Your Recommendation for best Waterproof Digital Camera

[Stephen Levine]

I am now in the market for purchasing a new waterproof digital. It's a nice bridge between my Canon Rebel 3 on one hand which dreads water worse than a cat, and my Samsung 4 which takes reasonably good photos, but has severe low light-including sunset cloud limitations.
I've spent a few hours looking over various ratings and am eager to hear if anyone in our Community regularly use these cameras to fearlessly get out in the rain or beach to capture storm/sky scenes.
Your recommendation will be my tipping point, and thank you in advance for your suggestions.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Your best bet is likely to use one of Canon's higher ended Power Shot digital cameras with one of their underwater housings like the WP-DC29. Their housings are amazingly effective and affordable when compared to underwater housings for DSLR bodies and you are not stuck with one focal length.

W.

 

[MClarkson]

Whatever you do, don't buy Nikon

 

[Rob H]

Olympus OM-D E-M5. Don't fear the mirrorless!

 

[Stephen Levine]

Thank you so much Warren, M. Clarkson and Rob! I will reflect on your recommendations and investigate your two suggested cameras this weekend.
There were two reviews that suggested the Panasonic Lumix Ts4. It got strong ratings, but the wisdom of our Chase Community has such importance to me.

 

[Rob H]

I only know three people shooting mirrorless on the Plains, but trust me - it's viable. Nick Nolte and I both shoot Fuji X-mount systems, and someone I know from another forum uses an Olympus, here's a shot of his drenched camera and one of his pictures. Not bad for a non-chaser:

 

[Stephen Levine]

I only know three people shooting mirrorless on the Plains, but trust me - it's viable. Nick Nolte and I both shoot Fuji X-mount systems, and someone I know from another forum uses an Olympus, here's a shot of his drenched camera and one of his pictures. Not bad for a non-chaser:

Wow! Thank you for the share. I feel quite amazed this camera was not trashed.

 

[Meg K]

I know I'm looking at getting a Pentax K-50, they're weather resistant... My friend has a K-30 and he's taken it out in the rain, no problems.

 

[Dave C]

I'm surprised no one mentioned a simple plastic rain cover - its cheap and effective for both handheld and tripod work. I shoot a Canon t2i (not weather sealed at all) with L series lenses (some weather sealed, some not), with B+W clear filters on the end of all lenses for extra protection. I cover it all with a plastic rain sleeve that covers everything but the very end of the lens, with a hole for the eyepiece (which my eyepiece guard slides over). It cinches around the filter ring or lens hood with a drawstring, so all that is exposed to the elements is the hood and the eyepiece. Works good in up to moderate rain, easy enough to operate the camera still. In heavy rain I can't keep any lens clear enough to see anyway even though the sleeve would probably keep it safe. Even most so called weather sealed cameras in a downpour are going to be at risk - I saw somewhere that a 1D didn't make it through a heavy rain. A rain sleeve can be kept in your pocket and thrown on quickly, and in my opinion will be more productive and a heck of a lot cheaper than trying to find all new gear that is waterproof.

@Meg K - the Pentax cameras are apparently very well sealed, I saw a video where a soldier even cleaned his up in the shower after pouring dirt over them- but they have limited lens choices and no full frame body in their lineup. Its disappointing that such well made cameras are not matched with more good lenses and a full frame body. For example, you cannot get a truly excellent fast ultrawide lens (such as the Tokina 11-16mm) for the Pentax K Mount (a quality ultrawide lens is really a big deal for storm chasing photos, and a fast one is pretty much required for low light or astrophotography). I'd have gone Pentax myself if not for their lens and full frame body limitations. It seems that if you need a diverse range of top quality lenses, Canon and Nikon are still the simplest choice.

 

[Stephen Levine]

Thank you again for all your suggestions. To further clarify my challenge, I used to carry a Olympus SW waterproof snapshot camera (purchased in 2006) for spontaneous storm chase shots after work, etc. I liked the fact it was compact, fit in my pocket, could easily fit on top of the steering wheel as I drove with two hands and shot photos from the car, etc. This camera took exquisitely good daytime storm photos (both land and beach) and fair sunset photos but dusk photos were horrible with grain. Distant horizon lightning photos looked good as well, and one taken from our deck during a cruise looks awesome, even cropped. One cropped lightning photo won best of show in a local art club photo contest. (there was no way to shut down apature width for closer lightning shots). The camera was awesome because I had no fear of salt water spray, heavy rain, could easily stick it out my car window to shoot skies, etc.
In February, the camera disappeared during delivery from mandated valet service luggage to my hotel room (and nobody claimed any knowledge of what could have happened to it.

We will be going to Costa Rica in a month and I would like to replace this camera with a similar, but better low light camera. My hope is that in addition to our vacation, I can utilize this camera in a similar fashion to the prior Olympus upon return from our vacation.

After hours upon hours of researching reviews, two cameras seem to tie for first place: 1) Panasonic Lumix TS5 and 2) Olympus TG. Reviewers mention that the Lumix even has a "starry night" setting which allows for lightning photos. Looking at samples, brightly sunlit Lumix daytime photos seem washed but their sunset photos look great. I would assume storm photos would look as good as the sunset photos. They are also regarded as taking great videos.

Olympus daytime photos look great, but there were complaints about their charging system, video quality, and in some cases photo quality though a couple reviewers tagged it as the #1 best waterproof compact.

The advantage for me regarding this format of camera is its clearly stated waterproof quality ( as opposed to the mirrorless Olympus model Rob posted which is not advertized as waterproof) and the compact size allowing for greater versatility.

Thank you in advance for any further thoughts you might have regarding this.