of equipment–you have to spend some time getting to know it and what it can do before you can get the best performance out of it.
But I agree that it is an odd shape, and I’ve found myself fumbling with that little square thing a few times. So I just ordered a neoprene case that I found for it by doing a Google search. It won’t change the shape, but should provide a little more traction, esp. when you’re trying to work with slightly wet hands.
Pentax 43WR
I also am real pleased with the quality of the pics…ease of use/storage. Am thinking about glueing a few piece of neoprene on the housing…
Enjoy…
bob
battery life, help!
folks who own the 43WR. i just bought one after lots of reading here and elsewhere. i haven’t had it on water yet (our water is about 3 feet thick with ice right now…) but i can’t believe what it does to batteries.
should i expect more than a couple of minutes of playing around through menus and taking a few snap shots before it drains the batteries? i get about 3 minutes on a pair of ultra high quality (2300 milli amps) NiMH batteries that were recommended to buy at the camera shop. these are Quest batteries as good as they come.
if battery life is this poor i might bring the camera back because i could never carry the backpack of batteries needed to work this device.
what is your experience?
Just a guess
I haven’t heard anything outlandish about short battery life from this camera, though I haven’t looked too closely at the reviews. Maybe your batteries are just too cold. Just because a battery is the best there is, doesn’t mean it earned that designation in a cold climate. In general, compact batteries of all kinds suffer a tremendous loss of capacity when they are cold, and digital cameras in general are famous for ripping through batteries (when compared to most other small electronic gadgets) even in the best of circumstances.
I have one suggestion though, and I don’t know if you can do this with your particular camera. If you have the option of viewing all the menu details, as well as the viewfinder scene, through a viewfinder instead of using the screen on the back, that should help. Folks I’ve talked to who make a habit of using their camera that way say it increases battery life by roughly 10 or 20 times.
Short but not THAT short
I burned through 2 sets of alkaline AAs my first night of learning to use the camera. Don’t bother using alkalines in this camera, ever again. You are wasting your money. The longevity rating for alkalines shown in the camera manual can’t even be close to real life.
That said, I think I got maybe 10 minutes out of each pair! I switched over to 2300mAH rechargeable AAs and those last longer. Not long, just long-er. Can’t give you a measurement such as “xxx still shots without flash and xx with flash” because I did so much video and audio stuff, which appear to consume lots of juice.
Then I decided to try nonrechargeable Energizer “digital use” lithium AAs. These last longer than the NiMH. I’m still on the first set of these, having shot probably 20 stills (some flash, some not), plus 2 movies of a minute or more each at the largest size. Battery icon still shows full green.
My strategy now is to use the rechargeables for around home or on trips with access to electrical outlets and to carry lithium AAs for long sessions.
I thought of switching off the LCD but the optical viewfinder’s position is so far off from what the lens “sees” that it’d take a lot of deliberate compensation to get the framing right. Also, it turns out that switching off the LCD does not save much power with this camera, according to some tests done at one of the following website’s reviews (sorry but I can’t remember which site): www.imaging-resource.com, www.steves-digicams.com, or www.dpreview.com.
I should probably just do a How Many Shots test on a fresh set of lithium AAs but frankly I bought this camera as much for the movie-making feature as for the stills. Any of my film cameras can waaaaaaay outlast any digital camera, battery-wise. Heck, one of them does not even need a battery for anything but the exposure meter, which I can shoot without (though prefer not to).
All this battery use may take some …
… getting used to. I STILL don’t have a digital camera, but I have been checking them out and am planning to get one soon. Pikabike’s comment about film-camera batteries got me thinking, though. Even back in the days when I took an SLR camera with me everywhere, and shot pictures all the time, I never had a set of camera batteries last less than three years. Yes, three years, and even then they usually only failed in cold weather, only to be suitable for quite a bit more use once the weather got warm again. The current batteries in both of my SLRs are more than 5 years old and going strong after 100s of pictures. This business of burning through multiple sets of batteries in a single day is a far cry from what I’m accustomed to.
rechargeable 3crv3
I’m using the rechargeable 3crv3’s, same as i use in the coolpix 3100…and am getting the quoted results from pentax…but these as warm batteries not nec. new, probably cycled 10-15 times so far.
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=345948&store=ecost&source=EWBOVERPI&ovchn=INK&ovcpn=SiteMatch&ovcrn=SMX&ovtac=PI&adcampaign=email,EWBOVERPI