# Waterproof digital camera... if money was no object



## Guest (May 25, 2007)

Just out of curiosity, I'm interested to know if anyone here has any strong opinions on what kind of waterproof digital camera they would buy if money was no object. I'm open to suggestion on using a camera with waterproof housing as well, but in my experience there is a few downsides to this approach. But yeah... if you had a blank cheque to get the best camera for kayak fishing, what would it be


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## Pauly (Jun 28, 2006)

Alot of AKFFers have the olympus 720sw for it is a compact camera that takes very good pics and can take a fair bit of abuse (7mp enlarges quite well). The one thing to cosider is when you move into the catagory of cameras with waterproof cases you have quite abit of bulk (usually) however you do get VERY good quality photos....... Bec should jump in here as she was the underwater photographer on Ragamuffin up in Airlie so she could shed some light on high end cameras..


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## Guest (May 25, 2007)

Yeah, thats exactly the camera I have now. It's pretty god to I reckon, but I'm not sure if it snaps as well as my old (now deceased) Canon Powershot s70, which I do have a waterproof case for. I really like the little olympus but am not sure if it really is the very best thing for me to use. There are a few cons to it. It only saves in JPG and it's movie recording is pretty average. I'm wondering if thats going to bother me much in the future, because it has potential to.


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## Tim (Nov 11, 2005)

Bulk is the issue, a digital SLR with a waterproof case would be the ultimate, but very bulky.


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## Pauly (Jun 28, 2006)

how much time do you spend taking pics on the water Vs how much time spent fishing? what i'm trying to get at is, is photography a big part of your on water activities?? Bec had the D100 Nikon and Ikelite Rebel waterproof housing.... the new model is D200 she's looking at buying that now approx $1500 for just the body... plus around $1500 for the housing and allow $1200 for good lenses..... For a cheaper alternative try the D70...


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## Pauly (Jun 28, 2006)

From Bec.... try http://www.digideep.com for underwater housings ....
Becs pick Ikelite housings


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## wolfy (Apr 27, 2007)

No matter how much money you have, the space limitations are the same - I would stick with the Pentax Optio W30 for ease of use, 7mp and good pics with true underwater ability. I have a Canon eos as well, but the Pentax is the one that gets used.


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## fisherdan (Apr 17, 2007)

5thofNovember said:


> Yeah, thats exactly the camera I have now. It's pretty god to I reckon, but I'm not sure if it snaps as well as my old (now deceased) Canon Powershot s70, which I do have a waterproof case for. I really like the little olympus but am not sure if it really is the very best thing for me to use. There are a few cons to it. It only saves in JPG and it's movie recording is pretty average. I'm wondering if thats going to bother me much in the future, because it has potential to.


If money was no object you would be enjoying the fishing and paying a professional photographer to use professional gear on another yak beside you, then you would get great shots, great fish, and not have to worry yourself silly over weather or not your housing was leaking and your $2500 camera body and $3000 lens had just been stuffed.     

The olympus looks like a great little camera, just my opinion.

Dan


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## DiveYak (Feb 5, 2007)

I've posted about the Pentax before as well. Agree with Wolfy. Sure the Olympus goes to 30'. but the W30 does 10'. For yakking and most water stuff its a beauty.

*With an enhanced waterproof design, the compact Optio W30 performance capacity has more than doubled and now allows photographers to capture images underwater up to 10 feet for 2 hours.*

I have the older version that only goes to 5' but it goes wherever I go. I particularly like the internal zoom that means sand and grit can't bugger it up.


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## T-curve (Feb 19, 2007)

ive had the olympus for a few months now...and must say im happy with it...it gets a floggin, its not bulky, battery life is great, i took it to forster and used it everyday for 3 days and wasnt even close to needing a charge and takes a some quality pics. I havnt mucked around with any of the settings yet, im just happy using it on auto. The only down fall so far was its picture capacity which i think was only 8 :shock: ...so had to get a memory card and have no worries. In the end all i wanted was a camera that took a decent pic that i dont have to worry about getting wet or a bit of abuse and it just sits beside me in the yak ready for action. Just make sure you leash it :wink:


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## Guest (May 26, 2007)

Hrmm... well, it seems everyone else is quite satisfied with the compact WP models that are obviously so popular among our ranks. Certainly, I've had no reasons to complain about my with little Olympus yet (except that its so small I keep leaving it behind, such as I did leave it behind at a friends house last night, leaving me cameraless for this weekends trips).

It's good to see most of you guys are happy with these models. Think I'll just be happy with what I have for now and just see how it goes. Thanks for the responses.


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## Nodds (Feb 28, 2007)

I was looking at the Olympus mju 1000 all weather modle it's 10mp and 3x optical zoom for the yak, but the mju 780 has 5x zoom but it's only 7.1mp. I think the extra zoom would be handy for the type of shots i like to take, maybe I just wait till I can get the higher mp and the higher zoom? 
I havn't been able to find a bad report about the olympus range so I think I'll be going this way as well.

nodds


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## paffoh (Aug 24, 2006)

I have a few Questions...

I am considering buying an Digital SLR at tax time and will purchase a model / brand that a waterproof housing will fit on, my question is realted to underwater housing for underwater photography, some brands offer underwater housing only but can this be used effectively when its not underwater?

Most of my photos would be taken from the kayak and not below the yak and am trying to undestand if this will affect images positively or negatively?

As soon as I get a chance I will go talk to http://www.teds.com.au or some other camera dealer and get the downlow, just wondering if anyone knows anything here?

Models and style of digital cameras I am considering :

Olympus E410 DSLR
http://www.teds.com.au/www/6/1001102/di ... 5803_.html

Housing for Olympus E410 DSLR
http://www.olympus.com.au/component/opt ... Itemid,69/

Perhaps I should just go this route :

Olympus SP550 Ultra Zoom Digital
http://www.cameraworld.com.au/Olympus_S ... ysp550.htm

Housing for Olympus SP550 Ultra Zoom Digital
http://www.olympus.com.au/component/opt ... Itemid,69/


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## Guest (May 30, 2007)

Paff, the only problem I ever had with using a housed camera on board was that water would usually splash onto the lens, which would then obscure photos. Thats why when I had to replace the camera, I went with a WP camera instead. The lens surface is smaller, and is usually protected by the shutter. But if the lens was clean, photos turned out pretty good most of the time.

I do think the camera I was using (Powershot s70) takes better photos than the olymups 725 though.


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

do any of the waterproof compact digital cameras FLOAT?

to me it would seem that this SHOULD be a feature of any camera thats designed to be used in the water.

so, does anyone know if theres a floating one out there?


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## wolfy (Apr 27, 2007)

No, and not that I have ever seen.

Solution could be lanyard, wrist strap, boaty floaty key holder thing....


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## Tim (Nov 11, 2005)

I attached a pool noodle chunk to mine, too big, but I plan on trimming it so as the cam just floats.


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## abitfishy (Sep 24, 2006)

Davey G said:


> do any of the waterproof compact digital cameras FLOAT?
> 
> to me it would seem that this SHOULD be a feature of any camera thats designed to be used in the water.
> 
> so, does anyone know if theres a floating one out there?


I can see how it might be difficult/expensive to build into one, but I agree, the idea of a waterproof camera that doesn't float seems a bit daft to me....


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## fisherdan (Apr 17, 2007)

It was easy to make them float in the past when they used rolls of film, remember them! They took up space, which was mostly air, which floats! counteracting the metal and other heavy stuff which creating beautiful neutral gravity tools you could use all day and not lose.

Now we want them small so we can stick em in our pfd's and down bikini's, thus the sinking because of the no air factor.

If you have a non-waterproof digi camera, a waterproof housing should make it float, otherwise get whittling on your pool noodle!

Or just get a groovy cork ball keyring from whitworths..

Dan


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## SeanAtCrescent (Apr 13, 2007)

A bit off-point I guess but I use a 5 year old Canon compact Powershot Pro 1 8mp and keep it in a fairly heavy duty small dry bag which when full of air protects it very well. Obviously I have to take care off-shore etc but wrap the strap around my wrist. Between shots it goes straight back inside and is clipped to the kayak. Although old it has a great Canon L-series lens and shoots in RAW & these two aspects are important for me.

I like the sound of the new Pentax - water and shockproof, but would want to see the shot quality and also check it shoots in RAW mode.

Also that Olypus mentioned above for about $800 seems amazing, feature and value wise. Any idea what the housing costs ?

It seems that this is such a competitive part of the market now that most of the camera makes produce really good technical image quality - its really what we do with the camera that seems to make the difference.

In regard to housings I understand that in certain weather conditions, above water, they steam up, but perhaps Bec can comment on that ?

cheers


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## SeanAtCrescent (Apr 13, 2007)

Roberta I won't look up the technical stuff before responding, but essentially it means the camera has captured the image in 16bit (as opposed to the more common 8bit) mode which stores a much greater quantity and hence quality of digital information about the image. However, this is in raw, untreated form (colours will initially appear dull, unsharp etc) (most cameras produce jpeg images which are 8bit and have been processed and this is also what is called a 'lossy' format in terms of which every time you deal digitally with the image some quality is lost). It thus gives you great scope, when you open an image, and after opening when you have it in a program like Photoshop, to work on the image and bring out the best in it.

What Red did there with that graphic provides an excellent visual example of what this is about.

One downside is that it does create very large file sizes and does take a little bit of practice to master but, anyone can do it !

You would find most pros store in RAW format.

cheers, Sean

PS: Red may wish to add to this response if I have missed anything ?


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## keza (Mar 6, 2007)

Raw, is sort of like a negative, it is exactly what the camera is seeing and has not been processed. The information is held in 16 bit rather than 8 bit and a lot more info is held in the image. To make raw worth while you then need to process the image in photoshop or another software. The image can then be darkened or lightened, have the colours enhanced and changed, sharpened. correct any vignetting from the lens etc without the original image being degraded.
The image is then converted to tiff or jpeg for viewing and reduced down to 8 bit.
Sorry that was just incase anyone really wanted to know.

I have a canon 1DS mkII and a aquatec underwater housing, i would only take it on the yak if it was a photography trip rather than a fishing one.

When fishing i take a panasonic lumix LX2, great little 10mp camera with leica lens but they don't make a housing for it yet. 
I put it in one of those small water proof bags and get it out when i need it (not ideal).

some of the camera bag housings (see pic) are a good option and they are made for most models (just not mine yet).

The only down side to using housings out of the water is the flare from the sun, you need to check the lens port is free from water drops before you shoot and be aware that the sun will flare off the glass at the front if it touches it (this can be effective though).

If anyone wanted to shoot film you can pick up 2nd hand nikonos camera or a good price now and they are pretty hardy.

hope this wasn't to boring 


Kerry


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## CoolBreeze (Jun 21, 2007)

5thofNovember said:


> Just out of curiosity, I'm interested to know if anyone here has any strong opinions on what kind of waterproof digital camera they would buy if money was no object. I'm open to suggestion on using a camera with waterproof housing as well, but in my experience there is a few downsides to this approach. But yeah... if you had a blank cheque to get the best camera for kayak fishing, what would it be


Make sure it is a good macro camera I have seen the size of the fish you catch  haha just kidding mate!

I use a little IXUS 40 in a water-proof housing because its tiny even in the housing. I also have a Canon G7 which is amazing for a compact digital camera but its very big so taking it out on the Kayak would be a pain!


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## Eberbachl (Jun 21, 2007)

I have a Nikon D70 - great DSLR, and my wife has a Nikon D50...nice also.

I'd love a waterproof housing for my D70, but the issue of bulk on the Kayak would prevent me from carrying it.

(the D70/s is well and truly superseded now too, although it's still a great camera).

When on the kayak, I take my Canon Powershot A75....only a lowly 3.2mp by today's standards, but still achieves outstanding resoultion up to 8x10". Great point and shoot camera. When on the kayak it lives in a waterproof Pelican hard case. I just take it out when I need to take a pic, and pop it back in the case when done.

The kayak has been capsized with camera on board before, and case doesn't leak a bit. The case is rated to some absurd level of waterproofness.



EDIT: I tell a lie - mine's not a Pelican case, it's an Otter Box (model #2500) http://www.otterbox.com/

It's completely waterproof, built like a tank, and floats.


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