Before I tell you about the camera, I need to confess something. I started off evaluating this much talked-about Point&Shoot as a hardened cynic! How, I reasoned, was it possible that a camera that looked so normal, that had holes all over it, and very normal looking buttons, could POSSIBLY withstand the extremes of the elements in the way the manufacturers claimed.

However, through the kindness of Kerrisdale Cameras who made a model available to me, I was prepared to give it my best shot and put the somewhat extravagant-sounding claims to the test. Now, if you think I am unnecessarily cynical, take a look at some photos of the camera itself, and tell me if you don't also find it hard to understand how such an ordinary-looking camera could live up to the hype.

Now, the purpose of this review is not to give you a boring list of specifications and tech-specs, but to give you a real-world, hands-on account of how it works and how it lives up to its claims. For the specification details, let me point you to the official Olympus website where you can read all about the detailed features of the 770SW.

First, let's take a look at the claims made about this very unusual camera. According to Olympus, it is shockproof (drop it as much as 5 feet onto a hard surface and it won't miss a beat); take it underwater to as much as 33 feet and it will happily snap away wherever you point it; take it into extreme cold (down to -10 degrees Celsius) and it will keep working, and finally, sit (or stand) on it, and it will be able to withstand 220lbs of pressure.

Wow! With claims like that, no wonder skeptics abound.

And when you consider that the entire package costs in the mid $400's (Canadian) and that you don't need an underwater housing (provided you stick to the manufacturers limits), it must surely be the least expensive underwater offering anywhere!

Now, I have a Nikon D70 - and I am in love with it. Have been for the last 3.5 years, and let's be frank, the Olympus 770 is no Nikon D70. But then again, it was never intended to be. And you know what, when it came to choosing which camera to take during my time in Sipadan these past few days, sad to say, the Nikon was almost always left behind in the locker! The reason was simple. Each day we headed out in the dive boats on a 20min trip to our dive site; we got wet, we walked around on the beach in between dives, we had salt spray, wind, often rain, and I would hate to have subjected my Nikon to that sort of punishment.

In fact, on the one day that I did take it out, despite my extreme care,  I could feel the on/off knob getting tighter, and harder to switch, which necessitated a careful cleaning afterwards to get it back to normal. Great camera but not intended for the extremes I found myself in.

But with the Olympus 770SW, it was a completely different story! I had no qualms whatsoever about taking it on the boat, shooting pictures or video on the trip out, taking it down with me when diving to less than 10 metres, and walking around on the beach with it between dives to my heart's content. And, how did it perform?

That's the million-dollar question, and the answer was simple: brilliantly!

First, through no fault of my own, on the first day, while stepping onto the boat, another diver bumped into me, and the camera tumbled from my hands and fell at least 5 feet on the hard boat floor. It fell flat on the LCD monitor. No cushioning, no deflection - just a sickening thud as the solid stainless-steel body collided with an immovable force. I picked up the camera, turned it on, and it was instantly ready to take pictures - which I did just to check that everything was still functioning.

Well, that was reassuring. But the main test was still to come - getting the camera wet. Now, when you look at the camera, there are all sorts of holes and orifices, making it very hard to accept that it could be completely waterproof. Firstly, there is the microphone aperture up front. Then, at the rear is a multi-hole speaker grid - more opportunities for water to do its wicked stuff. The control buttons (zoom, menu, play, mode, shutter, on/off) all seemed just too normal and too flimsy to withstand the onslaught of 10 metres of water pressure.

Because of a healthy dose of skepticism, I have to confess to first giving it the water-bowl test - fresh water in a desert bowl dunking it for just 2 minutes. OK, not much of a test, but it was reassuring to actually pull it out, dry it off, and find that... yes, it actually still worked normally.

Still, that was not at all even close to the wicked environment of the ocean - salt water, lots of pressure, fine sediment, changing temperatures. So, finally there was nothing for it but to risk all by taking it down on a 10m maximum dive. At least, that was what the divemaster said, but perhaps because of high tide, it turned out to be more like 12 meters.

And, to my horror, when I looked at my dive computer, I noticed that I had bottomed out at 12 meters. A quick glance at my camera's LCD and the dreaded message appeared in red:  WARNING: DEPTH EXCEEDED (or words to that effect). I quickly swam up a little, but I have to confess that on at least 3 other times during the dive, I saw that red message again, and made a hasty mini-ascent. In any event, I kept on shooting, taking picture after picture, until my dive time ran out.

To its credit, the batteries lasted right through the dive, and still had enough juice afterwards for photos on the boat on the 20 min trip back. Then, following instructions, I threw the camera into a large tub of freshwater, swished it around a bit, turned it on and off a dozen times, then left it lying there for a further 10 minutes.

I returned, took it out, dried it, and went back to my room and my laptop computer. With the help of Photoshop, and some very basic picture manipulations such as brightness, contrast, colour, cropping and sharpening, the results were quite spectacular - certainly far in excess of what I had anticipated.

The pictures that you see throughout this article were taken during that dive, and the full collection (with pictures in much larger format, and in a neat Flash type slideshow generated by Adobe Lightroom) can be found here: http://www.leveyfamily.com/slideshows/sipadan-underwater.  Subsequent to that dive, I became more confident - a lot more! I took it snorkelling, took it in a torrential downpour, on the beach, 4 more scuba dives, and the only thing I couldn't test (because I couldn't find any) was extreme cold (although I guess I could have stuck it in our mini-bar fridge for a while :-)

Now, I am not suggesting that this is a perfect camera - no such beast exists! Yes, it is a little slow between shots; I would have wished for some manual shutter and aperture settings; I would like to be able to see the shutter speed indicated in the LCD; and of course, the absence of a visual eyepiece/viewfinder, and a total dependence on the LCD can be frustrating in bright sunshine, but these are mere quibbles.

If you are looking for a camera that you can throw all manner of abuse at; one that you can take with you in extremes of weather, when river-rafting, scuba diving, boating, playing beach volleyball, swimming in the pool, going cycling with the risk that you may take a tumble, this camera is going to be your first choice!

Factor in, too, that it only costs $450 dollars and carries a 2-year warranty, and it is a package that, simply put, is hard to beat. No, it will not replace your Digital SLR - well, not totally - but it will ensure that no matter where you go or what you do, this is one camera that can take whatever beating you give it and still come up smiling and taking great pictures while doing so.

Consider me a truly converted skeptic!

One final word of caution: as the camera manual instructs, please take extra special care to ensure that the battery/memory card hatch is well and truly closed tightly before taking the camera underwater. It should click firmly into place when you close it. Also, ensure that no objects / dirt / hair etc gets trapped when you close the hatch so that there is no way anything can break the seal that secures the battery entrance.

I am happy to have your feedback at plevey@shaw.ca if you have comments or questions.

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