When the water is up to his neck, the fun really begins

The AW120 lined beautifully with its elegant exterior that she puts in wetsuit and outdoor equipment.
She's a bit beefy, but even harder to fit any pocket.
The keyboard layout follows the general standard. Anyone who has used a compact camera, can be found here handle quickly.

An everyday notches but it is not for everyone.

This can be seen already on the hard more common, more protected keys and rotary sealed "pressure chamber", the battery, SD memory card and connectors hidden.
For this purpose it has a rather protruding zoom rocker to even with gloves to remain operable and a tilt sensor activated to basic functions without keys can perform.
With the latter, I am not, however, become quite warm. Scroll When image reproduction on tilt was still pleasant, menu functions when recording but rather hakelig.
As can be operated even with sufficiently thin hiking Windstopper- and ice climbing gloves Shell Camera, that's not necessary.

With goggles and cap looks and hears you not so good. The same is also true for the AW120. The protected microphone delivers a not so fresh sound like good weather cameras is slightly dull.
Even with the image quality, the AW120 has been unsuccessful in normal shooting conditions this. In daylight that falls not on, here is only that part of the shadow tends to overexposure.
Darkness does not like it. She's not particularly bright and tends at already at medium ISO speeds to high noise. It is strongly recommended that the Auto ISO limit of 400 set.
The flash for shooting ranges to about 2 meters distance.

Remarkable is the white balance, which operates very reliably. In addition, it has the usual variety of effects modes, some of which when taking a photograph, some are only retrospectively applicable during playback.
With regard to the fact that the camera provides only JPG images, but you should either make an additional neutral picture for the "Archives" or better transfer the images to the PC / tablet and make the effects there with a copy.
If enough memory is recommended to photograph with full 16MP and to make reductions on PC / tablet. Reduced resolution per camera looks a bit soft.

Movies can be made depending on the memory in up to 30 minutes blocks. There are many HD modes for recording available, the autofocus remains active.
Interesting is the 1080P mode / 12.5. There are up to 2 minutes was added with 12.5 fps, but reproduced at 25 frames, so that the movement is accelerated to twice.
Especially cool are the series of images with 60 or 120 frames per second. By pressing a button so reduced resolution 25 or 50 images are shot in high speed. Thus even get caught very fast movements.

Let's go outdoors.

Rain, waterfalls, streams, where you have to bring normal cameras in security, the AW120 gets going properly.
The mere fact that you can photograph very close to the water surface to have and when skiing can sometimes fall into slush without fear of splashing is already worth gold.
Even kiting, windsurfing, canoeing, jet skiing it looks good and can there replace with a little creativity, a fastening Action Cam, as long as you ensure that water does not pop with excessive pressure against them.
And it goes even deeper. I could previously only while snorkeling test up to 2 meters deep, as well as the photos / videos in still good enough brightness with neat details.
The blue cast by the refraction of light under water gets the white balance is not completely gone, but the colors are intense enough to compensate for the PC can.

While hiking the camera provides a digital compass, a pressure / altimeter and of course GPS. The latter is remarkably fast a signal even in the forest.
I know of no camera that would be better here. As a special feature, it has a rough but complete world map stored at the positions you can display and you can during the trek
can record the route via automatic GPS points. Unfortunately, this is eating as with any camera / cell phone but a ton of energy.
Incomprehensible why such a small battery was installed. If we make only pictures to get far between 200-250 images. With GPS tracking and activated this goes rapidly down.
Since you have to open the case for charging or changing the battery, which is a considerable penalty in hostile environments.

Conclusion. A camera activity, creativity and mobility that beautifully combines and makes clunky expensive underwater housing for most cases unnecessary.
For the strong noise at an average ISO values ​​and the mediocre battery there is a point deduction.