exactly
sweetest underwater camera ever
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/models/htmls/nikonosrs.htm
zeroing in
Thanks everybody for some great suggestions. With a lot of good discussion here I might be closer to choosing a digicam than I thought. Here are some more parameters that are a result of input from ya’ll. My pics need only to be scrapbook quality. I just like to have good enough resolution to record my adventures on the water or in the outdoors. No magazine or professional quality necessary, but a nice clear pic. My ideal SLR was 28 to 400 mm zoom. That allowed some panoramic shots and some distant wildlife shots. Sounds as though A WP digicam will have limited zoom capacity but that can be solved by higher resolution and cropping on the computer. So the question is, if a digicam has, say 114 mm equivalent maximum, then what resolution is needed to get that eagle cropped to a clarity of say an old 400mm SLR? In other words higher resolution cams being costlier, what’s the mimimum resolution I can get away with. Thanks.
digital waterproof camera
honestly for your applications it would be hard to beat an Olympus SW series (SW1030 being the latest version).
I used to shoot on medium size cameras (Hasselblad) but could never capture images that I do today on my SW720 (obsolete model)since the camera was too bulky and heavy.
Being able to have the the Olympus in my PFD pocket makes the difference.
Tell me if this level of quality is satisfactory: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gnarlydog/page6/
Olympus stylus 1030
No view finder, LCD only. No noticable shutter release delay like others. Water proof to 33 feet. Shock proof from 6 feet. I have had this camera out in the kayak 3 or four times this year. Takes excellent pictures for a “point and Shoot”. You can adjust shutter speed and aperature by picking different modes. My SLR’s now stay in the forehatch. My wife has the 770 model. I prefer the 1030.
looks good but…
I read ten reviews on this camera. This is a very good cam, with good specs, and got very good reviews but 2 out of the 10 said the battery compartment leaked when underwater to a depth even less than recommended resulting in the death of both cameras. I don’t plan to dive with my camera but this does not bode well.
operator error
if the user forgets to latch down the battery compartment properly (solid engagement of the latch, avoid having sand on the seal etc) then the battery compartment will certainly flood.
Difficult to answer
Direct comparisons between film and digital image quality are difficult at best, and there is little consensus even among photography aficionados. And just exactly what does one mean by ‘film’? Variations between ISO-speed and grain, color-negative vs. slide-transparency film, and other factors all play into whether a person perceives a particular image as possessing higher quality than another.
Here’s an excerpt from a good article on the topic:
“Pixel Quality
The marketing race for “more megapixels” would like us to believe that “more is better”. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The number of pixels is only one of many factors affecting image quality and more pixels is not always better. The quality of a pixel value can be described in terms of geometrical accuracy, color accuracy, dynamic range, noise, and artifacts. The quality of a pixel value depends on the number of photodetectors that were used to determine it, the quality of the lens and sensor combination, the size of the photodiode(s), the quality of the camera components, the level of sophistication of the in-camera imaging processing software, the image file format used to store it, etc. Different sensor and camera designs make different compromises.”
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Camera_System/pixel_quality_01.htm
I suggest you find good cameras that do what you want, weed out the ones with marginal zoom or other features, browse review sites such as this one http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/default.asp?view=alpha, and narrow your search down to a camera that meets your needs.
BTW, here’s a good article on ‘digital zoom’, and why I believe you should never use it:
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Digital_Imaging/Digital_zoom_01.htm
Good Luck!
Delphinus
http://www.AquaDynology.com
Olympus SW
I’ve been very happy with my Olympus 770SW. A viewfinder would certainly be nice and sometimes it’s difficult to see the LCD in the sun’s glare. However, I’ve found a work-around that has worked for me so far. My workaround is point the camera in the general direction of the action and take a lot of pics. With a little cropping and editing with Photoshop Elements, I have always gotten the exposures I wanted.
There is one drawback that’s a little irritating. The image is sometimes blurred due to camera shake. This can generally be eliminated by choosing the stabilization mode. However, whenever you turn off the camera, stabilization is automatically reset to “off.” You’ve got to remember to reset it when you turn the camera back on (it’s easy to reset - just a push of one button. It’s the remembering to do it that’s difficult).
I echo the comment that having the camera readily available in the pocket of your PFD is a very BIG plus. You get a lot of pics that you may otherwise have missed.
Thanks
I had found the site, but had not gone yet to the “learn” menu. Appears that I need to do some reading. This looks like a very good site.