SeaLife rolls out 'true' water-, shockproof camera

SeaLife Cameras on Tuesday unveiled the ECOshot, a 6-megapixel compact camera which the company touts as the first truly toughened camera for the average user. Its specialized housing is completely waterproof down to a depth of 75 feet, making it ideal for divers, and will survive impacts from as high as six feet. The structure can also withstand such high pressure that an SUV or most any other vehicle can roll directly over the camera without breaking it, SeaLife claims through its tests.

Software onboard the ECOshot is also better than for earlier cameras from the company. A dedicated spy mode automatically snaps photos at a regular interval to take photos of elusive fish and other subjects that may be quicker than a user can press the shutter. Land and sea modes will dynamically fine-tune the exposure and other settings to capture subjects in harsher conditions. The ECOshot runs on AA batteries and stores its photos either on 14MB of internal memory or SD cards. SeaLife claims the camera is available now for $280 with support for both Macs and Windows PCs.