If you fancy yourself a bit of a Bear Grylls, you’re going to want to capture your feats of rock climbing, swimming through freezing lakes and leaping over deep gorges in a single bound. To do this, you’re going to need a camera that can take a knock and the Pentax Optio W90 does just that.
This camera is waterproof down to 20 feet, shockproof to 4 feet, and is even freezeproof, so you can even take it to your next Scandinavian jaunt.
Just because it can take on the roughest of terrains, that doesn’t mean it lacks on quality, shooting at 12 megapixels.
It sports a 5x f3.5-5.5 28-140mm-equivalent lens as well as a roomy 2.7 inch high-brightness LCD screen on the back.
What is quite nifty is a series of three tiny LCDs around the lens to help you illuminate macro shots via Pentax’s Digital Microscope mode, which lets you take pictures of subjects less than an inch away from the camera.
The W90 stands out from other outdoor cameras thanks to built-in Wi-Fi capability so you can send photos and videos from camera straight to your PC or website. It also comes equipped with Eye-Fi SD memory cards for media storage.
The camera also has Face Detection AF & AE function to instantly identify faces so you can ensure you look sharp as you dangle precariously from a tree branch.
For particularly exciting action shots, the W90 shoots 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. There is also a miniHDMI output for direct playback on an HDTV or your computer.
To ensure it can withstand the most extreme of conditions, the case itself is built from reinforced polycarbonate plastic, and the camera can dangle from your wrist on a carabiner strap. There’s even an optional floating strap you can buy separately if you plan to create an underwater album.
The W90 is available for around the £216 mark, and looks set to be one of the more impressive contenders for rugged camera of 2010.
Do you need a camera to take a lot of action shots? Leave us a comment and let us know.
Popularity: 38% [?]
Tags: camera news, Digital Camera, optio, pentax
I’m really looking forward to grabbing one of these this summer. I owned a Pentax Optio W30, and it’s my favorite digital camera I’ve used to date. It broke awhile back, so I’m in need of a new one, the W90 looks like the route I’ll be taking.
Honest points raised here. I am grateful to you for that, nevertheless you deserve more thanks than that. I have colour blindness. I principally use Opera browser and consider a number of web sites are challenging to perceive thanks to a careless range of colors used. However, here, as the range of colours is great, the design is highly tidy and enjoyable to comprehend. I don’t know whether it was a planned and conscious undertaking, or just the ‘luck of the draw’, but I nevertheless thank you.