Seen this camera with a 40m waterproof case (up to 40m allegedly) for a very reasonable price. I'm definitely in the "snapper" category so it looks like the biz. However, it has no viewfinder so I assume it's all done through the LCD. Is this a major drawback, battery life aside?

Cheers.

stu said:

Seen this camera with a 40m waterproof case (up to 40m allegedly) for a very reasonable price. I'm definitely in the "snapper" category so it looks like the biz. However, it has no viewfinder so I assume it's all done through the LCD. Is this a major drawback, battery life aside?

Cheers.

Click to expand...

For caving, yes a drawback. Problem is in the dark there isn't enough light to see what you are pointing at with an LCD. With a viewfinder you can make out enough to frame your picture and see peoples lights etc...

Look at the Olympus SP-350, has a nice hotshoe too, but no waterproof case.... Also there is a waterproof Pentax around Pentax Optio WPi

http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/camera/review/75/page_1.html

AndyF said:

stu said:

Seen this camera with a 40m waterproof case (up to 40m allegedly) for a very reasonable price. I'm definitely in the "snapper" category so it looks like the biz. However, it has no viewfinder so I assume it's all done through the LCD. Is this a major drawback, battery life aside?

Cheers.

Click to expand...

For caving, yes a drawback. Problem is in the dark there isn't enough light to see what you are pointing at with an LCD. With a viewfinder you can make out enough to frame your picture and see peoples lights etc...

Look at the Olympus SP-350, has a nice hotshoe too, but no waterproof case.... Also there is a waterproof Pentax around Pentax Optio WPi

http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/camera/review/75/page_1.html

Click to expand...

Looked at the Pentax... in fact a rather wet photo (!) of me exists that was taken with the Opti. It's waterproof to 5m which was great for swimming in White Scar but I liked the extra value the case gave re: knocks, bumps etc.

May see what else is around.

Cheers

I have one of the pentax OptioWP cameras and have given it a hell of a lot of abuse in caves. It's actually only waterproof to 1.5m not 5m and only for 30mins at a time, but like you say, it's enough to keep it safe splashing around. It also means you can wash it off when it gets covered in mud!

Olympus has just brought out a similar thing... the 720sw... i think. It boasts over 7M pixels, and is waterproof to 3m for continuous use. It also says it's shock proof for drops up to 1.5m, although i'd like to see the results done by any caver! Apparently it also has a special mode for taking photos in the dark.

I'd like to see some results...

As far as only using the screen for shooting, I've had no problems with the pentax (the olympus also has no viewfinder), in fact it generally helps with steam problems, being able to hold the camera at arms length.

The only real quibble i've got with the pentax is it's double flash, which means the simple slave units won't work with it, and the flash is very close to the lens so you do often get a nice photo of steam!

Oh, it also fits really nicely in one of the really small peli cases, so that protects as well as you can until you need to use it, and you don't mind taking it through that tight crawl!