Pentax Optio W20

Ive had the w20 for over a year now. Ive been snorkeling with it and spent all day in the salt water diving as deep as 30 feet. Been white water rafting with it too. I have carried it in my pocket for a year and beat the crap out of it. Left it out in the rain, covered it with champagne, mud really anything and cleaned it up with a dunk in a pond. It still takes great photos. If you want to take your camera outdoors buy this one.

This is a decent waterproof camera while it lasts, which isn’t very long. I bought this almost a year ago. After half a year it stopped working and pentax fixed it. I didn’t use it much over the winter, and the next time I used it in water, it did not work afterwards.

It was used in a swimming pool and did not come close to exceeding the 5 foot depth limit, it did not suffer any impacts, and the seal was locked the entire time and for quite a while afterwards.

When I sent it in for repair they would not honor the warranty. My best guess is that they figure this is the second repair and they are losing money on a defective unit, so they decided to just blow me off.

Buy this camera at your own risk, the company does not stand by its products.

I have had this camera over a year and it has replaced our other cameras since we can take it anywhere and not take special care of it. I have used it rafting, tubing, canoeing, kayaking, on a speedboat (lots of spray), at the beach, backpacking & skiing in the rain, etc. I often just clip it to my life jacket and don’t think about it until I want to take a shot. And there it is ready to go!

It also works great indoors. The movie modes are reasonably good, though some sort of anti-shake would be nice.

As others have mentioned, it isn’t as sharp as other 7 Mpixel cameras, but it beats the heck out of a disposable or a better camera in a waterproof case. I also miss having an optical viewfinder, but that seems to be a necessary tradeoff for a larger display.

Other pluses: I like the battery life of hundreds of shots and/or weeks of being ready, it handles at least 4GB SD cards, nice large display, no delicate lens being extended at power on or zooming, and it won’t break the bank if I do lose it or trash it by accident.