Underwater with the AW100

I wrote about the Nikon AW100 around the beginning of the year but have just now had the chance to really use it underwater so here is an update.

We just returned from a peaceful vacation in the Caribbean. We stayed in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, close to Grace Bay Beach. How close? It was about 3/10’s of a mile walk from our front door to the water. Much less expensive than staying on the beach with no excuse for not getting in the ocean every day.

The photo accompanying this article was not post-processed. You can see that the sharpness is good but the color has a little too much green cast. I found that the green cast issue depended heavily on where the sun was in relation to the picture angle. Of course it also depended on depth and whether the water was clear and calm or all stirred up.

I shot quite a few stills and a few videos of coral and fish with generally pleasing results. The AW100 doesn’t replace a full DSLR in an underwater bag or housing but it does a good job for a vacation camera. It also shot very good land shots making a good only camera for a winter warm-up trip.