Recommendations for a P&S Camera Required for Work

[chris]

I have been asked to recommend a P&S camera to be used at offshore sites. The persons using the camera will not necessarily have much or any photography experience so the camera will probably be used in auto mode, possibly using an in-built flash.

The camera should be or weatherproof at least, waterproofing would be OK but if it does get dropped overboard it will end up up about 300 feet down so the difference between waterproofing to 10 feet or 30 feet will not make any difference. Drop resistance up to about 6 feet would be good - any more than that and it's probably going overboard anyway.

The camera will be used by technicians wearing industrial gloves so must be easy to operate with no fiddly controls that need to be adjusted during use.

Subjects to be photographed will range from moderate wide angle to medium telephoto, mostly at ranges up to 30 feet - note the need for being able to operate the zoom controls while wearing gloves. Close-up shots at 6" to 12" range would be an advantage.

Lighting will be whatever it is - good, bad, deep shade, bright sun - the only modifier will be to use the in-built flash as fill in.

Size and weight is not important apart from needing to operate it while wearing gloves.

No removable lenses - this is not an environment where you want to be taking the lens off a body.

Budget - anything up to about £750/$1000 - could go higher for ATEX certification for use in an explosive atmosphere which would be really good, but otherwise the camera should be reasonably priced since it will probably end up lost or irreparably damaged rather than wear out.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[TCampbell]

Panasonic, Nikon, Canon, and several other companies all make cameras designed to be shockproof to roughly 6' height you want, and waterproof to at least moderate depths (usually snorkeling depths but not scuba depths although some of them go quite a bit beyond 30'. )

The problem I see with all of them is the size of the buttons. A clean front face is usually not a problem and the shutter button is probably no problem to operate on most of these. It's getting to settings and navigating menus that came be troublesome as virtually all of these have small-ish buttons that are probably going to be a problem to anyone wearing gloves.

I did a quick scan for reviews of ruggedized cameras and realize that some of the top-rated models are top-rated for their in-camera features... not necessarily their usability.

Years ago I used to dive and had a few underwater cameras. The housings for these cameras tended to be designed with the idea that a scuba diver is probably wearing gloves. While you can get underwater housings for a lot of cameras (even point & shoots) ... the housings usually cost more than the cameras that go inside.