Advice sought,

I am looking for a boat friendly digital compact camera.

I bought an Olympus M 850 waterproof one but the screen is hopeless in bright sunlight. I can exchange it for another camera.

what has worked for you?

Thanks David

I have a Fuji with the view finder as well-its electronic in that you see zoom functions etc. thru view finder-sure everyone knows as well that no matter how mant Mps  the Camera is its no better than its lense.

And of course if your screen goes!-my grandson recently destroyed my son in laws v.expensive example.

Something to be said for a good lense but not too expensive so when the spray destroys it-never forget a really good 35 mm auto I had-last picture it ever took was of a wave coming over the sea wall at Blackpool in very extreme conditions!

Phil

I'm on my third Kodak. Cheap, cheerful, easy to use and provide decent pictures. They take the commonly used SD card and are fairly robust though far from water-resistant. My last example went over the quay wall of a drying harbour and was recovered at low tide - I washed the SD card in fresh water, dried it and recovered the pictures on it. It is still in use!

Boating is a harsh environment and I think it is better to buy a slightly cheaper model capable of taking nice pics, than being devastated when your expensive pride and joy takes a wave. I have a Sea and Sea underwater camera in housing if I'm in lousy conditions or expect a dunking.

Hope this is of some help

Mine's a Fuji Finepix A607 .... with both LCD and Viewfinder, LCD switchable. It's probably no longer current model, but who cares it still takes good pictures and also is quick to record.

I have friends with expensive "35mm SLR" Professional style Digital Cameras - who take longer and chuff around before taking their shots. XX MPixs and all sorts of tricks available on them. I take my shot and move on with them still there ... Yes they have pictures that can be epanded up to mega size, but how many times do you need that ?

Funny thing is though is my latest Mobile Phone - Nokia 6280 with 2 mpix video and still camera facility, which is now used so much even in my work - photographing ships damage / cargoes etc.

Fo those that have seen my Swedish Archipelago / river trips / private mooring photos etc. most are from that mobile phone camera with odd from the Fuji camera.

So far I haven't seen need to get more serious - even though photo'ing "x million $" cargoes etc. !! 

My wife has an old Canon pocket camera which I bought for her about five years ago and frequently borrow. It has a resolution of about 4 mega pixels, an optical zoom, a veiwing screen and a veiw finder.

The main disadvantage is that it's slow so you'll have to be very lucky with any action type shots but it's advantage is that it can be in your pocket when an SLR wouldn't be!

The lens quality on any of this type of camera will be a comprimise and will always be the limiting factor in picture quality. They will particularly suffer from barrel distortion to a greater or lesser extent. If you took a photo of a square or rectangular object where the lines of the object were close to the edges of the screen; the lines will curve outwards.

If you are only trying to record events rather than taking technically superb, award winning photographs, they are fine.

However, I can't help feeling that many of the more modern compact cameras are loosing the plot. Leaving out the veiw finder is a big mistake because none of the screems will be good enough in bright sunlight and why such high resolution now? A 4 mega pixel camera will produce photos of around 1 mega byte each and that is more than adequate for veiwing on even a TV screen. At 1MB each; they can be digitally stored quite easily and e mailed around for work etc. At that size they are usable and manageable. 

I guess the marketing ploy is that people will believe that more mega pixels must be better but with the photos from some of the higher resolution cameras taking up 4 or more MB of memory, they can become a pain in the butt.

They may well be able to produce high resolutuion screens cheaply but the sure as hell can't make high quality lenses on the cheap. Oh, and by the way, if you really needed quality; you would use a fixed focal legnth lens, not a zoom.

ive got a pentax optio w 30 with 2gb card waterproof to 3m dust proof i use it for underwater phots high sensitivity 7.1 meg video loads of mode options good size screen 3 times optical zoom and £120.00 dixons on line card from memory bits .com £20 scandisc extreme 111 around 700 photos brill best of luck

Liz MacInally wrote (see)

On a boat the imprtant thing is to have the camera about your person when the elusive photo opportunity arrives, whether it is the broaching whale, the basking shark or the storm petrel hurtling by.  I carry my Nikon D70 SLR on the boat, but it stays in its case most of the time in a locker.  What I actually use, and have on me all the time, is my mobile phone, with its 2.0 megapixel camera, which takes photos of really good enough quality for illustrating my sailblog, wothout my needing to crop and tweak and reduce size and resolution on a laptop while sailing.  I recommend a mobile phone camera. 

Which I totally agree with .... see my earlier post. My Swedish Cruise was mainly Phone Camera shots, with odd Fuji ones when I thouht it would give better shot. TBH - hard to tell difference !!

Thanks for raising this - its really helpful.

I was just about to buy the Olympus M850, but now I'll save the £200 and dig out an old compact 35mm. Brilliant idea.

OK - but a) The 35mm is limited in photos to the film capacity, b) with digital you can erase duff photos, c) you generally have far greater number of photos can be taken.

a) Generally 24 or 36 and films full. Then processing !

b) means you can take many shots of same and get it right !

c) My camera phone can take over 150 photos on the card presently in it, my Fuji camera can take near 300 on present card.

Plus no processing, no visit to developers unless you want professional prints of digi's. Record to CD and pass on to friends, e-mail shots .........

QED !

For general use I find the disposable cameras are a good bet. They're quicker and easier to get that elusive shot of the dolphin on the rise and who cares about them getting wet? They can be thrown around and used in an instant and the developed film can be put on disc at Boots etc. 

Wheras the Canon (above) does for everything else, most of which comes close to my old Nikon SLR which sadly has not been out of the bottom drawer for over ten years.

Hi Nigel,

my Canon does the quick shots too, but are you prepared to toss yours back down onto the nav desk from the cockpit and not be concerned when it falls around or gets wet? 

I buy the very cheap disposables, 6 to a pack form Tesco normally.  Not such good lenses perhaps, but great to stuff into a  trouser pocket etc ready for use.  cheers, Scotty