Thursday, February 16, 2012

Love it: Fuji WP-FXF30 Underwater Camera Case

A number of years ago I made one of my best-ever purchases, which was my Fuji F31fd digital camera. This is a sexy little camera, with great low-light performance and fast reaction time. I used to take it with me everywhere (more recently I just use my iPhone, it’s just handier). After J*&P instilled me with a love of snorkelling, I knew there had to be a way to take my beloved Fuji down there with me. And I don’t mean with one of the glorified ziploc bags you see online — I mean with a real, usable case. And in 2007 I found it!


The Fuji WP-FXF30 case has a set area for the lens to expand outwards, a dial on the top to let you select your different photo/movie formats, dedicated buttons and a wide viewing area for the LCD screen on the back. And it even improves on the camera itself by allowing for different lenses to be attached, like a wide angle and strobe setup.

The price? Well, the original price on this was actually about the same as the camera itself, in the $350 range, which made it somewhat prohibitive. I did find it online for much cheaper, but they wouldn’t deliver to Canada — so I had it delivered to a friend in Seattle who agreed to bring it home for Xmas (thanks Danny!). And just to make it better, the Canadian dollar was ridiculously high, so in the end I paid less than $100 for it, which somehow makes it even more awesome.

A lot of extra care is necessary when using it of course — before every use, the sealing o-rings have to be cleaned, inspected, covered in clean silica gel and re-installed, then it has to be tested to be sure it’s watertight. But once that’s done, you can go out with the case without worrying about getting water or sand in your camera.

I’ve taken it with me on three tropical vacations so far, and I can’t stress enough how huge the difference is between using your own digital camera underwater and a single-use waterproof film camera. Buying this case is something I’ve never regretted!

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