I posted this in the other thread, but I'll put it here for completeness sake. These are photos taken by CG1 & myself at Jackson hole, about at the same time... right when we got off the gondola. She's got an olympus 1050sw & I've got the pentax optio w60. We both had our cameras in snow mode, and both of these pics are unmanipulated by photo shop or picasa.

Her photo is first, my photo is 2nd. I have more purple flare in the center, which might be because the external glass cover over the lens is smeared iwth my fingerprints from wiping condensation off (I know, bad, but I was skiing)...

http://picasaweb.google.com/CondoInRich ... PentaxW60#

You have more sun glare in yours...I wonder if that made any diff?

I don't think so, all of her pics look like that... kinda on the brown side, lack of detail in the dark areas. Just less detail to me in general and a bit more noise.

I just added 2 more pics - the big cog on the tram.. hers is the first, mine is the 2nd... Not quite the same angle... but if you look at them mine just seems more sharp to me.

The second set of pics (cogs), CG1's picture seems truer in color. The steel beams look more gray than yours Cat which are kind of blue. That could be though because of the different angle? You may have had more of a shadow?

The first two pics, I like yours better. My friend is coming up from Yakima in a few weeks and she has the Olympus. I'm going to see if we can do the same sort of test.

I've kind of grown to like the Optio. Though I would like better video capabilities. I haven't been out to take pictures in the snow since, well, I don't have any!!

Alright, I'm uploading a lot more comparisons to the set. I like my pentax better

I like the Pentax photos better than the Olympus photos, which is good since I have a W60. I still will go to my Canon S3 over the W60, even though the Canon is 6MP and the Pentax is 10. The Canon takes better pictures, probably because it has a much better lens, but I think Canon makes some of the best cameras (internally) anyway.

The W60 is great for a pocket, and great for water park days and stuff, which is why I got it. The noise during focus/zoom is annoying on the videos, but that's what you get. The Canon is much better in the dark, too, again probably because of the lens.

The pentax has its strengths and definitely lots of weaknesses! But I have found that I can make it take a good picture, so I'm reasonably happy with it. For being handy, I don't have any other cameras that can compete with it... and being able to just put it in my life jacket in salt water and not worry is priceless!

I'm not hugely worried about video, so the pentax does fine whenever I do use it... However if I really wanted video to commemorate an event, I'd borrow my brother's video camera...

You can do a more thorough actually planned test... CG1 & I hadn't planned on doing it, it just occured to me when I was looking through the photos that I liked mine better, and then I started trying to match up scenes... which worked pretty well, because if one of us stopped to take a photo, the other one instantly pulled out their camera to try to take some as well. It's also somewhat funny because I was convinced her pictures were better than mine when looking at the pictures played back on both of the lcd screens on the cameras... the olympus has a nicer & possibly bigger lcd screen, so her pictures looked better on it than my pics looked on the optio screen...

But in both of our defenses since the composition is kinda off in some of these photos... neither of us could actually see the pictures on our lcd camera screens when taking them (no viewfinder on either camera)... so we were just kinda holding up the cameras and pointing at things hoping it would come out and be the picture we wanted to be taking... There was too much glaring sun and we were both wearing goggles.

I like the warmer look of the Olympus pictures compared to the pentax. I've been quite happy with mine for the uses Sarman mentioned. If i'm actually serious about taking pictures I'll take my DSLR.

That's good, because you have an olympus

I wanted a compact waterproof camera, and I hate proprietary requirements, so the Olympus was out due to the xD, leaving the W60. While the xD is not exclusively proprietary, I've heard that in order to unlock some feature(s) you have to have Olympus brand xD, which was the case when I bought my first digital camera (a 1.2MP Olympus w/ SmartMedia).

I want to be able to safely stow the camera in the smallest feasible footprint, so sans case is desired. I got a screen protector for the W60's display screen, but the lens's screen was still unprotected and I didn't want to see what would happen to images after putting a screen protector on that lens. That left me wanting a lens cap, which I didn't manage to find after some quick looking.

The lens area thankfully sticks out a smidge. I measured it to be 38mm in diameter, so I looked for plastic caps with that internal dimension and found and used the following:

This had the shortest depth I could order, so a little cutting was desired. The inside depth was deeper than the outside depth, so I compensated and gave myself a 0.5-1mm margin. My pipe cutter was too small, so I used a PVC cutter and a pill container to plug the cap for easier cutting (so the sidewalls wouldn't bend). Once cut, I drilled two slits for a rubber band, and connected the said rubber band. Since I'm now I'm a happier camper, and 'cuz Cat will likely take credit for me being a W60 owner, I thought I'd share.

My finished product:



Fig. #don't care - rubber band placement with the lens exposed.

Hey, Skeeter, I didn't see any of your images.

I took my W60 with me to Silver Mountain this past weekend and although the camera is touted to be freezeproof, it froze up on me and I couldn't take any pictures on the mountain even though I kept the camera in an inside pocket near my body. It warmed up fairly quickly if I took it out of the pocket and held it in my hands for a while but since we were experiencing 40 mile an hour gusts of wind, I didn't want my hands out of my gloves for that long. Still very happy with the camera.

Wow. It hasn't frozen up on me. but it wasn't really all that cold the times I used it skiing.

You could have my Kodak and the -1 minute life of fully charged eneloops in the cold.

Btw, I can't see Skeeter's pics either

Can you see me now?
Was it definitely that the camera was frozen, or could it have been the puny battery got too cold and was juiceless? The spec is for down to 14F, which isn't noteworthy to me. I've used my Canon SD600 in -20F. Industrial grade is typically -40F. I've used the W60 in 20F thus far with no problems, but I do keep it inside my jacket, closet to my core.

I hope Silver was good, despite the wind.

Skeeter, where did you find that cap, or where in general do you get caps at? I need a couple for a project that I am working on, went to Lowe's- nothing, went to Home Depot- nothing, and I can't ever seem to get to the plumbing supply store when they are open.

On-line... StockCap. I'd be tempted to try a vinyl cap if I did it again, but their spec was slightly wider. The cap I got, which is supposed to be an electrical end-cap, fit snugly... near perfect.

Skeeter, I'll post a review about my trip to Silver. In a word, it sucked. But it was more a grand combination of things than the poor mountain itself.

I am wondering if it was the battery, it truly wasn't that cold and I was surprised it froze up.

I've had many a day in the cold were I could only get one or two pictures out of a fully charged battery with my Canon SD600 (puny LI battery). In the cold I keep a second fresh battery as close to my skin as is feasible with the anticipation that I'll need to swap a warm battery for a cold one. Most of the battery's power returns when it gets warm again.

New competition.
http://www.funnyplace.org/stream.php?id=11531