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The specifications is were the similarities end, as the Tough 8000 has the worst movie quality in this group. There are many compression and noise reduction artifacts, and the image immediately looks much softer than all the other cameras in the test. There is also moire visible, though in this area the Tough 8000 is not much worse than other cameras in this test. Sound quality is on par with the other cameras here. Shutter lag isn't bad, i.e., you press the button and get pretty much what you were looking at. Buffering is a little slow however, even in the continuous shooting mode, which skips the image preview but doesn't rattle off pictures at any great rate, so forget about getting sequential images of anything moving at any sort of speed.
As far as shooting options go, the Z33WP is fairly lean, as it's designed for simple snapshot photography. There's an Auto mode for general photography, an SR Auto option that analyzes what's in the frame and automatically selects the appropriate scene settings, and 16 scene modes, including one for underwater shooting. Even its Manual mode only allows you to change ISO, exposure compensation, and white balance. The Movie mode is VGA quality, and you don't get use of the zoom lens while recording. Also, if you tend to take a bunch a short movie clips, the Successive Movie mode lets you stitch the clips together into one movie. Most of these cameras perform quite well in terms of chromatic aberration (a property of the lens design that produces colored fringes on high-contrast edges), no doubt helped by their relatively modest zoom ranges. Fringing will always be most pronounced towards the edge of the frame, particularly with the lenses at their widest-angle settings and if you look closely it's there in most of the images, but it is certainly acceptable given that these are all compact cameras. Telephoto (long end of zoom)
Underwater camera group: Image stabilization
Unfortunately you cannot control the ISO settings in Auto either, that being an option in the Manual mode. However, you can, at least, leave everything in Manual on auto and set the ISO to a lower value if this seems a persistent problem. Mode dial: : SR AUTO (Scene Recognition), Auto, Natural Light, Natural Light with Flash, Manual, Anti-blur, Movie The Olympus Tough 6000 leaves more detail, but also more noise grain in the image than either the Pentax or Canon. Which of these approaches is better is a personal preference, and in small prints or web sized images, either approach will produce a decent enough result (though for us it's always better to keep detail in images). It's worth noting that, as with most compacts, the noise reduction settings on these cameras are not changeable.
The top sees the power and shutter buttons and overall we found the placement was convenient for all the controls, giving easy access to options. The buttons give you instant access to flash, macro and self-timer options, but a neat video button provides instant video recording. With the W80 Pentax has updated the video mode to to enable recording at 720p (1280x720) at 30 fps, which makes the HD video feature much more usable than on the W60. Movies are still recorded in avi format with M-JPEG compression, meaning you end up with large files (better get a large card if you want to do a lot of video recording). The maximum file size is 2GB, and unlike the W60 optical zoom and AF cannot be enabled during recording.
Video
Heavy, unsophisticated noise reduction also removes lots of detail from the image, but if the noise reduction is too low you'll get so much noise that it will appear even in the smallest print. Canon D10 One glance at these crops will tell you that the Canon D10 and Panasonic TS1 are better in terms of sharpness and detail than the other cameras in this group with the Pentax W60 not far behind. Between the D10 and TS1 the Canon is sharper across the frame (albeit aided by heavier sharpening). This is particularly evident at the edge of the frame where the tree crop is taken from. Color balance in this situation between the Canon and the Panasonic is fairly similar with the D10 producing a slightly warmer result. The Canon did the best job of balancing ambient light and flash to produce a pleasing result that almost looks like flash wasn't used. The Pentax cameras and Fuji weren't far behind, with results that, while obviously flashed, still retain some of the ambient atmosphere of the scene. The Two Olympus cameras and the TS1 retained the least amount of ambient light, due to them using lower ISO settings than other cameras in the group. Both the Olympus cameras also produced the coolest (most blue) result in terms of color balance, followed by the TS1, with the Z33 and W60 sitting somewhere in the middle, then the W80 (which produced a warmer result than the W60), and the D10 producing the warmest result of the group. Flash shot 100% crops: Canon D10
I took the Z33 WP on holiday with me and used it in bright sunshine, crowded rooms, dimly lit restaurants, in the sea and in the swimming pool. I was constantly amazed with the results, so much so that I got a load of photos printed via Photobox as soon as I got home, just to see if they were really that good. I’m pleased to say that they were! All of these cameras except the TS1 have very similar maximum telephoto settings of about 100mm (with the TS1 reaching 128mm). Holding the cameras with both hands, the two Olympus cameras were easier to hold still and produced many more sharp shots than the D10 with the IS turned off, with the TS1 performing between the Olympus cameras and the D10 despite being at a slightly longer focal length. With IS turned on the Canon and Panasonic both performed very well, with all of the shots captured being sharp. However, the performance of the Olympuses didn't improve by nearly such a large margin, suggesting this IS system is much less effective. FujiFilm Z33 WP, Pentax Optio W60, Pentax Optio W80 The cheapest camera of the bunch was the Fujifilm Z33, and it showed. It was the least well specified camera in the group, though it was also the most compact. While good-looking on the surface it produced some of the worst images of the group, as well as being relatively slow shot-to-shot. You should only consider this camera if your budget is tight and you're looking for something that will survive the beach (rather than actually getting well below the surface to shoot underwater). The screen on this camera is relatively large, taking up most of the rear of the camera, so you get a good preview of any image you’ve taken with it. It has so many features that I’ll never make use of them all (You can read about some of them here – http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/consumer/digital/digital-cameras/slim-compact/finepix-z33wp/Features ), but suffice to say it has a timer and screw fitting for a tripod, making self-take photos relatively simple. It also has a good movie facility, which can be good fun if you want to share a moment with the world.
Waterproof camera group: Real world comparison
The W80 and Olympus Tough 6000 are slightly better the the Tough 8000 and Fuji Z33, and manage to resolve better detail than the other two cameras. In good light all of these cameras should be able to produce an image that is good enough for a nice print at 8x10 or under, or for web viewing resolutions, but taking a closer look reveals that the D10 and W60 are clearly better than the other cameras in this group. In this test the Z33 and the W80 selected ISO 1600 (its top ISO setting) and the W60 selected ISO 1000.
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