2013-06-04T21:00:00
Rated 1 out of 5
"Armchair adventurer" designed camera
Honestly-don't get this camera for outdoors/adventure. It has severe design flaws that make me question who designed this. The on/off button turns on easily when bumped, like in a bag, leaving you with a dead battery when you want to use it-like when DOLPHINS ARRIVED at my remote snorkel spot but I had no camera since that morning when I had found a dead battery after charging all night. Dolphins, swimming around and under me and I got nothing. This has happened to me three times in two months. The lens has no protective cover-just the plastic cover with no steal or plastic closure so it remains exposed to get scratched by rocks etc. What good is a drop if the body survives and the lens is ruined? The viewer is large, but when you turn the camera sideways the image more or less disappears. That viewer is now covered in several deep scratches after a few hikes. You would think they would have used scratch resistent material. My Nikon DSLR survived a year working in the bush in Tanzania unscratched-with every day use-and this one made it about 3 days. They provide you with a silly carabiner strap, which is fine to hang from your belt loop but who wants to keep stopping to unhook it from the loop-not to mention who wants it where it can hit trees, rocks etc and get scratched? A wrist latch would have made much more sense. I went night snorkeling with it and tied the wetsuit cord through it in case I dropped it since the carabiner latch is difficult to hold on to. The only good design is in the 8 shape of the body. It makes it easy to grab while walking-but again other features will deter you from carrying it if out of its bag for more than a stroll. As for photo quality-underwater it worked fairly well. Night video in water was good while pictures were not-on a MAC I could not get videos to play? In the dark it performed poorly compared to a friends Lumix when we went caving. You know what else outperformed it? My Iphone. Yep. Macro has been a huge disappontment. Sure I do not expect the quality of a Nikkor macro lens, but my Sony sure shot gave me some nice macro while this one has not. Finally, start up is super slow. Really, I cannot recommend this camera for what it is promoted for. Outdoor adventure? maybe if your idea of outdoors is the city park and taking pictures of your kids. Epic fail.
Kari P.
