I’m no photographer, but like everyone else, I take lots of snapshots so we’ll have reminders of trips, recitals, and birthdays. We always put together an annual photo collage, showing where we went and what we did that year. It’s good enough for me that we have it recorded — the photos don’t have to be works of art.

My family loves to travel. We ski, and camp, and go to the beach as often as we can. This past winter we went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We borrowed a good camera and took tons of pictures, but I was worried the whole time that we’d drop it in the snow.

Last month, we took the girls to Toronto to see Niagara Falls. Again, we had a loaner camera. Spray from the falls kicked up like crazy. The wetter we got, the more I worried about that camera.

I recently had the chance to try out a new waterproof camera: the Olympus 850 SW. I wrote about the camera for our catalog, and then my friend Dave and I filmed a short video, calling out its features.

To introduce this little camera to my family, I held it under the faucet and freaked them out. It’s also airtight, so we could take it camping or to the beach without stressing about sand or dirt getting inside. And it works in below-freezing temps, so we could confidently take it on the slopes.

I took this picture in the pouring rain:

Here’s a shot of one of our peonies, taken with the camera's macro (close-up) mode:

 

The 850 SW also takes panoramic pictures. It snaps three simultaneous shots, and then stitches them together inside the camera to create one seamless photo, like this one:

I took advantage of this panorama mode to take pictures of the whole gang at our family reunion a couple weeks back.

All in all, the Olympus 850 SW seemed like an excellent camera to take along on outdoor adventures. My family's a little rough on electronic gear, but this camera was rugged enough to keep up with us.