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The Pentax w80 waterproof camera is what Pentax hypes it up to be.
It has a much faster shutter speed than the w60 with more zoom both optically and digitally which is very noticeable. With the extra 2 megapixels I can now use the high speed continuous shutter mode when out surfing without sacrificing much quality (there's a regular speed and a high speed). I didn’t use the high speed with the w60 because it was just too pixilated.
The HD video mode is quite impressive as well. The w80 has way less lag time when trying to quickly get off a video of a surfer on a beautiful wave coming at you. I also noticed that the shake reduction has improved over the w60 making it really nice for large widescreen HDTV playback.
The Pentax w80 2.5 inch viewer lets me follow the surfer having nice clarity even with the sun behind me without too much glare on it
Their waterproof digital cameras are very easy to use without ever having to read the instruction booklet. Even my mom (who doesn't even know how to email) can pull the w80 right out of the box and start using it. Now try that with an Olympus - no wayyy. Pentax was way ahead of the pack with this. If you have an old Pentax WPi (their first waterproof camera), then you already know how to use the w80 because the mode and selections are the same.
The down side about the w80 compared to the w60 is that it seems to kill the battery much faster and only lasts for about 1.5 hours (always turned on and taking lot of surfer shots or video). To compensate that, I turn it off now when not in use because I like to stay in the water surfing for 2 to 3 hours. It has only about a half a second start time between the time I push the “on” button and the time I can push the shutter button to take a instant surfer shot which is a lot faster than the w60.
Good going Pentax, impressive camera!!! The w80 is now the new benchmark for waterproof cameras.
Check out my surfer shots in a slide show using the w80 |
