Rugged Camera Roundup 2010

About a month ago, I noticed that several of the major camera companies were putting out some rugged, waterproof, and generally durable cameras, something I’ve always said is a very good thing. Everybody carries around their camera as if it were a three-hundred-dollar egg — why aren’t they sturdier? So now we’ve the fully ruggedized cameras from Casio, Fujifilm, and Olympus, along with the new Playsport pocket camcorder from Kodak. I’ll be subjecting to the usual image quality tests, and also checking their purported rough-and-tumble character.

Panasonic couldn’t get theirs out to me in time, but I guess four is enough. We’ll get the TS2 later.

So, all of these cameras (big version of header image here) are waterproof and shockproof to various degrees. I’m headed out to Volunteer Park to give them a good time. I don’t feel like diving 30 feet into Lake Washington to test the Olympus, though, so a dip in the duck pond is going to have to suffice.

The first review (and the omnibus video) should be going up tomorrow, and then I’ll do a roundup and comparison at the end of the week.

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