Nikon COOLPIX P520 Voucher

JD "Hog" (Juneau, AK) : I have been looking for a waterproof camera to take on vacation to Thailand. After considerable research the Panasonic Lumix TS3 seemed to be the top dog for rugged cameras. In favor of the Lumix, I liked the durable feel and overall fit and finish, the wide angle lens and I think people willing to play around with settings will have nice options. Unfortunately, the lumix was quite bad in low light situations and overall had soft photos. I recently saw the Nikon AW100 on sale locally and decided to try out the latest and greatest rugged (at least I hoped so with nikon's recent attempt in the waterproof market). With limited testing and no underwater use I decided I preferred photos taken with the AW100 better and returned the lumix. I am happy with the contrast and low light photos of the AW100 and hope I made the right choice for my vacation.

Alan Montgomery (Durham, NC) : I selected the Nikon AW100 over the TX-10 because of a better external form (TX-10 too hard to hold securely, sliding cover, and 3 seal points in 2 doors) and over the TS-3 with hopes of slightly better image quality and a better GPS performance. And over both, with hopes of using the included 40.5 mm filter adapter to attach to my Vortex Razor 85 scope's filter thread based camera adapter for digiscoping. The plastic 40.5 mm filter adapter attaches firm enough that I am confident the physical thread attachment will carry the off-center load. I am waiting for a filter step up ring to arrive to check out the optical compatibility and will update my review later.

av8r : This is my first weatherproofed camera and I have had it for a week. I have used several other P&S and DSLR cameras, but do not make my living taking images. Build quality is very good with nice image quality and plenty of features. I will say this camera won't replace the high IQ cameras where fine detail in grass, trees and textures is of high importance. Nor for the person who wants RAW or lots of manual control or who desires to do a lot of cropping. This camera is for the person who wants to capture their outdoor adventures in photos and videos no matter what the conditions and is willing to pay a premium over conventional P&S cameras. The AW100 images have a slightly soft look and zoomed-in fine detail tends to disappear by the image processing even at the lowest ISO. But the colors and general image quality are good enough for most users who just want a nice adventure picture to share with others in printed or online form. The 16MP CMOS element doesn't produce the IQ I'd hoped for, but I am still happy considering the compromises involved. 2x zoomed images shot at 5 MP generally look almost as good as the 16MP on my computer monitor, so the extra pixels are not adding that much benefit. Night and low light looks pretty acceptable with expected increase in noise.