I want a camera I can take kayaking.

Requirements:
1) Must have a viewfinder.
2) Must be water-resistant. This does not mean waterproof, I am not going diving with this camera. But if it gets splashed on, or even briefly submerged, I want it to keep working.
3) Must have a minimum of 6x optical zoom, with 2x or 4x digital zoom.
4) Must be priced less than $250

This camera will not be gently treated, it is going to get banged around and wet. It doesn't need to be some tiny digital marvel that fits in a shirt pocket, form factor doesn't matter.

Is there anything out there that even comes close?

tanstaafl.

See, didn't we tell you that you'd need an SLR eventually.



Oh... never mind, then.


No. You are going to have to bend on one (or probably more) of your requirements.

Now-a-days, digital point-n-shoot cameras generally do away with the viewfinder, relying instead on the rear LCD. Certainly, none of the waterproof cameras have a viewfinder. If you insist on a viewfinder (and I know those LCD screens can be hard to see in bright light), then you're relegated to something else + a waterproof case. And those are usually spendy (unless you're looking at one of the clear vinyl bags, which kinda suck for utility).

Any manufacturer that makes something "water-resistant" has generally gone the whole hog, and just made the camera waterproof. Personally, given your usage scenario, you don't want water-resistant, anyway -- when I hear that, I think "can handle a bit of rain." Typically I've seen this marketed as "weather resistant" or something like that. But once you start talking "briefly submerged," you need waterproof, if you want something guaranteed to keep working.

Because of their form-factor, most of the available waterproof cameras top out at 4-5x optical zoom, with the exception being the Speedo camera, which has 8x optical zoom. The all also have 4-5x digital zoom. Except, of course, the Speedo, which has none. (But dang it, Doug, when are we going to convince you that in-camera digital zoom is terrible, and you're better off doing the crop/scale on your PC at home?).

I'd go with one of the Canon, Nikon, or Olympus waterproof cameras. I like the menus on the Nikon and Olympus, but I like the ability to use CHDK on the Canon. Any of them would be a fine camera at your price-point.

I was very happy with my Olympus TG-2 (they have a TG-3 out now I think). It was rugged enough to take snorkeling, taking pics and video underwater in the Pacific ocean with no special case or precautions. Just take the camera straight into the water and out again. That thing took most of my pictures in Kauai, and the DSLR stayed put away most of the time. I was quite happy with it. Example photos attached (all sized to 50 percent and data-compressed to make them fit the BBS limitations easier).

However, the only reason I chose the TG-2 above the other possible rugged/waterproof cameras was because it got top marks for having correct color balance when taking underwater photos, which was my primary goal for the camera. If you're not taking underwater photos then you can get any of the ruggedized waterproof compact cameras on the market, and get them based on their feature set. My TG-2 would not have met your zoom requirement without an extra attachment lens (which I got, but which I found out was a hassle that was not worth it).

Recommend making your choice based on a good read through of the DPReview waterproof camera group test.

Your review resulted in the most comments I have seen outside of a console fanboy war or the smoker 'disagreements' that happen

Sadly, you're not going to find a camera with all those requirements. Optical viewfinders just aren't done anymore on point and shoots.

I know you don't need a waterproof camera, but I don't think there are any water resistant cameras. Besides, I'm not sure a water resistant anything is a good idea for kayaking. I don't care how brief a submerging it gets.

I know it doesn't meet some of your requirements, but GoPro just announced new cameras today, and one of them was a $129 entry-level camera. It doesn't have a viewfinder, and unfortunately it doesn't have a zoom at all, but it's half your budget and waterproof.

I wouldn't recommend a GoPro for Doug, at all. It's an ultra wide-angle fixed focal length video camera that incidentally has a photo mode. The wide-angle lens is pretty much the complete opposite of his zoom requirement. It's (IMO) clearly not suitable for the type of photography that Doug enjoys, and would want to do on the water.

Exactly.

This picture was shot from shore at a distance of about 50 meters, using 35mm equivalent focal length of 600mm, f4@1/1300 sec. You don't get that picture with a 3:1 zoom, squinting in bright sunlight at a washed-out screen with the camera waving around a foot in front of your face.

It was taken during our annual "Kids Day" event in which we introduce children to the joys of kayaking. The water is maybe two feet deep, and a club member holds onto a rope tied to the back of the kayak. Under those conditions, relatively few of the kids actually drown.

tanstaafl.

FWIW, my dad's solution to that was a cheap LCD loup/hood strapped to the camera (an early model of what became the Olympus Tough series).

Could you find the camera you wanted - or one reasonably close?

(It's quiet... Too quiet!)

-jk

No. What I want doesn't exist.

So... I will have to compromise on my requirements. Clearly I have to give up the waterproof idea. From the reviews I have read, inexpensive waterproof cameras are only waterproof the first couple of times they are used, then they leak and the camera is ruined.

So, I'll give up the convenience of waterproof, carry the camera in a Zip-Loc bag, and take it out when I want to use it. Now, I just need to find a 6x or better optical zoom camera with a viewfinder, priced under $200. If it gets wet and ruined, c'est la vie.

OK, less than $200 and viewfinder are mutually exclusive. But this comes close, and the specs on the camera so far exceed my requirements that I can live with the extra cost. The manual zoom control is worth the extra money all by itself, and the 30x optical zoom (with 2x digital if I want it) is just gravy.

Biggest downside I see is low light capability, it is not a fast lens, especially at the longer zoom ranges. (My current camera is f2.8 from 25 to 600mm, or 25-2400mm when using digital zoom, plus a built-in flash that is good to over 40 feet.) Since I only kayak in the daytime, low light won't be too much of a problem.

For an extra $42 I can buy an extended warranty that supposedly covers accidental damage. I'm waiting to hear from them if it will cover damage from being dropped in the water. They'll probably say that they cover water damage only for waterproof cameras.

I haven't pulled the trigger on buying the camera yet, I'll think about it a few days first.

tanstaafl.

I don't think you will. I compose my pictures in the camera. I don't take wide-view pictures with the idea that later I can get rid of the stuff I didn't want in the first place.

That's another reason that my absolute unbreakable requirement for a camera is a 100% viewfinder. I don't need the distraction of extraneous stuff in my field of view when I am composing my shot.

tanstaafl.

I expected not.

Likewise -- to the limits of my optics, and my ability to physically move closer to/farther from the subject.

Well, technically, you are taking a wide-view picture, regardless of what the viewfinder is showing you. Once you hit the limits of the physical optics of your lens, that's what you get. Digital zoom is simply selecting a smaller region of the sensor pixels, and interpolating data -- exactly like doing a crop/scale in image-processing software on a wide-view picture, only using a (usually) worse resampling algorithm due to hardware constraints, for the sake of immediacy.

If you're happy with the quality of your digital zoom, though, stick with it.

Jumping in late to this thread:

GoPro and related "action" cameras won't work for this problem because they're fisheye wideangle lenses. D-SLR cameras won't work because they're too expensive for the budget.

What fits the budget are either "waterproof" cameras of the sort listed in the DPReview listing that Tony posted, or "regular" compact cameras plus a waterproof housing. Unless you're trying to go really deep (and you're not), then it's all for the "waterproof" cameras.

You're not getting an optical viewfinder in any of these cameras. If it's any consolation, the brightness of the rear-camera screens has gotten really good, even in broad daylight. Just don't wear polarized sunglasses, since they tend to already have a polarizing filter in front of them for antiglare purposes.

I thought the polarizing filter was a necessary component of the displays.

There was even a post somewhere a year or three back, where some guy removed the polarizing filter from his notebook so that airline passengers seated next to him couldn't read his display. He used polaroid sunglasses when using it so that he could still read it.

I'm not entirely sure what's up with the polarizer, but if you're wearing polarizing glasses and you turn the camera sideways, the display disappears. It can make shooting with the camera on its side a bit of a contortion.

Same trick works with most LCD displays on various devices. My smartphone is very difficult to read when I have the clip-on polarizing lenses over my glasses, for the same reason.

There is a huge variety of LCD screens out there, most of them affected by polarized lenses in one way or another.

One of the interesting things about the iPhone 6 screen is that it appears completely free of this issue. I don't know how they do it, but you can view it from any angle with polarized glasses and there are no visible changes in the light output as you move the phone.

Interesting. That's impressive. My 4s is readable with polarized glasses, but it's dimmer, and some of the colors are dimmer than others, giving it a weird appearance.

I wonder what is special about the 6's screen. It must be doing something new and special with the screen technology to get its job done, since LCDs traditionally depend on polarization twist to do their job.

I was hoping DisplayMate tested the screens when viewed through polarized lenses found in sunglasses, but sadly they don't.

Still lots of interesting tidbits about the iPhone 6 and 6 plus screens. The Plus in particular is being highly praised by them for its improvements.

http://www.displaymate.com/iPhone6_ShootOut.htm

It does mention "Improved Polarizers", but no detail given.

Funny enough, something I just noticed in the car:

The dashboard LCD display suffers badly when viewed through my polarized sunglasses, but the handheld / windscreen-mounted Garmin GPS looks perfectly good through them. I wonder if the iPhone6 display is that good?

Cheers

Ah, but does it look good from all angles ?

Several of my devices are fine from one or more directions. So far however the iPhone 6 screen is the first to look exactly the same from every direction/angle.

Yes, this particular Garmin unit looks great from all angles, even with the polarized sunglasses. Nifty!