Originally posted by Kiwizinho Yes, I looked at the Pentax/Ricoh waterproof cameras and they looked interesting, but they don't have RAW support as far as I can tell (I don't know why Ricoh couldn't add it with a firmware upgrade), and from experience with my DSLR, RAW can make a huge difference on what might be otherwise marginal images.
Thanks for mentioning DJI, I might take a look at the specs. I tend to think of them as drones only, and that definitely didn't include submarines
... however I remember a while back the US government were complaining about them being a security risk, ties to the Chinese government or something, and if there's any even the faintest hint of truth to the claims, they probably do underwater surveillance really well.
Bit of a side conversation here, but the Ricoh/Pentax and Olympus main waterproof cameras looked to be identical. Firmware/UI was different but capabilities and housing were pretty much the same device. Pentax stopped producing them at some stage from memory, so you have to go Olympus now to get that anymore. My brother got one in NZ a few years ago and still uses it, but at the time (as per normal) there wasn't a local vendor with a Pentax version in stock.
I didn't shoot this, but edited it from files sent to me. Stabilisation is rough and shows a lot of artefacts. Some of this is in camera (no idea if stabilisation was turned on to start with) and some is from the software stabilisation applied in post. I believe it was mostly shot on the olympus rugged camera.
I heard a presentation from Huawai (pronounced Wow way or similar by the way) and they described how they were black listed by the US for
not providing the US government a back door for listening purposes. PR wise that's been spun into them not supporting the US and routing back to china etc. Not saying I believe the story from either side, but expect there's more to any story coming out of the US these days.
Agree also re RAW support, especially where dynamic range is a bit suspect to start with. Most of these smaller sensor devices are prone to blown highlights/little shadow depth and have less leeway to post process. Usual deal though, that if the lighting conditions are good, they're very often good enough. Cellphones are on a par with DSLR in some conditions, where the lighting is favourable and your're happy with the fixed focal length of the phone lens etc.