Waterproof digital cameras are ideal for people who spend a lot of their time in the outdoors, especially in wet places – climatically or situational! This would include people living around the wettest places on earth – Cherapunji in India (till some years back the place with the highest amount of annual rainfall), the tropical rain forests stretching across Central as well as South America, Africa and Asia. Others, for whom waterproof digital cameras would rank high in preference, are hikers, kayakers, boat people, skiers, fishermen, wildlife photographers (amateur and professional), divers and those who love snorkelling. Another group of people who depend a lot on these kinds of cameras are contractors and engineers working at remote and not so remote sites where images have to be clicked of material arriving or departing, construction in progress, etc. in very inclement weather and climatic conditions. Good waterproof digital cameras can take a lot of abuse, whether it is in watery or snowy situations. A person can be sure of getting better photos in extreme conditions using these types of cameras as compared to normal digital cameras. As of the middle of 2009, companies that manufacture at least one model of waterproof digital cameras include Olympus, Canon, Ricoh, Pentax, Fujifilm and Panasonic. 

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Among the brands mentioned above, the Canon PowerShot D10 model is one of the best, however it is the chunkiest – and would do better hanging from a wrist strap rather than fit into a pocket. Olympus has 5 models in the Stylus series; 850 SW, 1030 SW, 1050 SW, Tough 6000 and, one of the best options among all the brands – the Tough 8000, which is impervious to shocks, water, being frozen or crushed. Olympus was the first company manufacturing cameras that came up with fully weatherproof casings for their 35 mm models – long before digital cameras had come into the market. Their Olympus Stylus 720 SW model was also the first shock and waterproof digital camera available in the market. The first waterproof digital camera was manufactured by Pentax in 2004 – 2005. The other brands mentioned above entered the waterproof digital camera market very recently; starting late in 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. Panasonic Lumix TS1 has a 12 mega-pixel camera with 720p HD video and image stabilisation features – the last 2 characteristics being unique to it among all the cameras in this category at the time of its launch. Fujifilm’s Z33WP is one of the more basic cameras in the range and being only waterproof, has been very competitively priced. Canon, on the other hand, came up with an egg shaped camera in the PowerShot D10 with a whole lot of features, including image stabilisation, 12 mega-pixel sensor, freeze-proof, shockproof (at 4 feet) and waterproof (till 33 feet). 

People tend not to realise how handy these waterproof digital cameras are, whether or not they lead highly outdoor lives. Families going to the beach or just lazing around their swimming pools are sure to appreciate the fact that moisture, sand and other foreign objects are not going to enter these rather expensive waterproof digital cameras and damage the memories captured therein. Although it is a fact that almost all these kinds of cameras have compromised somewhat on the quality of the pictures that are clicked, it is far better than a ‘point and shoot camera’ or even the cameras professional photographers use, including 35 mm ones, where a little water seeping inside the instrument can cause fungal growth, rust up the mechanism or in extreme cases destroy the whole camera itself … beyond repair. So, for those who can afford to have numerous cameras, the waterproof digital camera should be an essential part of the collection. And for those who plan to buy a multipurpose digital camera, good for taking reasonably good photographs inside and outside a house, in rain, snow or shine, humid or bone dry environments, I would think that a waterproof digital camera among all the models mentioned earlier would be the first choice!