From W90 to WG3

I finally decided to upgrade the waterproof compact, having enjoyed some success with the W90 in all sorts of situations where cameras were not really the thing to be using.

The W90 will be going to Amelia Jane Riley, my four year old Grandaughter. She was astounding with it when we went a couple of places and she asked for a "proper camera", as opposed to a child's one, so the W90 will be ideal.

The WG3, in slightly gaudy orange, now resides in my pocket and does the arduous stuff. Not had a chance to use it properly yet, but it's very similar in operation to the W90.

The one niggle is that there's no charger in the package, just a power adapter and USB lead, so I need a charger and extra battery. This is a really backward step for manufacturers, but clearly that's the way it's going to be in the future. Presumably it's all about costs.

Yes I acquired a brand name action camera (non Pentax) recently and found the same thing, so it's obviously industry wide. In my case this actually wasn't too bad as this means I can charge on the go in the car via a cigarette socket usb charger. It also means charging is now pretty universal, so you've got a good chance of finding somewhere to recharge when you're out and about now too.

So, maybe not such a negative on reflection, just a change is all.

It depends how you work really. I use two batteries, rotating them and charging via the charger. Using a power pack instead implies charging in-camera, which takes the camera out of service whilst we're charging.

Actually with the DSLRs I use a three battery rotation, but then a day's shooting on a job could be quite a large number of shots.

Hmm, that's a good point. For my new camera I don't intend on using it for long periods of time, but that does raise quite an issue. Hmm...

Is this not a worldwide initiative from mobile phones to everything else? I read some statistic about the shocking number of redundant phone chargers the average house had. Kindles don't come with chargers either

My new mobile didn't even come with a charger plug as I was told in store I should have some at home my Gr also never came with a charger.

Just thinking about this, the camera itself is now a charger. If you have two batteries then you simply need to pre charge one in the camera and then swap in the next one to charge.

As John says though, this does take the camera out of action whilst it's charging though, so have to charge them all in advance.