Blade Canyon
Senior Member
I bought the Nikon AW120 compact camera for a sailing trip to Bermuda next week. When we made the same sail 13 years ago, 3 different cameras were destroyed by salt water. In testing, I have been very pleased with both the still pictures and the video of this waterproof camera.
The AW120 has 16mp and is more than waterproof... you can shoot underwater, even in salt water! (If it goes in salt water, the instructions say to soak it in fresh water for at least 10 minutes, then dry it, before you open it to charge the battery or to change the memory card.)
The HD video looks good, which you can see in the very first clip in this Flickr album from last weekend:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/41728000@N08/sets/72157652333709672/
All images and video in that album were made with the AW120.
The camera is $250 new. It does not have a viewfinder, which makes it tough to use accurately in bright sunlight because the screen gets washed out. It has a GPS feature, but if you use that then the GPS stays on for up to six hours after you turn off the camera, draining your battery super fast. I'm leaving that off.
It has an electronic compass and also a built in altimeter, which is not very accurate. I was at sea level, so I manually reset the camera to 3 feet above sea level. An hour later, the camera said I was 157 feet below sea level. I kept resetting it back to sea level, but it made no difference, the numbers jumped everywhere.
The camera also has built in Wifi, which is not something I use much now, but I might haul this camera up the mast during our sail, then use my phone to trigger some pictures.
Overall, however, I am impressed with the rugged construction and the quality of the photographs this camera can produce.
Here's a very short video:
The AW120 has 16mp and is more than waterproof... you can shoot underwater, even in salt water! (If it goes in salt water, the instructions say to soak it in fresh water for at least 10 minutes, then dry it, before you open it to charge the battery or to change the memory card.)
The HD video looks good, which you can see in the very first clip in this Flickr album from last weekend:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/41728000@N08/sets/72157652333709672/
All images and video in that album were made with the AW120.
The camera is $250 new. It does not have a viewfinder, which makes it tough to use accurately in bright sunlight because the screen gets washed out. It has a GPS feature, but if you use that then the GPS stays on for up to six hours after you turn off the camera, draining your battery super fast. I'm leaving that off.
It has an electronic compass and also a built in altimeter, which is not very accurate. I was at sea level, so I manually reset the camera to 3 feet above sea level. An hour later, the camera said I was 157 feet below sea level. I kept resetting it back to sea level, but it made no difference, the numbers jumped everywhere.
The camera also has built in Wifi, which is not something I use much now, but I might haul this camera up the mast during our sail, then use my phone to trigger some pictures.
Overall, however, I am impressed with the rugged construction and the quality of the photographs this camera can produce.
Here's a very short video:
