Nikon COOLPIX AW100 16 MP CMOS Waterproof Digital Camera with GPS and Full HD 1080p Video (Blue) (OLD MODEL)

I misplaced this camera recently for about a week and it seems like everyday is was exasperated to not be able to get the shot I could have gotten with it but couldn't get with either my DSLR, Nikon 700, or with my very good and handy compact Canon S95. I bought this camera mainly to use when I didn't dare take one of the other cameras out in so much water. It is even nice not to have to be concerned about the rain, or the wet updraft from a waterfall, let alone at the beach, the river, the ocean, kayaking, rock terrain, sand, dusty riding or hiking. Yes the lens stays behind it protective glass that is itself quite will protected by the frame protruding just adequately beyond it. The other main attraction was the dropability. I was impressed by the shock-resistant aspect. I brag that I can drop it about the distance of my height onto any surface. But I can't get myself to intentionally do that. Still. I feel confident of its durability. I am also glad to have the GPS onboard. When I was considering ordering it, I was concerned about whether the resolution would be satisfactory, so, I chose to buy a refurbished one. The warrantee sounded good enough to take a chance. If I had known how much I was going to be using it and enjoying it, I would have bought the brand new one instead. But, I am very pleased with this refurbished one. No problem! One of the reasons that I can hardly stand to not have it at hand at all times is because it is so easy to take a really close shot. I am a beekeeper and I have been trying to get close-ups of the bees with the other two cameras and haven't been able to do with them what I can do with this one. The resolution isn't as good as I would like to be able to get eventually, but it is much better than anything that I have gotten at the beehive previously and the images that I send to the newspaper look good in print. This is the third water camera that I have gotten, and by far the best so far. I am very glad to have this at hand. Oh, and by the way, almost every time I open and close the water-tight door to the battery and SD card, I realize how much I appreciate the technology of that door and its latch and remember that comment about one of the reviews that criticized the latch as overly complicated and difficult to use. I get a really satisfied feeling from closing this particular latch that seems to have the feel of closing a submarine hatch. And opening the latch with only one hand is a skill that is pleasing to be a master of and takes little effort in accomplishing. And yes, if you guessed, I relocated the missing camera in the pocket of my beekeeping jacket. Now to get some close-ups of the kittens that are just beginning to get a little tiny bit of their eyes open. Of course, I can't get quite as close to them as I get to the honeybees that I can be almost touching with the lens and fill the frame with the bee and get fairly good focus and detail. Good enough for most uses, at a price that you wouldn't expect to be getting gallery quality, anyway. Yes, I did get the orange face. Sometimes I am really glad when it is so easy to find. In the beginning, sometimes I couldn't find it because I didn't see any orange face anywhere. That is when I learned to always set it monitor down. That side is all black. I like the looks of the black better, but the orange is handy and it is good for me to set the monitor face down to protect it from anything damaging it from above. Oh, and I really like how well it rides with me when the strap is around my neck. Excellent that it wears like a necklace, secured at with each end of the strap at a side of the camera instead of the wrist strap kind of tether. It is so easy to wear and to just lift and shoot. Easiest of any compact camera that I have ever used. It is when I am wearing it, though, that I would prefer that it had a the dignity of a black face. But, such a good image buddy, I can't complain. If you get one, I hope that you enjoy it at least as much.

UPDATE 20120801 - Amazon would not allow a separate update for a similar product purchase so I have to update this review ...I just bought the replacement for the AW100 that rests on the bottom of the Pacific. It is ORANGE (Nikon COOLPIX AW100 16 MP CMOS Waterproof Digital Camera with GPS and Full HD 1080p Video (ORANGE)).I am not all that "keen" on Orange; however, the price was $40 less (now $268) than the original Black. It takes good pictures. I say this because the original black unit would have difficulty sometimes taking a closeUp picture. The "new" orange unit works near and far. Now, I have to put it in water to make sure it is waterProof for its up-and-coming adventure.Oh, I have upgraded the AW100 to five (5) stars. For several reasons: 1) I bought another unit; 2) The orange works in my mix-and-notMatch world; 3) Maybe, just maybe, it will be easier to spot if it gets away from me; and, 4) It was $40 less expensive.I continue to recommend this product!***********************************************************20120322 ... The Nikon aw100 (BLACK) actually went to Hawaii as planned. It took pictures on O'Ahu, and then on Hawai'i. It was also supposed to be used on Maui. It was a great camera. It did almost 100% of what I thought it should. It took surprising panorama shots. It took amazing underwater pictures at the sea horse farm. It took wonderful pictures in two lagoons while snorkling to approximate depths of 20 to 30 feet without any leakage. It even got pictures of my spouse snorkling. Then the camera did the most unspeakable thing. It became a $400 "disposable" camera when it untethered itself and went to the bottom of the Pacific. It was missed only when the Zodiac stopped in the third lagoon.It is a long shot to ask, "If anyone locates the camera I would place no claim; however, I would greatly appreciate getting the 16gb SDHC card that has many pictures that can never be replaced."Now, for the next adventure where the "camera" will not run away?-------------------------------------------------------------20111212 ... For some reason I always need another camera. The Nikon AW100 will fill a niche I have for something that can get dunked. It will be a good companion to the Nikon S1000pj (the one that projects the image on a wall).Another important piece is that both the AW100 and the S1000pj use the same EN-EL12 battery. Speaking of that, you just have to get the TWO EN-EL12 Replacement Battery (1050 mAh) + Battery Charger FOR Nikon CoolPix S1000pj / S610 / S610c / S620 / S630 / S640 / S70 / S710 / S8000 Digita ... offering here on Amazon.com since these two cameras can consume a lot of batteryJuice! I got four (4) units of the above mentioned charger and got eight (8) EN-EL12 batteries as well as four car adapters and four wall chargers for under $35 TOTAL - "Oh, and they work, too!" which really surprised me.There is a lot about the AW100 I have not used. My first curiosity was the battery. I just wanted to see what the maximum burn might be. I turned on all options (at maximum) and tinkered with everything to use as much batteryJuice as I could. The result was something like 76 pictures - "Acceptable" to me.I inserted a Transcend 32 GB Class SDHC 10 Flash Memory Card TS32GSDHC10E into the AW100. 4,000 plus pictures at maximum resolution for under $40.The GPS. Seem to sensitive enough to work inside most buildings even where DeLorme and Garmin GPS units cannot get signal. The map is very general and is really useful, for me, for GeoCaching. To get the coordinates from the jpg image requires Photoshop or other software that can access this meta data. One curiosity is the possible map updates. This feature shows in the menu; however, so far I have not been able to find out much more about it.The Compass. The neighbors thought I was a little confused/touched as I stood in my front yard waiving this small black object in a figure-eight motion as the snow fell around me. For some reason I felt that I needed to be able to get a good compassReading in my yard in the snow to learn how well the "first" pictures might look (BTW, they looked good if I might say so!).The Lens position. The position of the lens is where one can take marvelous pictures of parts of one's fingers. I have a whole set of them that I might put on display in a gallery?The Camera with Heart. The AW100 has numerous settings. When you get the camera you will see this icon (camera with heart) on the screen. It basicially means the camera will take a picture - results are mostly surprisingly good.The Camera without Heart. I mostly use this setting.The Panorama (sp?). It is most curious. I am more accustomed to the larger images available in the Sony A900 and the like that are stitched using something like Photoshop. The AW100 does a grand job of creating a panorama. Now, the camera is a little to smart AND you have to do the way the developers intended which I remain a little uncertain about the 360-deg version. I have gotten insulted using the 180-deg version by being informed I am not doing it right. You can only go in one direction with either horizontal or vertical movement - BUT, not both. The end result when I do the right thing is a strip photo that seems a whole lot better than I thought that I would get.Up Close. I like microPhotography. This camera does a good job.Low Light. I am not certain that the camera was responsible, more so than the operator, when taking low light photographs. The camera seemed to have a difficult time focusing even with the assist light that is built into the camera for these situations.Light Assist. This is an annoying light that is disruptive because I have not found the setting to keep it extinguished when I do not want it startling the photoObject or announcing that a photograph will be taken.Opening the Housing. The battery, SD card, USB and HDMI connectors are located behind a door that is sorta a mess for big fingers to open since the button on the top must be pressed and then a counterClockwise turn must be done to get the door open. The space is "real" tight and I did find that some SDHC cards were not all that easy to extract or to determine if properly seated. If this happens, just remove the battery and it is easier to slip a fingerNail into the SD card crease for extraction.Menu. The menu is not the best Nikon has offered. I have finally located most of the features I think should be available. Some I am still seeking.Documentation. The userGuide and userManual are a poorExcuse and an exercise in futility. They follow the typical mentality of "trial and mistake" to learn how to meaningfully use the camera features.Waterproof. I was going to take the camera into the bathtub to do some underWater shooting of a rubberDucky. I was advised that this was offensive to the rubberDucky and possibly illegal and probably an issue of privacy so I will have to wait until I am in the ocean.Strap. It really makes no sense to include a nonWaterProof strap with a camera that is to be used underwater. I do not have time to get a waterProof strap so I will have to makeDo with some fishingLine. Oh yes, there was as sorta piece-of-string that was supposed to be used with the camera in the water. I really need a strap that can just stay connected to the camera so when I fall out-of-the-boat I do not have to spend a whole lot of time trying to change to the waterProofStrap before I hit the water ("Oh yea, where, in this instance do I put the nonWaterProof strap?).Pictures. The camera takes great pictures in a snow setting where other cameras straight-out-of-the-box fail. Night photographs are a little iffy. In-the-water pictures have not been tried, yet!Zoom. It also has digital zoom. I find, as with most digital zoom, it adds more noise to the picture than the implied benefit from the apparentCloseness provided by the inCamera crop. It might be okay for those that do not have something like Photoshop. The lens zoom was adequate and allowed me to capture deer in the snow at some 100 yards that will, of course, need Photoshop.Slideshow. I am using slideShow two ways. The first is to display the individual pictures that have been collected on the SD card. It works okay. I usually do not use a camera for this purpose. I would much rather shoot pictures and then get back to the 27" colorCorrected monitor and photoshop at some later time. The second part of the slideShow is used with panoramas. In this case, the picture is moved smoothly across the entire vista of the scene. A bit impressive but lacks the usefulness of portability to be able to share with friends.Buttons. Like buttons on anything small if big fingers are involved. "Ya just has to deal with it!"Overall Impression. The Nikon AW100 hasn't leaked yet (of course not, I have not put it into the water). It has taken an assortment of pictures that I think exercise its capabilities. I am impressed. So, let's learn how well it does underwater. More on this soon.