Disappointingly capable

I was surprised at the capabilities of this little pocket camera.

Very good macro performance if you just need clarity in the center 1/2 of the image.  If you need a completely flat field and you need sharpness across the frame this is not the macro camera you want.

Excellent clarity and color in daylight shooting situations.  I use it for landscape.  My wife wanted a 24"x36" poster print of a beach scene shot at max zoom, and it turned out great.  It's hanging in our bedroom.  Sure, when you get closer than about 12" you can see artifacts and so on, but at normal viewing distances it is very nice.

Onboard flash is quite adequate for group shots in restaurants and so on.  Autofocus on faces feature works well in this application.

It usually lives in my pants pocket inside a sock.  The sock keeps it looking like new.

Disappointingly capable because it took away the urge to buy another camera for too many months.

Eventually I began to see some shortcomings.  Lens shows a little bit of flare and color fringing but it is minor.  Focus area selection is none (except for face recognition you get a variable size rectangle in the middle).  There is no raw image storage (JPGs only).  Sharpening in-camera delivers too many haloes regardless of where the slider is set (3 positions).  Of course with a small sensor camera such as this you can't expect good performance in low light.  GPS uses battery even when camera is off, so I never use it.

But the screen is nice and bright, the buttons all work very well, battery life is pretty good, and it fits the hand nicely.  If you are looking for a small rugged camera to carry around every day this one is a good choice.

Well written and basically what ive seen from a bunch of the pocket underwaterers. As long as your expectations arent super high these cameras are small, fun and cheap and can produce great photos.

Thanks for your encouraging reply.

At this point the WG-5 GPS remains available at B&H, which is a good sign.

It looks like Ricoh/Pentax is really minimizing its footprint in the compact camera area, concentrating more on the GR and the larger ILCs.  The industry trend is this way anyway.  Sales of compacts must really not be good, with all the smartphone competition.

I was surprised to find the WG-5 still available.

The camera is still working fine, but I don't use it much now that I am retired.  I used the macro shooting capability a lot in my job.

Tom Schum wrote:

Thanks for your encouraging reply.

At this point the WG-5 GPS remains available at B&H, which is a good sign.

It looks like Ricoh/Pentax is really minimizing its footprint in the compact camera area, concentrating more on the GR and the larger ILCs. The industry trend is this way anyway. Sales of compacts must really not be good, with all the smartphone competition.

I was surprised to find the WG-5 still available.

The camera is still working fine, but I don't use it much now that I am retired. I used the macro shooting capability a lot in my job.

No problem. I actually went onto Flickr right after posting the last reply and I have to say, there are some really impressive black and white shots from the WG-4. I was surprised. Really really impressive. Not many, but it definitely looks capable.

Here are links to my DPR galleries related to the WG-4, in hopes that you might find something interesting there.

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/1438043515/albums/dp2-vs-wg-4-gps

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/1438043515/albums/dp3m-vs-wg-4-gps

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/1438043515/albums/ricoh-wg-4#page=1

I'm guessing the WG-5 image quality is just as good.

happypoppeye wrote:

Well written and basically what ive seen from a bunch of the pocket underwaterers. As long as your expectations arent super high these cameras are small, fun and cheap and can produce great photos.

Agree, 100%!

Check what Pentax (WP to W60), Panasonic (TS1 to TS5), Canon D30 and Nikon AW130 UW cameras are capable to record underwater:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/sets/

https://www.youtube.com/user/PrimozP/playlists?flow=grid&view=1&sort=dd

(everything is recorded during snorkeling and freediving with this (naked) https://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/albums/72157633756660405 UW cameras, up to 18 meters deep)

Some photos from my latest holidays in Egypt - Hurghada, Sahl Hasheesh (camera Nikon AW130):

0 to 8 meters deep

10+ meters deep

More from Sahl Hasheesh (july, 2016):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/albums/72157670421174115

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9in01ELOauvfEHb3gKjaiEYVmBFzvYhq

Primoz

Beautiful shots!

Lovely shots! Is there any way of telling which photos were taken with each camera? I don't seem to get any exif data from them here on flickr?

Catdust wrote:

... Is there any way of telling which photos were taken with each camera? ...

Yes!

All photos and movies with names DSCNxxx were taken with Nikon AW130 and all other with names P1xxxxxx (only few of them - in general those on which my wife filmed me how I'm doing something under water) were taken with Panasonic TS20 which has depth restriction to 5 meters, therefore is only useful for recording from the surface or at most to a depth of 3 meters.

Ahh I see thanks heaps!