I was just about to confirm on the Panasonic underwater camera, comes another waterproof, shockproof and dustproof camera for my consideration. Now, I got too many to choose from. In terms on brand, there are three so far, but in terms of models, there are 5 from Olympus alone.

This 12 Megapixels resolution camera is waterproof to 10m, 2m shockproof, -10°C freezeproof and crushproof up to up to 100kg. Much better than Panasonic DMC-FT1.

I tested the µ Tough-6000 before and it’s quite light. Since this is from the same family, I assume it is too. Anyway, need to find some time to check out this µ TOUGH-8000 and the Panasonic.

Advertised price is RM1,499.

[update: 27 May 2009] – At Foto Shangrilla Ikano Power Center, if I get the name right, the price is RM1,350 plus 4GB of memory card. That is just by asking what’s the price, no negotiation yet.

At first there’s only Olympus that features the rugged type of cameras, now looks like Canon and Panasonic have started to do the same.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT1 comes with 12.1 Megapixels resolution, 4.6x optical zoom. It’s 3.0m waterproof and 1.5m shockproof. One thing I like about this camera are the Intelligetn Auto and AVCHD Lite features. According to Panasonic :

FT1 make it even easier to take HD (High-Definition) motion images by adding a movie button and AVCHD Lite, which lets you take beautiful, long-time HD movies. You can also use the iA mode to shoot motion images, and let the camera do all the work for you. This user-friendly mode automatically selects the most suitable Scene mode and helps correct blurring, focus and brightness problems. All you do is aim and shoot. iA is the easy way to capture beautiful HD movies.

DMC-FT1 will really compliment my Plasma TV, I can just shoot, slot the SD card and watch the photos. No more cables. It also has a HDMI output, not sure what is it for, maybe the video taken could be watched directly? Have to take some time to find out more about this. Matta fair in two weeks time, usually there’s a Fotokem promotion as well.

[Update: 9 Nov 2009] I have bought this camera for RM1499 with 2 4GB memory card. If you want to see the quality of some of the videos I took underwater. Please refer to these posts – Feed The Fish and Snorkeling Trip. For still pictures, refer to this post. For the videos, please view in HD for better picture quality.