Having a boat has given me an interest in doing some amphibious photography. I don’t dive or anything like that but having a camera that is waterproof has a lot of appeal. A camera that could handle a day at the beach, a swim, a hike in the rain, and at the ready in the boat cockpit is very appealing. Since I’ve been messing around a bit with film, an old water proof film camera seemed like it would fit the bill.
At first I browsed the Nikon Nikonos dive cameras. They have a lot of appeal for me but since I didn’t really intend to use it much more than 1 or 2 meters below the surface of the water it seemed like overkill. The Nikonos is also a bit bigger than I’d like for my intended use. A little more research turned up the awkwardly named Nikon L35 AW AD point and shoot. The L35 is waterproof to 3 meters but has a terrestrial lens; no corrections are built in for under water photography like a Nikonos lens. It has auto focus and accurate metering alongside three scale focus settings intended for underwater use when the AF may not work properly. The 35 f/2.8 lens is sufficient for my purposes. A built-in flash makes a complete package for a rough and tumble film camera.
The price was right at about 200€ so I ordered one on ebay. So far I’ve shot with Kodak ColorPlus 200. The Nikon exposed accurately out in the dry world and the flash is useful for daytime fill. Exposure seems fine so far underwater. By the way, it reads DX coding on the film cartridges so you can’t forget to set the correct film speed (guilty of this at times).
