Waterproof to 33 feet; shockproof design protects from drops up to 5 feed; also crushproof; coldproof and dustproof
14-megapixel resolution; wide-angle 5x internal optical zoom lens (28-140mm equivalent)
GPS functionality allows for positional data recording with images for geo-tagging applications
Capture video in widescreen 720p HD at 30 frames per second
Compativle with SD, SDHC, SDXC memory cards (not included)
This review is from: Pentax Optio WG-1 14 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with GPS and 5xOptical Zoom - GrayI bought this camera about 5 months ago and have taken about 1000 jpegs and perhaps 30 minutes of movies with it so far. Some pros and cons include:Pro:1) It's waterproof within the limits of their claim. I've taken it where it got quite wet (shooting pictures of a waterfall from close by, and in a heavy downpour while kayaking). Also, went into chest deep water in the ocean and got hit by lots of waves. Once the battery compartment door came wide open thru who knows what means. By sheer luck the compartment stayed dry. That flaw knocks the star rating down to two, now. Another downside: the lens can get water on it obviously, and so there's a need to keep it dried off to prevent water spots showing up on pictures. That is not so easily done, as I've discovered. Even with the lens dried with a microfiber cloth the left over smears can still show up on the image as bright white hot spots, so it takes considerable attention to really get the lens dry and smudge free when it's raining or otherwise getting wet. I felt a lot more comfortable taking it to such sites than some person I saw who tried holding an umbrella over a very expensive DSLR to keep the water off it, while juggling the focus and what not.2) It's very lightweight and compact.3) It's picture quality is adequate. The 14 megapixels aren't all they might suggest. I did a side-by-side-by-side comparison of the Pentax vs. a 5 year old 10 mp point-and-shoot by Canon, vs. my Nikon D90 which has 12 mp's. The Canon is just as good as the Pentax for overall picture quality. The Nikon naturally blows away both of them when it comes to optical sharpness. The sensor size is another factor to consider when buying a camera, and smaller sensors, built in to smaller cameras, reduce the quality of the image. I don't know what size the Nikon's or Canon's sensors are vs. the Pentax's, but camera body size obviously creates limitations for the Pentax.4) It's easy to use. 5) The macro and super macro are amazingly good and can get up very close (down to 1 cm). I haven't done a side by side comparison against a DSLR's macro lens, but I'm sure it would be tough for the Pentax to compete against that. But, it's still pretty impressive as to how close it can focus and how well. Cons:1) The GPS is SLOOOOW to acquire a location from a cold start, taking an average of 10-20 minutes, which is pathetic in my book. Maybe it's my imagination, but turning off the LCD screen at start up seems to allow the GPS acquiring a signal in about 5-10 minutes, which is better, but still pathetic compared to my iPhone which gets a signal in about 10-30 seconds. Turning it off for a short while and then restarting it may require several minutes to get the signal back. I wrote Pentax about this, and asked if it was normal. I never received a reply. So much for customer service. 2) The flash is anemic: 8-12 foot range (tele to wide angle)3) The camera feels very flimsy, like it's made with cheap plastic. Tradeoffs I guess, for the light weight, but it doesn't inspire confidence. The Canon is 12 oz. vs. the Pentax's 5-6 (without or with the carabiner buckle). But the Canon is build solidly, and has never broken after all these years of getting bounced around in my travels. The Pentax is made in Viet Nam, which also doesn't inspire confidence.4) The battery life is pathetic; it's mAh capacity is roughly equal to that of a single AAA battery. I went thru most of a charge in 2 hours of shooting, keeping it on for some of that time given how fast it loses the GPS signal, and how slow it reacquires it. My Canon has lasted me a solid week (on AA's, so they're easier and cheaper to swap out than a proprietary battery for the Pentax). I bought an OEM-equivalent battery through a company other than Pentax, which is about 30% bigger in capacity, and just $8. to buy, but I can't say it's noticeably longer lived on a practical level of taking shots. 5) There's no aperture- or shutter-preferred setting, just the idiotic icons ('kids at play' vs. 'sports' vs.... Just what those icons actually do, in terms of what shutter speed or aperture they're setting, is far from clear; the manual is about as un-technical as you can get, and skimps on all such issues.)6) There's no focus or exposure lock.7) There's no RAW setting, just jpeg. At the best setting, file sizes are about 4 megabytes, so a little compression/cropping of a picture takes a serious toll on quality very fast. 8) The face detection gadget doesn't work that well, especially if people are at some distance. So the camera may end up focusing on their leg (still ok as to focus, but who knows what it's doing to exposure). Or it focuses on something weird, like a tree in the foreground, throwing the focus off quite a bit. 9) There's no memory buffer, meaning that if you want to shoot several frames per second the only way to do so is by shrinking the size down to 5 megapixels, which makes for a much lower quality photo. You can slow the burst speed down to about one picture every 1-2 seconds and maintain a higher quality, but it won't capture the rapid motion of something happening, like some sports activity. 10) There's no cover over the lens, so that if you're in a wet environment while not using it, water will end up on the lens, and you have to remember to keep it dry before shooting. I assume the lack of a lens cover is to avoid a moving part that would get ...
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