The best cameras for the beach | Articles | Photo, video, optics

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Warm coun­tries are grad­u­al­ly open­ing their bor­ders, the vel­vet sea­son is just around the cor­ner in the south­ern Russ­ian resorts, and you have begun to think about a vaca­tion? Hot sun, cold waves and soft sand — all this sounds very attrac­tive. But not for your cam­era. Intense heat, aggres­sive salt water, and tiny par­ti­cles can quick­ly ruin an unpro­tect­ed cam­era and an entire vaca­tion along the way. Luck­i­ly, with a lit­tle prepa­ra­tion, you can safe­ly take pho­tos on the beach, min­i­miz­ing the risk to your equip­ment.

Security Cameras

If you plan to take your cam­era to the beach all the time (for exam­ple, if you are not just on vaca­tion, but you are lucky enough to live near the sea), it is best to pur­chase a rugged cam­era designed to work in extreme con­di­tions. Such a cam­era will be a win-win option as a spare cam­era for out­door activ­i­ties. These cam­eras offer more than just “dust and splash pro­tec­tion.” They will with­stand almost any “abuse” — pro­tect­ed cam­eras can be giv­en to chil­dren with­out fear, dropped into water, mud or sand, left in the scorch­ing sun, etc. Most of these mod­els can with­stand immer­sion in salt water if washed with fresh water after­wards. Ruggedi­zed cam­eras are test­ed and IP-rat­ed, unlike many con­ven­tion­al mod­els that are adver­tised by the man­u­fac­tur­er as weath­er­proof but can only sur­vive light rain.

Source: camerajabber.com

The Olym­pus Tough TG‑6 is a water­proof cam­era with an IPX8 water rat­ing (sub­mersible up to 15 meters) and an IPX6 dust rat­ing. This means that nei­ther sand nor water can enter the cham­ber and dam­age it. The TG‑6 can with­stand drops up to 2.4 meters and loads up to 100 kg, so you can toss it into your bag with a tow­el, sun­screen and dumb­bells with­out wor­ry­ing about the cam­era. As for the image, the mod­el is equipped with a 12-megapix­el BSI CMOS sen­sor, TruePic VIII proces­sor and a 25–100mm zoom lens. The TG‑6 has five spe­cial shoot­ing modes and three white bal­ance modes for under­wa­ter work. We have already done a detailed review of this cam­era, you can read it here.

Source: cameralabs.com

Anoth­er rugged com­pact well suit­ed for the beach is the Ricoh WG-70. Like the TG‑6, the cam­era is rat­ed IPX8 water-resis­tant, sub­mersible up to 14 meters, can with­stand drops up to 1.6 meters and sta­t­ic load up to 100 kg. Dust­proof with Japan­ese JIS Class 6 rat­ing, you don’t have to wor­ry about sand. The cam­era is equipped with a 16-megapix­el 1/2.3‑inch BSI CMOS sen­sor and a 28–140mm lens. In addi­tion to the rugged design, the WG-70 has some use­ful extras, such as six LEDs around the lens that are great for macro shots and self­ies, and under­wa­ter pho­to and video modes with appro­pri­ate white bal­ance and col­or enhance­ment.

instant cameras

Instant film cam­eras have been super-pop­u­lar on over­seas beach­es for decades. Although they do not have spe­cial pro­tec­tion, many mod­els are sur­pris­ing­ly durable and can with­stand quite severe tests. At the same time, you should not take hybrid dig­i­tal-ana­log mod­els to the beach, it is bet­ter to stay on a com­plete­ly ana­log mod­el. Many devices are strong enough, but it’s still best to use com­mon sense to avoid break­age. Final­ly, keep light-sen­si­tive instant film out of direct sun­light dur­ing devel­op­ment for opti­mal results.

Fuji­film makes three all-ana­log cam­eras that, although not spe­cial­ly pro­tect­ed, are still great for shoot­ing on the beach. The Instax Mini 9 is a sim­ple auto­mat­ic cam­era that uses the pop­u­lar Instax Mini film to pro­duce pho­tos rough­ly the size of a bank card. It has a built-in flash and auto­mat­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lates the expo­sure, so you can safe­ly share it with friends or give it to chil­dren. A mir­ror on the front pan­el and a min­i­mum focus­ing dis­tance of 30 cm allow you to take good self­ies. Instax Mini 9 runs on two AA bat­ter­ies.

Source: capetownguy.co.za

For fans of the more tra­di­tion­al square snap­shot for­mat, Fuji’s line­up includes the Instax Square SQ6 cam­era, which takes 62 x 62mm pho­tos. Like the Mini 9, the SQ6 comes with a self­ie mir­ror and comes with three flash gel fil­ters for cre­ative light­ing effects. The cam­era is pow­ered by two CR2 bat­ter­ies.

Source: bhphotovideo.com

Final­ly, the Fuji­film Instax Wide 300 cam­era allows you to cre­ate the largest Instax pho­tos — 80 x 100 mm. It also works point-and-click with no man­u­al adjust­ments and can focus up to 40cm with the includ­ed macro adapter. The mod­el received a fair­ly strong body design and runs on four AA bat­ter­ies.

Camera Cases

If you don’t want to buy an addi­tion­al cam­era, you can pro­tect the one you already have — whether it’s a smart­phone, action cam­era, DSLR or mir­ror­less cam­era.

Water­proof case Fla­ma FL-WP-S5. Source: dw.kz

Water­proof cas­es for smart­phones will help pro­tect your smart­phone on the beach from sand and salt water. And under­wa­ter hous­ings pro­vide the best pro­tec­tion for larg­er cam­eras. They not only allow you to take the cam­era with you on surf­ing, but also pro­tect the device from sand and dirt. Water­proof bags will help you safe­ly trans­port your cam­era and lens­es with­out fear of salt water. Even a reg­u­lar bag is a great piece of pro­tec­tion for any trip to the beach, cre­at­ing an extra lay­er between your gear and the sun/water/sand.

And you take your cam­era with you to the beach — share your expe­ri­ence in the com­ments.

* when prepar­ing the arti­cle, mate­ri­als from the resources bhphotovideo.com and onfoto.ru were used