Hello
Back from the Philippines (well back for about 3 weeks but anyway...)
Both cameras survived and I'm pretty impressed. I was initially a bit wary about taking mine into the water but it was fine in the end. It was put through its paces with a week of being rested on the top of a sprayskirt, constantly getting splashed and coated in sea water alongside multiple snorkelling trips of up to an hour. It wasn't cleaned properly for the entire week it was in use, with just a small bottle of water poured over mine after every prolonged dunking.
I made sure all the seals were clean before shutting them and greased the O ring before we got on the water. No leaks, although lots of condensation at various times. The condensation on both cameras was almost exclusively on the inside of the screen, although the GF's lens misted up once. It seemed, much like K9simons, that most of the condensation was above the water, I think when it got warm in the sun after having a dunking. There were also occasional weird bits of condensation underwater when there were air bubbles on the outside of the screen (and also when there were water drops on the screen above water). I don't think there is any lasting damage though so I'm not planning on sending them off to Nikon, although I may do a bit of research before I fully make my mind up.
It was a great little camera to use though, although the lack of viewfinder was/is off-putting. It makes it feel much more like a point and shoot camera. I had to spend a lot of time slowing myself down when taking shots because they were ending up more like snaps than the DSLR. IQ is good, little noisy at high ISO compared to the D7000 but that is to be expected considering the size of the sensor. What I did notice was the slowness of the lens. After a long time shooting with f/2.8 zoom lenses going back to 3.5-5.6 was a pain! If they release an AW version of an f/2.8 lens then I would consider swapping to that. On the other hand I did find the lens was a jack of all trades, master of none, not quite wide enough for most landscape shots and not quite long enough to get good portraits. A standard kit lens then. The lack of Bokeh was offputting as well, although for landscape not having to worry about aperture was quite nice. I guess that's the negative of a CSC though. I knew there would be more D0F but didn't realise it would be that extreme!
The RAW output images are remarkably low contrast, or at least they are in LR5. I had to use high contrast to get the images up to similar contrasts to the D7000, but that's not an issue in the slightest.
Battery life was slap bang on the quoted life all over the net. Around 200 shots. The third party batteries worked just as well as the official one. I didn't end up using all of my 5 batteries in the end but I did get to charge them to full strength again on the second night. It was definitely nice not having to worry too much about running out of juice though, although with 200 shots it invariably ended up dying just after it had got wet and we still had a way to go before stopping again... I'm not sure it it was just the third party batteries (i'm sure one of the official ones did this as well) but the charge reporting in camera didn't seem to be great. It would show full battery for ages then go to half and then to none within what seemed like a few shots. Each battery seemed to be different though, including the official ones.
I didn't really have many problems reading/viewing the screen underwater although there were some times it was difficult to see. The hydrophobic coating on the front of the lens is pretty impressive. even dunked regularly in sea water there was hardly a mark or drip that needed cleaning off. I did have a CPL on it most of the time but that showed how good it was. I was forever cleaning the smears off the CPS (both sides). The electronic spirit level came in handy. When you're rocking backwards and forwards in a boat with no idea what is horizontal and vertical it made flat horizons very easy.
What I didn't like was the grid option.... it's 4x4! Why stick a 4x4 grid on a camera?
The video was the biggest letdown IMO. It reminded me of going back to my dads old miniDV camera from 10 years ago. I made the mistake of using 60i and the tearing is awful. The lack of contrast in the RAWs shows here as well. You definitely need to edit it before using/showing it. On the other hand it could just be my inability to shoot video! I'm a little disappointed though considering the quality straight out of the camera of the D7000. I'm going to play with the video we got and see if I can edit into something good though.
It's a great little camera and I plan on using it when I can't be bothered/don't have space to take my DSLR out. It's certainly not going to replace it any time soon though! That is after I've managed to clean all the salt off of it. It's stubborn stuff, especially around the hinges of the compartments (more white staining than anything else).
Anyway, enough jabbering!
I'm uploading a load of photos taken with the camera in this thread
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/the-philippines-2013-landscape-seascape-heavy.527056/ Basically all the first week (other than the long exposure) and the day on the boat/snorkelling at the end - not posted yet, were taken with the AW1. I'll post a few underwater ones and a couple of above water ones in this thread.
The clip next to the yellow string is what I was using to keep the camera attached to the boat to stop any overboard incidents. It's attached to a coiled piece of webbing and then the other end is a thread that screws securely into the tripod hole in the base of the camera. Very useful. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called at the moment though.
f/5.6 at 19mm
I didn't actually use the underwater mode on the camera, just shot in RAW with auto white balance the entire time
Maldives 6
Maldives 5
DSC_0863
