Being professional photographers, one of the most common questions we get is: “What’s a good point and shoot camera?”

Since we often don’t really use point and shoots very often, we thought it would be useful to post short reviews of the ones we have shot to put all that information in one place on our blog.

This particular review is on the Pentax Optio W80 Waterproof Digital Camera which we only purchased to use underwater.  For regular shots I guess it’s adequate for the price and such, but one camera that I really like is the Samsung SL620 which a friend of mine has.  That camera takes the best shots straight up whether it’s day or night.

Back to the W80, underwater it does a nice job.  The video worked really well during the day when we tested it in Las Vegas.  I’m not sure how well it holds up if it’s not as bright out, but I suspect most folks would be using this in the sun when they are on a tropical vacation.  So as far as waterproof point-and-shoot cameras go, I can say it does the job when submerged, but I can’t say I’m super impressed with the image quality at higher ISOs (although most of the P&S’s fail in that respect).

(Photo courtesy of Pentax)