Pentax Optio WG-1 Rugged Waterproof Digital Camera

I bought this product for an upcoming trip to Hawaii and wanted a camera with underwater capability. I also bought the Panasonic Lumix TS3 to compare and ended up returning it. I am happy with my choice to keep the Pentax.

Here is what I liked:

The durability and the rugged feel of this camera right away impressed me. I felt like I was holding a camera that wouldn't break if I dropped it or tossed it into my purse. It was exactly what I needed for an outdoor/adventure trip. I was most excited to try out the Macro capabilities of this camera. They were among the first shots I took. All I can say is that they were amazing. Far and away, the quality was better than anything I have seen for a Point and Shoot camera. I could see individual bits of pollen when shooting a flower or individual pores on my finger. Even when I blew the images up and zoomed in, the clarity was amazing.

Once I got onto my trip, I used the camera underwater in various depths, from 3 feet of water to 250 (although I did not go down that far, this camera is only waterproof to 30 feet). The clarity of the images while zooming in in deep in water was great. I took a picture of a puffer fish that was close to 100 feet below me in 250 feet of water and the image turned out. I took pictures of sharks, dolphins, fish and coral. The pictures are clear and vibrant. The macro setting on some of the coral is to die for. I was so impressed with how these turned out. Had no problems with the camera being waterproof. After each underwater adventure (lasting from 20 minutes to two hours in the water, diving up to 20-25 feet deep for some pictures), I rinsed the camera with clean water and let it air dry before I opened any compartments. The color quality is spot on, no weird colors turning up. It is true to eye. The buttons are also easy to use and change to the best setting (outside, underwater, macro, auto, sport, etc). All of my pictures in daylight and soft light turned out great. The large screen on the back makes viewing pictures easy. The self-portrait assist was a cool idea and worked great.

Negatives:

The only thing that I was NOT impressed with on this camera was low light (nighttime, inside)/no light (nighttime, outside) conditions. Whenever it was dark out, the pictures often turned out blurry, even with the flash on. I may have had it on the wrong setting, because some of them turned out great, but others, not so great. Or it may have been user error (whenever I took the pictures, they generally turned out fine, the ones that are blurry tend to be when I asked random people to take a picture of me). I didn't play around with the settings at night too much mostly because I had a DSLR camera with me that I used in those conditions. I did take a lot of sunset pictures that turned out great on this camera. But once the sun was down....not so much. Also, I went for a night dive with this camera, the underwater camera is useless at night because the flash captures particles in the water and with no flash it's too blurry. However, the underwater video recorder worked great at night.

Overall, this is a great camera for it's price. The camera performs well under most conditions. I lugged it around on a dusty six mile hike, underwater, running, and everything else you can imagine. The camera is easy to wash off, waterproof and has a FANTASTIC macro ability that I have never seen on a point and shoot camera before. If you are expecting this to be a DSLR, remember that this is a POINT AND SHOOT camera. Even so, some of the pictures rivaled my DSLR camera. I highly recommend this camera.

Check out my updating youtube videos. I am user: "PentaxWG1" The good the bad the ugly. The over all feel of this camera is strong and gripable. I love having metal and rubber on my electronics. I have dropped this camera. It was on my lap in the jeep and there was a hornet. I jumped out and it threw to the ground. No problems. The removable circle around the lens (macro stand) has threads. They are 46mm and can screw on filters and caps. I got a cap, uv filter, polorized filter, and flourecent filter on e-bay for $6. So other than the sony TX10, this is the only camera that can protect the lens. Can't wait to buy a telescopic lens. My camera has been underwater about 15 ft. I've seen no problems with leaking. It has two openeings; one for battery and sd card, and one for hd/av hook-up. Both seem strong and sturdy to me. Battery cover does move ever so slightly but seems fine. Ok, thats the construction. As you have already heard, the macro/super macro is awesome. If you can get your specimen to sit still, you can get some pretty great material. The movie macro is even pretty cool, but you have to stay at a consistant focal length or it gets blury. I recorded a wolf spider in pitch black and the l.e.d. lights around the lens made it look like a monster movie! One bad thing about the macro is that when set straight down on the subject it will focus and take the picture on something as flat as a leaf or picture.... if it protrudes as much as a dime width or more it won't stay focused. But when I pulled back just a hair the dime did look awsome. N-E-Wayz, It seems the closer you are to the subject with this camera the better it looks. A closer shot of two people, shoulders and up, look really good. But further away not so much. pictures of groups of people (full body) or the shot of a pond or a... cow...I say the camera is about par. Not bad but not great. I have tried the cybershot TX10 and if you strictly want waterproof picture quality go that way or panasonic. TX10 was beautiful but not as fun. Back to the WG-1. With par pics I do feel the camera is more consistant than its predesessor w90. Better with stand, free hand not as good..but always the same. Never a crappy picture out of nowhere. I also feel it does much better in lower light than the w90. It gets noisey but I was getting decent lighted shots (no flash) in areas that where very dim to the naked eye. The l.e.d. lights are handy, too. Optical zoom works pretty well for pictures. You'll want a steady hand or stand if zoomed all the way in. Digital zoom sucks. The panorama is not sweep. You take 3 pics and line them up, then the camera stitches them. Not as convinient as the TX10 but it looks good and you can do tricks...As for underwater. Pictures and video where pretty darn good. Anti shake or wudever made it pretty smooth. With video underwater or above the zoom works but it doesn't refocus very well. But over all regular video was better than I expected. Once again when things are close it seems very virbrant. I got about a foot from a cow's face and the fur on his head got very HiDef-ish. Battery life....sucks, but I got and extra generic one when I ordered mine for 6 bucks. Over-all I really love this camera. I've been totally entertained for 2 days and havn't even gotten to time lapse phtography yet. Although I do think of the pic quality of the TX10 now and then. I would have been bored with that camera after one dip in the lake. I can get a 10 mp zoom camera for less than a hundred and fill in anywhere the wg-1 lack.

Buy Pentax Optio WG-1 Rugged Waterproof Digital Camera Now

We owned a Pentax's first waterproof camera (Optio W10) and loved it. So when it came time to upgrade we bought this one before our trip to Mexico. We choose this one because of its ergonomic design. We figured this would work wonders when splashing around underwater and be easy to hold onto. The ergonomic design is the only redeeming feature of this camera.

At first we were concerned about how loose the battery door was. The battery door stayed shut but it would slide partially open when closed and was very loose (not enough for water to actually get in but enough to make us concerned). Thinking it might just be the camera we picked up, we went back to the store where we bought it from. After looking at other ones it appears to be part of the design. This should have been our first clue that this is a horrible camera.

While on vacation in Mexico the camera froze several times requiring the battery to be removed to get it to unfreeze. Now this can be a true problem when you need to let the camera dry for about an hour before opening the battery door otherwise you risk exposing both the battery and memory card to water.

We also discovered small water spots on the inside of the display screen. Clearly it is not as waterproof as claimed. I am glad we were only using it while wading in the ocean and not actually snorkelling.

The battery life is extremely poor requiring charging every two days when the camera is moderately used.

We also found the image quality not that good. After returning from our vacation, we looked at old images from our previous camera (Optio W10) and they were much better even though it was only 6 megapixels. In fact the same picture taken with our iPhone 3Gs had a better image quality.

Pros

Great rugged looking design

Cons

Poor image quality

Freezes

Not completely waterproof

Poorly manufactured

Summary

Clearly Pentax designed a nice looking camera that gives the illusion of ruggedness; however, their production quality of this model is extremely poor. We've returned the camera and are looking for a different one (not from Pentax) to replace it with.

Read Best Reviews of Pentax Optio WG-1 Rugged Waterproof Digital Camera Here

I am currently deployed to Afghanistan and I am around some rough terrain all the time with different conditions. Hot, Dusty, Cold, Wet, Rocky and this camera hasnt stopped working yet. I have dropped it from about 8 feet high off of a vehicle and yeah it is scratched but still works perfect. I have had it get wet but havn't used it submerged in water for a period of time yet. But I will. So far everything is awesome. I especially like the Safety clip it comes with. I think that was a great idea but I would suggest possibly upgrading the clip if you are a big outdoorsmen. Other than all of that it is awesome and totally recommend it.

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The most fantasticly durrible camera I have ever seen. I have litterally tossed this thing around just for the fun of it, and it withstands anything.

Performs great underwater. A few bubbles come out of the power button which scared me at first, but it's normal.

The battery charges only through an external charger (so it can have less waterproof ports I suppose)

I am using a 16gb SD card which works great in it. Screen is comfortably large and bright.

Digital microscope blew my mind with the clarity and detail that can be achieved. Zoom is reasonable.

Pictures have a dramatic feel to them with great contrast.

Software is easy to use, and took me about an hour to know every feature. Great photo editing software is BUILT INTO THE CAMERA to do whatever effects you need done.

Self-portrait mode is a little bit flaky but very interesting none the less. Who uses facial recognition anyway, really? lol.

The feel of the camera is phenomenal. Rubber and very hard grippy plastic cover the whole camera, and gives a very rugged and tough feel, but it is such a tiny lightweight package.

Manual zoom, focus, aperture, and ISO come in very handy.

All in all a fantastic camera, worth every penny. :)

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