Camera Recommendations

[Stagger_Lee]

Agree pcray. I am going to try to do some more back-country fishing next year and would feel more secure turning my phone off to save the battery. I'm going to shop some of the brands posted (I'm guessing I'll head over to my local best buy) and go from there. My wife owes me a Hanukkah present anyhow so I'll also watch the prices right b4 and after X-mas.

I would like to have it prior or when I get to Fla during the X-mas vacation and hopefully get a shot of my 1st Peacock bass hook-up or other Fla species!

 

[pcray1231]

FWIW, Best Buy does not have many of the waterproof models. They might have a few. When I shopped, they ONLY had Olympus. They had an agreement in place to exclude all of the waterproof/shockproof competitors, and the guys on the floor didn't even know it. They swore that nobody except Olympus made them, lol. I don't think Panny and Nikon were in the game yet, but Pentax and Canon definitely were (I ended up with a Canon), and I think Fuji and Casio too. Things may have changed a little, that was 3 or 4 years ago. But I suspect Best Buy still has a very limited selection in this category.

You're better off doing your research online. DPreview has been my main source of research for all things photography related. They do very good reviews, and many "shootouts" in specific categories like this. They attempt to rate them, but read close at the pro's and cons of each, and re-rate them yourself. Because your priorities may be different. Maybe you don't care that it has RAW mode or can hook to an external flash, but the battery life may be much more important to you than it is to them.

I did a quick glance at their 2013 shootout. Note the drop down menu at the bottom, this is 18 pages of detail.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/2013-waterproof-roundup

The summary can be viewed here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/2013-waterproof-roundup/18

Judging by this, I'd personally go with the Olympus, which probably CAN be found at Best Buy. My main complaint on them was that they were ultra slow when I was shopping. Took a long time to start up and focus. It looks like they have fixed that and it actually gets high marks in that department. That's important to me in a fishing camera when you're very quickly deciding to take a picture and want to get it done with and release the fish. It's also the toughest one, with great battery life, and it takes pretty good pictures. Lens size is important, as it means that it can remain at low ISO's even in lower light, like deep in a forest. Low ISO corresponds to better real life picture quality, even if it doesn't show through in the tests as they do landscapes and beach scenes where every camera has plenty of light to stay low ISO. And it clearly does the best with underwater pictures.

It's downfall is a weak flash, but I almost never use flash when outdoors, and if I do, it's evening shots of fish when the subject is very close, and a strong flash would wash it out anyway. They also mentioned the LCD is hard to read outdoors. That'd scare me a little.

The Sony would be eliminated immediately due to the touchscreen. Can't use it when wet. What's the point?

The Pentax has a good macro but gets poor image quality scores. I hate chromatic aberration, which all P&S's have but this one looks bad. Maybe you're not as picky. It is tough, but it keeps it's high ratings based on "features", most of which I don't care about. Wifi, special effects and filters, etc. Below average battery life and a note that it struggles to focus correctly in low light. Depends on your priorities, the toughness is appealing, and if you wanna immediately share via wifi or something it's worth a look.

Nikon looks average with low battery life but good price. Canon looks pretty average but acceptable (and I'm familiar with their menu systems so that's a plus for me). The Panny looks like a decent competitor, decent pics, good battery life, quick and responsive, LCD that is easily visible outdoors, and some manual controls should you ever feel the need to experiment. All good stuff. The tougher Olympus, with the larger lens, would probably win me over, though.

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Pcray wrote:

You're better off doing your research online

I don't need to go any further than PAFF!

Good stuff above

 

[pcray1231]

I like product research. And I'm bored, there's freakin nobody around today and all the stuff I have to do, I have to wait on someone else.

 

[tomitrout]

I have one of the Pentax models that's a couple seasons old by now, WX-90 I think? Pat might nit pick the reviews of the image quality, but for a point n shoot, they're all on par with each other anymore. Unless you're digging deep into the image and are into pixel peeping, I doubt you'll notice the difference in IQ as it's pretty marginal. And if you're that into photography, then I doubt you'd be shopping for a p&s in the price range you're looking at...

 

[pcray1231]

For one, in a dedicated fishing camera, it's a very different shopping experience for me than a camera for general use.

I think the biggest thing, regarding IQ on a P&S fishing camera, for me is ISO. Low ISO images just look sharp, and higher ISO images don't.

My fishing practices are like a vampire! By day, I do a lot of my fishing in deep, dark places. Small streams with heavy canopies. When I do fish bigger water, it's at twilight, dawn and dusk. And I take a mixture of scenery shots and fish shots.

Some cameras take better high ISO pics than others. But more than that, some don't need to. I think the lens size is one of my most important attributes. Capture more light = no need for high ISO. It's why my camera phone pics look great out in the street when I'm taking pics of my little boy, and I think "that's just fine". But when I take the phone with me fishing, I'm highly dissapointed in the resulting pictures. That tiny lens just doesn't allow much light in in dim conditions.

I mean, I know nothing will beat an SLR. That's obvious. But I'm not gonna carry something that bulky around. So a small camera with a reasonably large lens is what I'm after in a fishing camera. I do realize the sensor has a lot to do with it too, but I'm less knowledgable on them. It is always interesting, if you can compare in person, to aim both cameras at the same thing in the same light and see what ISO they pick.

 

[troutbert]

Here's a review of waterproof point-and-shoots, from a respected photo gear review website.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/2013-waterproof-roundup

 

[troutbert]

tomitrout wrote:
I have one of the Pentax models that's a couple seasons old by now, WX-90 I think? Pat might nit pick the reviews of the image quality, but for a point n shoot, they're all on par with each other anymore. Unless you're digging deep into the image and are into pixel peeping, I doubt you'll notice the difference in IQ as it's pretty marginal. And if you're that into photography, then I doubt you'd be shopping for a p&s in the price range you're looking at...

I don't think Pentax is in any way a second tier brand in terms of quality. They make excellent cameras.

You have to first decide what category of camera you want, and what price range.

Then read the reviews and make a decision on what model is the best choice within that category and price range. It could be from any number of the major manufacturers.

I don't think you can rank the camera manufacturers as a whole. You have to look at individual models.

 

[salmonoid]

pcray1231 wrote:
It's a viable method, and would save you money. But personally, camera phones are great for unplanned pictures. There's something cool, I don't have a camera on me, I do have my phone, snap.

But overall, I've never been a fan of the jack of all trades approach. It's a master of none. If I go somewhere intending to take pictures, I'm taking an actual camera. It's the better tool for the job.

I'd say that modern smartphones have evolved to the point where they are on par with year-old digital cameras (lacking only in the # of megapixels they cram into the CCD sensor). I agree that a smartphone is a jack of all trades and there may be a handful of standalone masters out there for specific tasks; in fact, at one point, I told a number of people that the apps on my phone were good enough (but not as good as) standalone devices (car CPS, handheld GPS, camera) and that I had essentially retired the standalone devices and lived with the feature and quality gap, for convenience. But I find my phone to be master of about 90% or more of what the others accomplish and with a tie-in to data, my phone can do leaps and bounds more, after I learned to use it. For instance, I tried geocaching with my standalone GPS a few years back. It was cumbersome to load a cache I was interested in (download to computer, fire up an application on the PC, connect a cable, load onto GPS), and if I happened to be in an area and hadn't thought ahead to load all the caches in that area, I was out of look. I had to pay for additional imagery (satellite, topo, etc.). With c:geo, I can get a real-time look at all the caches nearby me, and I can tap into whatever map imagery is available. I can store cache information on the device for when I'm out of cell coverage, and I can log my caches, in realtime, if I wanted to.

I would say that for 90% of the typical use cases of a fisherperson, if they have a modern smartphone, they have all the tool they need to do multiple jobs. Not too far back, I think I recall you saying you did not have a smartphone. Have you since made the switch?

Pros for a smartphone (things it can do that a typical digital camera cannot do easily):
Geo-tag photos automatically
Tie-ins to social media (PAFF is as social as I get in that arena, so a non-issue for me)
Edit photo before sharing
Panoramic photos
One device to carry
Relatively easy tie-in to online backup photo storage (and automatically syncing your photos with said storage)

Cons:
A lot more goes down the tubes if you dunk a smartphone, compared to a single-purpose device, such as a digital camera
Underwater action is limited (and I don't trust "waterproof" cases enough to go that route with my phone)


Stag:

Here are some links to help you get the most out of your phone:

How to change Home Screen Dock apps

How to change Lock Screen Dock apps

If you want an app on any of your screens, goto the Apps screens, where you can scroll through all your apps. Hold down on an app for a few seconds, and you should be able to place it onto one of your home screens.

On the Samsung phones, there is an option to turn the phone with a smart move. It's listed on the Lock Screen link above, but basically, to use it, you enable the feature, hold the lock screen, and rotate the phone and the Camera automatically launches.

For battery life, my phone goes into airplane mode when I'm fishing. This is for two reasons - 1) I legitimately want to conserve the battery life and 2) I do not want to be bothered by interruptions from the rest of the world - email, weather alerts, individuals inquiring where I am at For multi-day trips where I don't have the ability to charge, I carry a second battery and/or a USB battery pack that I can use to recharge my battery.

Even if you do buy a standalone digital camera, I'd invest in a little bit of learning so you get the most out of your smartphone. You'll then have a viable backup, and you may find, like I eventually did, that it does meet your needs quite well.

 

[pcray1231]

I've had 2 camera phones, the latest a modern smartphone, which is waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, etc. If I'm outside in my street running around with my kid, and he does something cute, it does a fine job of snapping a pic of him. Fine enough that I look at the pic and say "yeah, that's plenty good enough for fishing".

But a funny thing happens when I go fishing. I can't take a good pic. It's too dark. And if I turn the flash off I get a high ISO pic with a long shutter speed and a blurry, grainy pic. If I turn the flash on I wash out the fish or the scene, flash sucks for virtually all fishing applications. I am not at all happy with those pics. And fishing is important enough to me that I really do want a decent set of pics to remember the scene.

As I said, I tend to fish like a vampire. Deep dark forests by day and bigger, open water by twilight. A camera phone, even a modern one, may be fine in terms of megapixels, software, and image rendering, and it takes fine pictures given enough light to do so. But it does not come even close to the aperture of even a middle of the road 5+ year old P&S. When that lens gets to be quarter sized, instead of pencil sized, then maybe they will approach "good enough".

I don't need SLR quality. But it's hard to deny the quality of an SLR pic over that of a P&S. For the very same reason that it's hard to deny the quality of a P&S pic over that of a camera phone. In lots of light, they all do just fine. In lower light, the separation becomes obvious.

 

[Stenonema]

I bought the olympus when they first came out with the waterproof camera. I don't beleive they were called the Tough series then. I left it on the bottom of the ocean in Sachuest Bay in Rhode Island this past spring until I worked up the nerve to dive in and retrieve it. I left it in the soggy bag I carried it in for the day. I got a couple more pictures out of it before it died. I accept the blame for it's death. That camera went thru hell. I beat the S**t out of that camera. I bought another one. I don't find the slowness unacceptable. When I'm guiding I put it on the mount on the wading staff place the camera on the timer setting and jam the staff in the mud. I have also done this to enable the grip and grin while alone. I recommend the Olympus Tough.

 

[troutbert]

Heritage-Angler wrote:
Here's a vote for Pentax.

Mine is an older model (WP-60). Waterproof, not shockproof, but I've dropped it several times, and it works perfectly. Takes really good macro shots, too. Very fast startup time - about 2 seconds.

Best part though is the editing software it comes with - simple and really works great. Makes resizing images a breeze, and you can "fix" images that don't come out perfectly (to a point).

Fox has the same model, as does martin0206. As far as I know, they're happy with it too.

I keep the strap attached to a Simms coil retractor, and the camera in a front upper pocket of my G3 vest. Easy to grab with one hand and shoot, yet it is still attached so I don't drop it.

Spare batteries are cheap on Amazon - I got two higher capacity batteries with a really nice charger for under $20.

The camera has a "green mode" that automatically chooses the best mode for the shot, and it stays in whatever mode you choose when you turn the camera off. That's handy, and really speeds things up when you're in a hurry to release a fish.

Check out Amazon - they sometimes have older models cheap, and even used ones. Fox got his that way, and with his points, it was free!

The current model is the Pentax WG-3. They run about $200. The reviews are very good for this camera. It has a fast lens, F2.0 wide open. That helps a lot in low light conditions.

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Finally picked up a camera on my way home ystrday ... Ricoh (Pentax) WG-20 which is their lower end model. Seems to be the most rugged out of the waterproof cameras @ target. $179 but I found an old target GCard my wife lost many moons ago. She never told me so in my mind I spent $79 :-D

Got two outings scheduled this weekend (hope not to be blown out for tomorrow) so looking forward to testing it out.

 

[Crotalus]

I'm still rocking a Pentax Optio WP-20. Its been dunked, dropped, stomped on in the mud (accidentally), buried in the sand and dropped from a tree stand (twice) while hunting.

It doesnt have the photo quality of the newer models but it gets the job done.

I wouldnt hesitate to buy another Pentax

 

[sandfly]

add a dica-pac water proof case to your cheap point and shoot cameras. I have used one on my cheap Nikon for 10 years. and got one for my fuji700s last year.

 

[pcray1231]

I still love my Canon waterproof P&S. But someone showed me one of the new Olympus's at the jam, and I was impressed. My dig at them had always been speed. When I bought mine, the Olympus Tough series were all pretty slow to turn on, focus, turn off, etc. Being able to power up, snap a decent pic, and power down in 2 seconds or so is HUGELY important to me and the Canon's just blew everything else in the category out of the water. But apparently the Olympus's have upped their game.

Picture quality of virtually ALL cameras, and cell phones for that matter, are perfectly acceptable to me in good light. For a fishing camera, what separates the good from the bad, IMO, are:

1. Waterproof/shockproof is a MUST for a fishing camera.
2. Must be able to take decent pics in relatively low light, for instance under a canopy of hemlock on a small stream, or after sunset on a big stream. We're not talking SLR here, but this is the point that separates real cameras from most cell phones. A lot of it has to do with simply having enough glass.
3. Flash must be able to be disabled and stay that way. I want it to be able to be OFF by default, and be able to turn it on as necessary.
4. Must power up, focus, take a decent pic, save, and power down in a few seconds at most.

I haven't been on top of the market. 4 or 5 years ago the Canon was the only one on the market that hit all of those. Think there's a few more now, including the Olympus's. If I wanted art I'd get an SLR. I'm not trying to make art. Merely recording memories.

 

[mattwolf]

I have a magnet for my waterproof camera. It is the same as you would use for a net. I hold it in my vest pocket. Extremely accessible. Works great for me.

 

[mcwillja]

Heritage-Angler wrote:
Here's a vote for Pentax.

Mine is an older model (WP-60). Waterproof, not shockproof, but I've dropped it several times, and it works perfectly. Takes really good macro shots, too. Very fast startup time - about 2 seconds.

Best part though is the editing software it comes with - simple and really works great. Makes resizing images a breeze, and you can "fix" images that don't come out perfectly (to a point).

Fox has the same model, as does martin0206. As far as I know, they're happy with it too.

I keep the strap attached to a Simms coil retractor, and the camera in a front upper pocket of my G3 vest. Easy to grab with one hand and shoot, yet it is still attached so I don't drop it.

Spare batteries are cheap on Amazon - I got two higher capacity batteries with a really nice charger for under $20.

The camera has a "green mode" that automatically chooses the best mode for the shot, and it stays in whatever mode you choose when you turn the camera off. That's handy, and really speeds things up when you're in a hurry to release a fish.

Check out Amazon - they sometimes have older models cheap, and even used ones. Fox got his that way, and with his points, it was free!

Check out this macro shot - pretty good for a point & shoot waterproof camera...

I second the Penatax. I have the Optio W-80 and have been very happy with it. Takes nice underwater pics as well. There are newer models out there now but i would not hesitate to buy Pentax again for a waterproof/shockproof point and shoot.