DPREVIEW.com has completed their waterproof camera shootout! Canon PowerShot D10 WINS!!!!

Source: dpreview.com

Test cameras:

• Canon PowerShot D10
• Fuji FinePix Z33WP
• Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 (mju Tough 8000 in Europe)
• Olympus Stylus Tough 6000 (mju Tough 6000 in Europe)
• Pentax Optio W60

Results:

Image quality: outdoors / daylight

In good light the Canon and Pentax models are a cut above the rest. While the D10 beats the W60 by way of its higher level of in-camera sharpening, the W60 comes back with a wider zoom range. Despite the D10 having a higher resolution sensor than the W60 the actual detail resolved is fairly close. So here we have judged them equal best of the bunch.

The Olympus Tough 6000 is slightly better the the Tough 8000 and Fuji Z33, and manages to resolve better detail than its bigger brother despite the 8000 having more megapixels. In good light all of these cameras should be able to produce an image that is good enough for a nice print at 8×10 or under, or for web viewing resolutions, but taking a closer look reveals that the D10 and W60 are clearly better than the other cameras in this group.

• Best of the bunch: Canon Powershot D10, Pentax Optio W60
• Middle of the road: Olympus Tough 6000
• Bottom of the class: Olympus Tough 8000, FujiFilm Z33 WP

Image quality: Low light / High ISO

High ISO image quality is more difficult to judge as the Canon and Pentax take a different approach to noise reduction. The D10 is more heavy handed, and while there is less visible noise, there is also less detail left behind and the high amount of chroma noise reduction makes the image seem desaturated. The W60 on the other hand leaves behind more noise and noise reduction artifacts, but also manages to retain more detail. Which is better is matter of personal preference, so we have judged them joint winners in this section of the test.

Of the other three cameras the Tough 6000 manages to retain just enough detail to be better than the Tough 8000 and Z33 – which both reduce the details in the image to not much more than watercolor-like smudges.

• Best of the bunch: Canon Powershot D10, Pentax Optio W60
• Middle of the road: Olympus Tough 6000
• Bottom of the class: Olympus Tough 8000, FujiFilm Z33 WP

Image quality / performance: Flash

Here the winner is clear. The D10 managed to get the balance between ambient light and flash illumination just right to produce the most pleasing image of the whole group.

• Best of the bunch: Canon Powershot D10
• Middle of the road: Pentax Optio W60, Olympus Tough 6000
• Bottom of the class: Olympus Tough 8000, FujiFilm Z33 WP

Image quality / performance: Underwater

The purpose of this group test was to test waterproof cameras, and underwater they all seemed to work pretty well, but the D10 (which seems to have been designed first and foremost to work well underwater) was both the best performer and the easiest to use, with a clear interface and big buttons. The W60 slips behind here because the interface was not as easy to use, and sharpness and detail was just not as good as the D10.

• Best of the bunch: Canon Powershot D10, Pentax Optio W60
• Bottom of the class: Olympus Tough 6000, Olympus Tough 8000, FujiFilm Z33 WP

Full article and results on dpreview.com: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q209waterproofgroup/

Tags: Waterproof Cameras

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Electronics, Fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.