Nikon Coolpix AW100

Used the camera underwater and it works great. Clear picture and video quality for a point and shoot.

Purchased mine for a trip to great barrier reef. Had used it a couple of times before trip. Always followed instructions re care and use. Camera failed in less than one meter of water. Appears to have flimsy seal. No wonder around 40 are leaking around Australia per month. Beware do not buy.

Recently went on a cruise, this camera was perfect for it. Underwater shots were great. My only gripes, battery life & the screen was hard to see under the water (dark).

Great camera, so easy to use, great quality movies and underwater footage.

Great camera, so easy to use, great quality movies and underwater footage.

I always love having a compact, waterproof camera with video mode in my bag for any occasion. Nikon's new Coolpix not only gives me the durability and compact nature which I value in a point and shoot but the quality of my images are the best feature of this camera. The HD movie option made this a camera I just had to have. I highly recommend this new option in the range of adventure cameras to take with you for a swim, hike, to the snow or just to have in your bag for those unpredictable moments.

We love this the underwater photo's turned out great, it is very durable and the quality is fantastic.

Overall the camera is very handy and it has been fun playing around with the underwater shooting.

I am extremely disappointed with the battery life of the camera though. Every time I go to use the camera the battery is dead! Even if it was full when I last used it. I have looked into getting a second battery but they are around $70. So that on top of the cost of the camera makes it a fairly expensive exercise!

I came from a Canon Ixus camera and I have found that the picture quality is nowhere near as good; but you have to expect that don’t you. You can’t have it all!

When deciding to buy a water proof camera, I was abit unsure at first of the nikon aw100 only because it was 1 of the first water proof cameras made from nikon. After having a play with it instore, I found the camera to be light weight and easy to operate, even for my partner.
I find the camera to have lots of different settings and the 1 thing i love is after you have taken the shot, you can edit the picture in so many ways and the best part it saves the edited photo as a new jpeg file which means at the end of the day, you can play around with the edit tools and if you dont like the end product, you always have the orginal file sitting there.
I have found apart from being easy to operate, the end product is natural and bright, and thats the must important part. No point taken photos that are washed out once printed.
spending money on the nikon aw100 was a good investment and i would highly recommend this camera for anyone that is after a water proof camera that is easy to use and takes a wonder photo, day or night, action or stills.

As a take in the purse no thinking required take a photo of the kids or pets I guess it gets the job done.
There are several things Nikon and reviews dont really cover, that someone looking for a "camera" or "a degree of control" might be interested in.

The scene modes are generally fixed, the only control you might have is exposure compensation and file size. For example your sports mode shots are not fast enough you cant bump the iso for example. You will be fixed at the shutter speed at the f/stop that the zoom length dictates. Similarly if you want any control over (ok small sensor) depth of field, you take what the scene modes dictate.

In Auto mode you can get around this only in part by upping the iso for faster shutter speed, you cant vary either shutter or stops, and the tall iso performance isnt great.
The specified 250 shot battery life (you will have to google the test procedure) will rarely be achieved if you switch between modes or review. In practice and in learning the camera I was recharging constantly. Ive not had onther camera chew through quite so quick. This wont be an issue round the house but for trips away from power you will need to consider.

AF mode and AF Area modes buried in the menu. Again this isnt set up for user control.
The cameras stabilisation under movie mode is not particularly good. You can argue it is only a three or four hundred dollar camera. Also the camera warms significantly in movie/writing movie to card.

There are plenty of pixel peeping sites showing the iso performance of the camera in controlled conditions and compared to its competitors. In pratice I found the image quality not to be particularly good compared to other brands, and part of this was not being able to simply dial in what conditions required.

In practice I found the tilt select funtion 'Action Button' to be fairly limited and a bit of a gimmick. GPS date might interest some. Maybe its great for facebook or something.
Shutter button is a bit of a dog. The shutter release is dead centre but half press is spread over a wider area, so that you can think you are going to take a fram but you just cant squeeze it hard enough, till you figure it out and start again.

Its a great looking camera reasonably well laid out. The menu structure is very simple and easily learned in a few minutes. Good and reliable battery compartment seal.

I wanted the AW to live up to the hype, but but for the battery hungry, lack of user control, fiddly, shoot though a coke bottle lens, that delivers the files it does, this one is going back for the competitors version. Maybe all these Indonesian made cameras are made down to a price. Unfortunately as a user it doesnt stack up for me.

love this camera

This camera is great! It's easy to use and very compact. It takes great photos and has great photo and video quality. It's very easy to use and is a great value for money. I love it!!

This camera is a great little package. Easy to use and full of tricks it is great to use and i keep finding more settings to have fun with.

I have bought this camera to be able to take to the beach and to the snow. I wanted a camera that I can take to the above without worrying about moisture and sand getting in. I have not had a chance to take pictures underwater as such so I can not comment on them. Pictures I have taken with this camera on land seem to be good quality if they are outdoors. Video is great quality but seems too slow to write to the card even though I am using a class 10 SD card. The biggest issue with this camera is the flash. If you are shooting indoors and use the flash, you will see a washed out and completely over exposed flash. It looks like the camera is not communicating with the flash to fire just enough to light the subject. It looks like the flash fires on full power all the time. Having said that, I noticed that there is a firmware update for this camera so that might fix it.

Hopefully there will be a firmware upgrade to fix this.

I took over 400 photos in two days while out in the desert. The easy panorama was great. I need the locations and used the GPS as well as the compass. When I got back I was able to plot on a map both the location and the direction the photo was taken. I then labeled each location with the number of the photo. This is fantastic for work!

I undertsand that this is Nikon's first waterproof compact digital camera, but you wouldn't know it. Despite it's compact size, the CMOS sensor definitely helps produce outstanding images in several outdoor night shots I took on a recent holiday, both in the water and out.

With full HD 1080p video recording with stereo sound and LED lamp for recording in low light, no other compact waterproof camera came close.

Battery life was OK, but as expected with such a feature filled camera. Definitely get yourself a spare battery on standby.

My only gripe is the location of the lens. I often use my left hand to steady the camera but the location of the lens means you need to be very consious of where you put your left index and middle fingers. There was more than a few shots that show the edge of a fingertip when blown up on a 46-inch TV.

On a snorkelling dive off the Great Barrier Reef, the camera excelled at capturing the colours of the tropical fish and corals. No problems there.

The only thing I didn't have a chance at working out was the GPS function. Not a big priority for me but I guess if you're a big traveller, this could be very handy. A rudimentary map showing your global location also is a feature of this camera.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for their first underwater/shockproof compact digital camera.

I wanted a compact camera with most features to take sailing, canoeing, bike riding and bushwalking. The Nikon Coolpix ticked all the boxes, especially with the bonus of a GPS and built in world map. No complaints so far.

We purchased the AW100 as a part of gearing up for our trip to Nepal. The little Nikon performed flawlessly through the whole trip. It was treated to monsoonal rains, cold temperatures at altitude and even a few days of white water rafting when the camera and I were flung out of the raft a few times. In every instance the Nikon came into it's own and we brought home some fantastic pictures that we could not have captured with a regular camera. We are yet to try it snorkeling but based on performance to date have no concerns about the cameras abilities. Would highly recommend this camera as a travel camera.

Purchased it whilst on holidays to be the knock-about camera on our boat. Yes it fulfills all aspects very well, i've dived at St Marteen with it and dropped it in the sand at Cozumel, i don't want to try the impact attributes that it has but it's comforting to know it will likely survive a drop that would kill any other camera.
I purchased the Bower Digital Magic wide and macro lens with it and am totally stoked with the performance of the combination...
The only criticism would be the lens mount allows the lens to easily bump off, not a biggie but a bit annoying just the same. Id like to see a tensioning device to firm up the connection somewhat.
Very good camera!!!

Purchased the camera in preparation for a family holiday to Bali and was very impressed with the HD video quality and the quality of the photo's. We definitely made great use of the camera in the pool and down waterslides in both video and photo mode. Even my children aged 7 and 10 could use the camera easily. The panoramic feature was easy to use as were the changeable scene modes. Looking forward to trying the camera out soon in sub-zero conditions.

I don't have a lot of practice with this camera as it broke down 10 min after its first use...

I bought it because of its underwater resistance (10m depth), but after 10min of snorkeling
(so max depth of about 1 to 2 meters since I'm not a pro...),The screen turned off.

The camera kept taking pictures, but it's much less easy without the screen, considering there's no viewfinder.
The screen is still working as it turns on with capture videos, but there's no way to access even to the menus, etc...

I brought it back to ted's camera which sent it to nikon for expert inspection. The point of this is, I guess,to see if I'm lying about the depth or if I closed to batterycompartmentproperly.
I don't have much hope about this, pretty sure they won't replace it as it's easy to say I didn't use it properly without proving it.
I know what I've done and not done, and I know that I didn't do anything wrong and that this dysfunction is due to a defect of the camera...
Anyways...
I hope TED will react properly, even if nikon doesn't.


By the way, I am also quite disappointedby the picture quality of the 15-20 pictures i could take during these 10 minutes where it worked...
A canon powershot G10 with its waterproof case made photos 1 000 000 x better.... (but it's bigger, ok !)

So my general impression about this camera is : DON'T BUY IT, or more moderately, CHOOSE ANOTHER ONE.

I have used my camera a lot as I purchased it just before I went on holidays. Overall I think I made the right choice especially as I was looking for a compact camera that was also waterproof. The buttons are easy to use. The battery life is reasonable. The only times I ran out of battery was when I was doing a lot of video recording, which I guess is expected.
My only gripe about the camera is that at times the square viewing area fogged up as I was in a humid environment. So some of my pictures were a bit foggy. Once it became foggy there wasn't much that I could do other than just let it sort itself out with time.

Overall I'm very pleased with it, and prefer it over my SLR as it it so small and now I always have it handy in my bag as you never know when a kodak moment will appear.