Bashed, dropped and dragged this camera sure has been through a lot with me as I explore the and document the environment and the things found living near by me. Whilst I seem to fall back this camera so much especially for the macro work I found a number issues that frustrate me to me to no end.

I want start by saying that the robust nature of this camera is great and it is a solid package mine has been through 4 years of being dragged through the sand and grit underwater, bashed up against rocks with me as the waves tumble us about trying to document those species in that high energy wave area along my local rocky coastline.

The downside to this type of work I also really notice the flaws and bugs with the design and limitations of this camera being a compact camera space is a big issue and the layout of the buttons and controls may be OK for dry land once you get into the water you start to encounter the issues first big issue i want to talk about is the screen and unfortunately it is unviewable at certain angles and lighting situations this makes it impossible to see what you are trying to photograph so a bit guess work comes into it and you will get a lot of images that are not in focus or not centered on your target as you just cannot see the screen it seems to have issues with how the light reflects off of it when in the water.

The next issue for me is a big one in that the zoom control is a bad design the small handle on the front and being around the shutter release with gloves on in the water it is not the best placement and is hard to control unfortunately mine stopped working after about 18 months to zoom in I need to put pressure on the left side of the ring whilst trying to turn the zoom control, whilst zooming out functions as normal.

The buttons on the back of the camera are so small and close together once you put gloves on adjusting things like white balance is next to impossible whilst for divers one option is use a housing that makes the buttons much bigger and more controllable the design could have been so much better.

The next issue for me is the focus and unfortunately this camera is very slow to focus and often drifts whilst for still photos this is not as bad once you go to video it is very slow and clunky and combined with the rear screen being unviewable at times this impacts the cameras overall functionality.

Now after 4 years of using this camera the seals around the batteries and ports are still going well and I have never had any issues with these although the buttons to open them and lock them are a bit fiddly they have been solid and are still that way.