Have you locked the battery/memory case?
It won’t be waterproof if it isn’t locked. Perhaps water got inside? Mine is still fairly new to me, but I haven’t had that problem (fingers crossed). I don’t turn it off between shots, but just drop it down inside my pfd until I’m ready to take another picture. I’ve just been letting it turn itself off.
I admit that I HATE the lack of the optical viewfinder and having to use just an LCD display. Half the time I’m looking at a reflection of myself and have no idea how I’ve framed the shot until I look at it later.
If considering to buy …
The newer OptioWPi (i being the key thing) starts up much more quickly (great for catching the moments more frequently), so even if it did have the same problem, perhaps turning it off all the way instead of letting it auto power off and then turning it back on with less wait before you could shoot would be superior.
I hope the WPi is immune from this, though, because I hope to get one this Xmas – WPi owners please keep us posted 
Looked at this camera many times wanting
to buy it. That little birdie kept saying no, no, NO!!! Sure am glad I listened to that little bird! :^) :^) :^)
The power problems you have mentioned AND the lack of a view finder would be too much wrong to keep it. Glad I dodged it. :^) :^) :^)
Sad you are all having problems! :^(
:^)
Mick
Me too…but I couldn’t help myself
I posted to this thread a few days ago saying the same thing. The WPi is way out of my price range. So I guess I might be willing to live with these idiosyncrasies for a waterproof camera that takes such good pictures if I could find the right price.
Just to throw this out there, Pentax is now offering a $30 rebate on waterproof cameras puchased between 11/15/05 and 2/28/06. This plus the fact that I was able to get the WP with shipping from a reputable dealer (read: no scams) for $239 at www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com
That’s about $200 for a high end camera, not bad
who needs the view finder?
It is just important to point the lens in a right direction more or less. It’s what I am doing most of the time.
If I would leave a paddle and look through the view finder while seating in my Sisson kayak I would probably test underwater capabilities of the camera.
http://users.frii.com/uliasz/weblog/
Some whitewater fiends love these!
I doubt most people are having these problems … Haven’t heard a thing about this concern about the WP over on Boatertalk.com, where it’s mostly whitewater kayakers using them in some pretty strenuous conditions. A recent discussion was dominated by happy OptioWP owners. Still very wise to get the WPi.
No problems for a year with ours
I’ve used the WP hard for a year taking literally thousands of pictures on and off the water and haven’t had any lock up to date. The camera is in and out of my pfd pocket all the time. I usually dunk it to clear the water droplets and fire away. On the water, I’ve found the large LCD to be easier to use when bouncing around on the water than the viewfinder on the 33WR we used to own.
Maybe we’ve just been lucky, but I think it’s a great paddling camera.
Upgrade
A few of us in our paddling group use this unit, with upgrades that make it near-perfect. Suggest going to a 256 mb card and Moby lithium rechargeable power. I recently did an extended expedition and shot 535 pics without coming to the end of the spare power unit, and didn’t come close to touching bottom on the card.