looking for a small camera thats small, tough , waterproof if possible that can be just chucked in the back of the camelbak or pocket that takes reasonable pictures

whats out there that you can recommend ?

The Pentax Optio W series fits all your criteria, gives surprisingly good results (good quality lens, not too much noise reduction or oversaturation) and – should you want it – gives you a lot of control over its settings in addition to numerous auto modes, which is unusual for that type of camera. Plus it remembers settings when turned off and lets you configure some shortcuts – again unusual and extremely useful.

cheers Bez,

any more to consider ?

I've got the optio W60. Works well. Pictures are good if the light is good but it struggles in low light and glare. It is very tough and the waterproofing works. Configuration is good. There is a special button that lets you set the four function keys to a range of different options. I considered the Olympus range of waterproof cameras too as I've had good experience with them but the movie options weren't as good.

It lives on my rucksack strap skiing and biking so it is always to hand.

The best-known rugged ones are the Olympus but the image quality is generally poor even by compact standards. If you want something well-built with half decent results but not ruggedized then Canon is probably where to start looking. You'll want a bag for anything non-waterproof, though, even if it's dry – dust and grit will kill cameras at least as quickly as water. One good option is a small waterproof Lowepro case with D-rings, which you can krab to the shoulder strap(s) of your Camelbak.

just got the panasonic lumix ft1 as i wanted a camera to take out and not worry about breaking it and i'm impressed with the picture quality

I chose the Lumix after reading this review

Those pentax look great, how intuitive is it to use. I went from a canon ixus i to a ricoh gx100, as good as the ricoh is it's just to many features for me i want simple plus pocket-able is a definite plus. Guess the pentax doesn't do raw files.

Anyone used both canon and pentax to compare?

also there is the new canon D10 but that's quite big for a compact

I chose the Lumix after reading this review

dead in the water: "The TS1 averaged about 2.5 seconds to write an image out to card"

2.5 secs?

I don't care as long as it fits in a jersey pocket and doesn't absorb sweat.

The TS1 is great, haven't noticed any real lag when taking pictures.

I've got an Olympus waterproof one. Yes, the photos aren't AMAZING but they are good enough for me! I think the bonus is that I get to take kayaking photos on the river- that would never happen otherwise.

Gee rockthreegozy that looks great, don't think I'd have the bottle or skill to do that, respect! Have you seen that crazy kayaking on youtube?

Its good fun.. un-nerving for a second or so when 14st of paddler in a 7ft+ boat looks like this..

@tails:

No, it doesn't do raw. As for the UI it kind of straddles the ground between an Ixus and a Ricoh. I'm a Ricoh user and love the configurability of them, and the Pentax has much of that (most notably the green button can be configured to cycle through up to four common settings, just like the Adj button on the Ricoh). But it's also got dozens of auto modes if that's your bag. I just leave it in Program mode (unlik the Ricoh where that's about as auto as it gets, on the Optio that's as manual as it gets) with the green button cycling through compensation, sensitivity and WB.

A big bonus with the Optio is having the fixed focus modes that the Ricoh has: pan (aka snap) focus and infinity. This means no autofocus so the camera responds virtually instantly, and depth of field on a small sensor is so huge that accurate focus isn't important for anything over a couple of feet away. I wish more compacts had fixed focus modes.

Canons always irritate me in failing to remember various settings when powered down (eg they always seem to revert to auto flash) – the Pentax lets you select from a list of about a dozen things to remember or forget when powered down.

(BTW mine is the W20, they may have come on a bit since then.)

rock does that chap on the boulder jump in, in emergancy?

thanks for taking the time to write that bez, I looked at halfbee review and am now a little more confused.

Looking at some other reviews it does seem that Pentax didn't make a great fist of going from the 35mm lens on the W10/20/30 to the 28mm on the 60/80. Which is a shame – if the 28 didn't have a load of barrel distortion I'd be tempted to upgrade.

My Canon ixus got damp on a recent ride and now the image screen rolls upwards all the time. Wouldn't recommend one of those anymore! I've an ancient olympic mju which would have stood up to the conditions far better

think i might buy one that looks nice sure it will work
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