pentax optio W60 vs Olympus Stylus 1030 sw

[Ozarkistan]

my old pentax optio wp bit the dust after convention in florida- (i think i took it too deep snorkeling in blue hole) i need a new waterproof point and shoot to carry in my coveralls. has anyone used the new optio W60 or the Olympus 1030 SW or the Sealife sl321 ecoshot. I really like the optional wide angle lens for the ecoshot- but have found limited reviews.

[YuccaPatrol]

I'm in the same situation as you, as I recently lost my Optio W20 to baggage handlers at the airport.

I've decided to get the W60 because it has one critical feature that I like: It can be set up to automatically take shots at intervals. I use it to get close up photos of birds that come to feed somewhere. Set it up on a tripod and tell it to take a photo every 10 seconds and come back an hour or two later and see what I got. I really want to use this to get photos of hummingbirds feeding from our garden flowers.

The olympus has better specs for waterproof and shock, but this is not my underwater diving camera, and I really prefer Pentax's user interface over Oly's.

I would stay away from the sealife cameras. I saw one of them last year and was seriously unimpressed. It is essentially a generic chinese camera inside SeaLife's own underwater housing. You could do much much better getting a Canon or Olympus camera and using one of their underwater housings.

Right now, my caving camera is an old 5MP Olympus 5000 in an underwater housing. I use it for long exposures in caves since it can be set for up to a 15 second timed exposure. But it is quite bulky and heavy compared to my favorite little Pentax Optio. Olympus sells their overstock warehouse items on ebay and some incredible deals can be had on their underwater housings. $30 for a new underwater housing from them and $30-50 for a used camera and you can put together a pretty nice cave-proof rig for about $100 or less.

But still, I need something to replace My Optio W20 since that was the durable little camera I always loved to carry in a pocket wherever I went. . . .

[NZcaver]

I'm in the same situation as you, as I recently lost my Optio W20 to baggage handlers at the airport.

Very sad. Are you sure TSA didn't confiscate it for "national security" reasons? Yes, I'm a little jaded after losing an item or two myself this way, either courtesy of security personnel or the baggage handlers. Unfortunately bad apples can exist anywhere, I guess.

Anyway, I don't have personal experience with Pentax but I know some cavers who swear by the little waterproof models for in-cave convenience. I'll second your advice about Olympus and Canon models with their waterproof housings - I own both types and they work well.

[YuccaPatrol]

I'll second your advice about Olympus and Canon models with their waterproof housings - I own both types and they work well.

Me too. Generally, I feel that the Canon cameras are the better cameras, but Olympus underwater housings seem to be a bit nicer with their metal buttons and latches as well as better lens protection. Too bad a Canon camera will never fit inside an Olympus housing. . . . .

But I still want to replace my Pentax Optio. Having something so small and generally cave-proof means that I am not afraid to pull it out and take the photo that I would not take with an unprotected camera or a bulky camera that I have to dig out of a pack. Even if these little cameras are not the most spectacular cameras, they give one the chance to take a photo that would otherwise never be taken.

I might just look for a replacement W20 or W30 instead of the W60 if I can get one for a great deal. Both are nice and the new W60 is only an evolutionary step forward, not a revolutionary one.

[Ozarkistan]

im leaning more toward the olympus- it seems much more cave proof-- waterproof to 33 ft--- crushproof to 220 lbs/ft-- shockproof to 6 ft.... the optio does seem to have a better lense- slightly wider and a bit more optical zoom (i consider digital zoom to be worhtless- i can do that with gimp or photoshop). these cameras are both for quick pictures- something i dont want to set up a tripod and SLR for. i had the first generation optio wp- there are several incarnations since then- so anything should be step up. with that said - the optio is a more mature model line. still waiting for someone to tell me the 1030 is the messiah of cave cameras, i suppose.

[urubullino]

Hi
I´m from brazil and I need to know if my 1030 sw is broken...
The pictures shot in high speed drive mode are very different than shot in normal mode.
The pictures seem like cellphone pictures.
Is it normal or is my camera broken?
PIC 1 - NORMAL (1mp)
PIC 2 - HIGH SPEED DRIVE (1mp)

[YuccaPatrol]

Your camera is not broken.

In the high speed mode, it drops from a very high resolution 10 megapixel image down to a 3 megapixel image. It has to do this in order for it to take 5 photos a second. Sadly, you have to sacrifice image quality for speed in this mode.

[urubullino]

look ... I shot these pictures with 1mp ... so , the problem is not the resolution.
I have another older cameras : Nikon coolpix 5200 and canon a70 . Both have fast burst and the pictures still like a normal mode.
If my camera is not broken Olympus is playing with consumers... One, because 10 sec for video and second because poor quality in continuous shooting.

[Ozarkistan]

i would imagine anything shot in 1m would look like crap...

it appears as if the camera used a higher iso setting to allow for shorter exposure thus resulting in increased speed ( alot of cameras are using "enhanced or expanded" iso capabilities- if someone can explain that technology to me , id appreciate it)

have to agree with yucca- the camera has to sacrifice something in order to increase its "picture taking speed" if there was a way to make it high speed without sacrificing anything- why wouldn't that be the default- either the camera is lowering the resolution, focusing with less precision, not auto evaluating lighting conditions as accurately or any combination of the aforementioned in order to increase speed. the camera could also be more intensively using the digital image stabilization- digital stabilization gives you a stable image but sacrifices other qualities to achieve this.


keep in mind - it is still a cheap point and shoot, the inverse relationship between speed and precision still applies in this situation.

[urubullino]

IS pentax w60 better than 1030 sw speaking about picture quality in burst mode ?
If it is, I will buy pentax w60 because quality of continuous shooting is an important point for me.
There is another option, sanyo xacti e2 (ca8). But it is a camcorder .
What do you think about it?

[ron_miller]

I have both a Pentax Optio W30 and Olympus Stylus 1030 SW, and strongly recommend the latter. It's certainly possible that the Pentax W60 addresses some of the problems I experienced with the W30, but it still lacks the shockproof rating of the Olympus, which for me would be the deciding factor.

I owned the Pentax Optio W30 first, but broke two LCD screens over the course of a year (once when I slipped on a steep muddy slope and landed on it while it was in its neoprene case in my pants pocket, and once when I went through a short belly crawl while it was in its neoprene case and tethered to my harness). After I replaced the second LCD screen (at a cost of $65 each to do it myself - Pentax wanted $120 to do the repair!), the waterproofing failed when I dipped the camera just below a water surface. Although I immediately disassembled the camera and thoroughly dried it, it now has a short of some type that causes it to completely drain the battery in a day, even while off.

I then purchased the Olympus Stylus 1030 SW, on the basis of the added "shockproof" rating. Several caving trips and submersions later, it is still functioning perfectly. I have found the Stylus 1030 SW to be a much better caving camera than the Optio W30 on several other fronts as well - it's much more responsive, the overall picture quality is much better, the autofocus works far better in low-light conditions, and low-light framing is much easier because the Stylus' screen "gains up" in low light. I also like the fact that the Stylus has an LED that you can use for super macro work. You can even have the LED on while the camera is off, so:
"It's not just a camera, it's also a tertiary light source!"

The only feature on the Optio that I miss on the Stylus is manual focus, and the much better low-light autofocus largely addresses that problem.

Obviously no camera can be expected to survive being exposed to true caving conditions for very long - I now use a small Otterbox (still small enough to fit in a pocket!) to protect the Stylus when traveling through caves.

[YuccaPatrol]

Ron,

Thanks for your comparison between the W30 and the Stylus 1030. After losing my W20 (very similar predecessor to the W30), I figured that I would get another Pentax. Although I never flooded my W20, I never had great confidence in its waterproof capabilities.

Although I will miss the interval shot feature that is fantastic for time lapse photos, I really might be best off with the much more durable case of the Olympus.

But since I'm on hold for buying anything new until after Bridge Day, I'll just have to wait a while.