I live in the beautiful state of Wisconsin (well, beautiful sometimes) and in early 2024 I had picked up a cheap inflatable kayak to get out onto the water. Now, I figured, I wasn’t about to bring my actual camera out, nor did I just want to use my phone.
I’m a digicam sucker and in a stroke of luck, I found the Nikon AW100 on eBay for a crazy cheap price. The guy I bought it from said it was used for “field work” in Alaska. Now, I don’t know exactly what field work means, but it sounds pretty badass.
In any case, I used it a couple times and then it sat forgotten in my lifejacket pocket for about a year. Earlier in 2025, I took a family trip down to Disney’s waterparks and the Florida coast. A day before the trip, it hit me that I still had this dumb little waterproof point-and-shoot, so I brought it along and captured the vacation in all its grainy/out-of-focus glory.
Anyways, enough yappin’, let’s get into it.
Size/Weight
The AW100 has a super typical body style for 2011. That is to say it’s very tiny and very pocketable. While it’s just a plain rectange, it does have a nice bump-out for the lens and mine came in an obnoxiously awesome blaze orange color.
I actually love it. I’m a big fan of digicam aesthetics in general, but this one really struck me. My favorite color happens to be orange so it was really a perfect match.
Image Quality
So how is the image quality? Honestly, more than adequate as long as you have good lighting. During the daytime, I’d say the photos that came out of this were more or less on par with my mid-tier phone.
In the dark, though, it fell apart a bit. High ISO actually doesn’t look terrible, but for some reason the auto exposure on the camera preferred to slow down the shutter speed BEFORE it ramped up the ISO.
For this reason, a lot of nighttime photos, although they may be pretty “clean”, had just a tinge of motion blur.
Video & Autofocus
That being said, the built-in stabilization is fairly decent. Not on the level of a real camera or even a modern phone, but it was somewhat ok. I honestly found that videos, thanks my aforementioned note on how the camera handles autoexposure, to look better than photos.
Zooming is super smooth, but as you’d expect from a waterproof camera, the range isn’t that large. Autofocus, on the other hand, was a bit iffy. Again, in day-time it focused great with minimal issues. At night, I found that it would miss focus A LOT, even in decently lit scenarios.
Quick note: I did have flash pre-firing (aka "red eye reduction") turned OFF to not blind my family repeatedly whenever I shot a picture. Turning that back on would have made a world of difference in the focusing I think.
Usability/Comfort
From a general day-to-day usability standpoint, I found the AW100 pretty enjoyable to use. The strap was pretty much perfect, being just long enough to throw around your neck but not too long to get tangled up in my bag (I generally hate camera neck straps).
Given that this camera was designed to be used underwater, it’s got a pretty straightforward and simple layout. Big power button, big shutter button, big zoom switch, big and responsive D-pad for jumping through menus. The menus, though, feel VERY dated.
It also has integrated GPS. I didn’t end up using it at all, but it has a LITERAL MAP that you can open up in-camera. Super cool.
Durability
Alright, here’s the fun part. The AW100 is, according to the text on the camera, waterproof up to 33ft and shockproof up to 5ft. It’s designed to be smacked around and it was such a nice change of pace not having to be careful with a camera for once.
So, my personal experiences with it are as follows. I dropped it a couple times from standing height, twice on carpet (intentional drop test) and once on concrete (unintentional drop test lol). It sat in my luggage crushed between a bunch of crap multiple times. I decided not to willingly drop it any more since, frankly, I’ve actually come to love this little camera.
Waterproof-wise, I’ve dunked it in quite a few murky Wisconsin lakes and rivers. Absolutely no problems, was usable in the water and right after it came out. Even the mic quality was unchanged! Now, I will note that the image quality is really not great when underwater…
The real test is when I was down in Florida and took it through some waterparks. This champ sat in my swim trunk pocket all day multiple days as I swam and floated the lazy river. It still worked perfectly, and all the controls seem to work in the water and immediately right after coming to dry land.
Conclusion
Yep, so this little thing is a beast. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re probably already on the cusp of buying it for yourself, so I’ll just say: go for it.
This isn’t the best underwater camera in the world, but it’s cute and it triggered a bit of nostalgia in me. I’ll drop an eBay affiliate link below, thanks for reading!
Buy from eBay <— this is an affiliate link, which means I get a (very) tiny commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for helping support the site!