Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The "ultimate" digital camera for adventure travel


A friend who's planning a motorcycle trip to Alaska this summer emailed to ask for my recommendation for the "ultimate" digital camera for such an adventure. Here's my response:

If you're looking for a point-and-shoot, rather than a bulky SLR, I'm impressed with the Olympus Stylus 790SW and even more so with the Olympus Stylus 1030SW.
A young woman who is a bicycling fanatic living in Alaska has been using a 790 for a few months now and her blog http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/ is a good showcase for what the 790 will do.
Both cameras are over-engineered in terms of their ability to stand up to abuse. The 790 can take a drop from 5 feet, survive down to 10 feet underwater and function as cold as 14 degrees. The 1030 is even more robust, droppable from 6.6 feet, submersible down to 33 feet, freezeproof to 14 degrees and crushproof up to 220 pounds. Both have image stabilization. The 790 takes 7.1 megapixel images and the 1030 is a 10.1 megapixel camera.
The 790 lists for $299.99 but I found it as cheap as $232 on Amazon.com. The 1030's MSRP is $399.99, but you can get it as cheap as $365.99 on Amazon.com.
Considering the occasion, I'd spend the extra bucks and get the 1030.
Oh, yeah. They also shoot movies.

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