Digital Home Thoughts: Pentax Announces WG-2 Rugged Compact Camera

Pentax has updated their line of rugged compacts again with the WG-2. Strangely the press release makes a claim that this is the 13th generation. I thought superstitions would mean people tend to not talk about such things. Oh well! The camera itself has some updates, with a new 16 megapixel sensor (backlit CMOS, so hopefully it is not too terrible), a 3" HVGA LCD, and 1080p videos at 30 FPS in h.264. The lens seems to be the same unit as the WG-1, a 5x 28-140mm equivalent f/3.5-5.5 lens which does not appear to be stabilised. Also carried forward are the six LED lights surrounding the lens to act as lighting for close-up shots. Pretty neat. The camera is rated to be waterproof to 40 feet (12 metres), shockproof from 5 feet (1.5 metres), freezeproof to 14F (-10C) and dustproof. Ships in March for US$400 for the GPS version, and US$350 for the one without. More photos and details at the read link.