Swann UnderwaterCam review

22 July 2004 21:36 GMT / By Stuart Miles

For the aquatic at heart, Swann has created an underwater camera that simply connects to a (yellow) video phono so you can either view your footage on a television screen or plug it straight into the back of a video recorder and record the footage.

The camera itself is housed in waterproof casing and can be dropped to a depth of 16m. Attached to the casing is a heavy weight- (2.5kg) and this ensures the camera can be kept level when underwater at all time. Additionally, the camera housing also features a built-in circle of LEDs to light up your subject. In tests this proved to be pretty good and certainly allowed us to see what was going on rather than the darkness the normally ensues when going to this depth.

Power is provided via a 12V Sealed Lead-Acid rechargeable battery and you also get a power adapter and car charger in the box to recharge it at home or on a boat. While its good to see a portable power source a little more attention could have been paid to actually packaging this and that really goes for the rest of the unit as well. The camera is well built, solid and performs well, however once you break away from the camera you can't help feeling not much effort has been put into the whole affair.

Verdict

The underwater camera is a nice idea and one that the manual suggests makes for honing your swimming skills in the pool to watching sharks attack your bait when you go ocean fishing.

It even suggests using the camera to cheat when fishing on the riverbank, however it seems to forget one key point, apart from the video cable, which also acts a dangling cable there is no way of controlling the camera once you've got it under water. Whether it's through zooming or even movement and you are left to randomly swinging the device hoping you won't hit anything.

If you plan to attach this to a boat or position it in the pool then great, else it's a bit of a five-minute wonder.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Swann
Price as reviewed: £150
The good: Long cable, bright lights surrounding lens, well built casing
The bad: No control once the camera is in the water, cable doubles up as dangler, beyond the casing everything gets slightly dodgy
Quick verdict: Intriguing, but may easily become a five-minute wonder
Score