Pentax WG-8 review: a real Captain Scarlet of a compact camera, even though it only comes in green or black

I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Pentax. The Pentax ME Super was one of my first ‘proper’ 35mm SLR film cameras back in the early 1980s and, to me, it had the same kind of iconic status as early generations of the VW Golf (or Rabbit) from the same era.

Fast forward to 2011 and Pentax was acquired by Ricoh. The Pentax name continued to adorn SLRs (albeit digital rather than film), with current models including the Pentax KF and Pentax K-3 Mark III, while compact cameras were badged as Ricoh. It looks like the Pentax brand name is coming back to compact cameras, with recent additions including the Pentax 17 retro compact film camera.

The Pentax WG-8 that I’m reviewing here looks and feels virtually identical to the Ricoh WG-6 digital compact that was launched back in 2018. It’s designed and built to be a go-anywhere compact digital camera, tough enough to take on pretty much any challenge. With high-end waterproofing and shock-resistance, it sets its sights on being one of the best underwater cameras as well as one of the best cameras for kids, especially those who are well-practiced in breaking stuff.

Pentax WG-8: Specifications

Pentax WG-8: Price

With all that rugged and robust adventure-proofing, the Pentax WG-8 doesn’t come cheap. But it’s much more than just an underwater camera and aims to be a faithful companion on life’s journey, wherever that takes you, even when the going gets tough. It costs $397 / £480 / AU$712 which is somewhat less expensive in the USA than the comparable OM System Tough TG-7, although the competing cameras are more similarly price in other world regions, the TG-7 selling for $549 / £499 / AU$759.

Pentax WG-8: Design & Handling

Rightly or wrongly, I’ve always been precious about my cameras. I cosset them, pamper them and knock on wood (not literally) I haven’t broken one yet. The Pentax WG-8 is designed to suit a completely different agenda. It’s an adventure camera for the adventurous of spirit who want a camera that can go anywhere and keep on going – a bit like the photographic equivalent of an army Jeep.

So what makes the WG-8 so tough? Well, the list is long. Its fully sealed construction makes it waterproof to a depth of 20 meters (65.6’) and it can shoot underwater continuously for up to two hours (IPX8 or JIS Class 8 rating). Break the surface to catch your breath and find yourself in a sand storm? No problem, it’s dustproof with an PX6 or JIS Class 6 rating. Escape to much higher ground and it’s freezeproof to -10C (14F). Drop it from your numb, frozen fingers and it’s drop-proof to a height of 2.1m (6.8’). And heck, since you’ve already dropped it, you might as well run it over as well. It’s crushproof to 100kgf (kilogram force). Suffice it to say that you probably won’t break this camera unless you’re really determined and, even then, you might need a bigger hammer.

Catering further to the adventurous of spirit and the path less traveled, the camera features built-in GPS and can record geographical position and travel log data in image files, as well as optionally imprinting them on images themselves.

Toughness is what makes the WG-8 really stand out from the compact crowd but, of course, it has to be able to take pictures as well. For that, it has a 20-megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor at its heart. That’s good news as far as it goes, but it’s only a physically small ½.3” format image sensor, so those 20 megapixels are packed in very tight. Back on the plus side, there’s a 5x optical zoom lens up front with a motorized range of 28-135mm (full-frame equivalent) and an aperture rating of f/3.5-5.5.

Sticking with the front panel, the lens is surrounded by a rank of six LED lamps, which can supply a ring-light effect and are particularly effective for extreme close-up photography. There’s also a regular flash module with a range of 0.2-5.5m (0.66-18’) at the wide-angle end, when shooting with Auto ISO.

Up on top, the WG-8 keeps everything neat and simple. There’s an on/off button, a shutter-release with the time-honored half-press facility for metering and autofocus, and a shooting mode dial. Metering options include multi-segment, center-weighted and spot, with a shutter speed range of 1/4000th to a ¼ of a second, or 4 seconds, depending on shooting mode.

There’s a wide range of scene modes on offer, as well as Full Auto, Program and two user-defined options. There’s also a neat ‘Microscope’ mode that I’ll come back to shortly. Autofocus is of the contrast-detection variety, with 9-point, spot and auto tracking options available. There are also manual focus, macro focus and face detection modes, the last with optional smile capture and blink detection, covering a wide range of bases.

Around the back, there’s a 3-inch screen with a decent resolution of 1040k dots. Not just for navigating menu options and reviewing images, the rear screen serves for composing images, as the camera doesn’t feature a viewfinder. The screen image is pretty good but there’s no tilt facility nor vari-angle articulation, so shooting from creative angles can be a challenge.

The back panel also plays host to a typical 4-way pad with an OK button at its center, various other buttons and a T/W (Telephoto / Wide) rocker switch for the motorized zoom lens. Digital zoom is also available as a menu option to boost the range of the lens.

I said I’d get back to those macro facilities, so let’s do it. A Macro button on the back of the camera enables near-focusing to get you up close and personal to subjects. But there’s more. The camera is supplied complete with a ‘macro stand’. This looks very much like a ‘step-up’ ring, if you’re familiar with those for shooting with filters. Basically, it’s a threaded ring that screws onto the front of the lens and is about 3mm (0.1”) thick. Screw it on and you can rest the camera on its lens, right on top of flat objects.

The macro stand enables extreme macro photography and, in case you’re wondering how the subject matter can be illuminated when it’s completely covered, that’s the main purpose of the 6-LED lamp array built onto the front of the lens. That said, the LED array can also come in useful for underwater shooting and video capture at close range. And speaking of video, the camera can shoot at up to 4K 30p, 1080 30p and 720 60/30p, in MPEG-4 mode.

Down below on the bottom panel, there’s a tripod mounting socket and a waterproofed flap. Open the flap and you get access to the full-sized SD/HC/XC memory card slot, battery compartment, the USB-C socket for charging or data transfer, and an HDMI socket. A mains adapter and charging cable are supplied for charging the battery in-camera, and the cable is data-transfer-compatible. You’ll need to do this or use a card reader, as Wi-Fi isn’t featured in the camera.

Pentax WG-8: Performance

The toughness of the camera is an important aspect of performance, given its target market and intended use. After all, the fact that it can carry on shooting stills and video when other cameras have died the death, due to drowning, dropping, dust-inhalation, crushing or freezing is literally a strong point.

During my testing, I found that the motorized zoom mechanism worked efficiently and that autofocus was reasonably quick and mostly accurate. I didn’t fare so well with the camera’s light metering abilities. It’s my habit to take two or three shots of any given subject, and to keep the best image, taking small frame-by-frame differences into account. After all, it’s not like I’m wasting film. What I noticed with the WG-8 was that successive shots of exactly the same subject under exactly the same lighting conditions often varied rather more in brightness than I’d expect. Ultimately, exposures lacked consistency during my testing.

Diving in and shooting underwater is something that you can’t contemplate with the vast majority of cameras on the market, unless you invest in specialist underwater housings for them. That’s a definite plus point for the WG-8.

Considering that all the hype for this camera is around toughness, I was pleasantly surprised by its macro abilities. Below you’ll see a shot of a postage stamp being held under the thumb, just for the sake of reference so that you can see its size. Flick through the subsequent two shots in the gallery to see the range of enlargement enabled in ‘microscope’ mode, from the widest to the most telephoto zoom setting. The maximum magnification at the telephoto end is really impressive.

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The camera is capable of nice image quality under good lighting conditions but, even then, brightness, contrast, sharpness and clarity can be variable. See for yourself in the ‘sample images’ gallery below. Under low lighting conditions, the physically small ½.3” image sensor struggles to retain a good signal to noise ratio. The result is relatively poor definition and an increase in noticeable image noise at high ISO settings.

The following gallery of images was shot inside a church and taken at a range of ISO settings, from ISO 500 up to the maximum sensitivity setting of ISO 6400.

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Pentax WG-8: Sample Images

This gallery of example images was shot in sunny conditions in The Walled Gardens of Cannington, which are situated within the grounds of a medieval priory, located in the English county of Somerset.

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{Product Name}: Verdict

If you need a camera that can be dunked in water, blasted with dust and sand, dropped, crushed, frozen, or all of the above, then the Pentax WG-8 has a lot going for it. It’s pretty pricey to buy but repair bills for accidental damage should hopefully be non-existent. It works well underwater and has impressive macro abilities but, ultimately, I found picture quality to be unsatisfying and that exposure metering was inconsistent. All in all, I’d say the Pentax is a good camera but not a great one.

Alternatives

The OM System Tough TG-7 is a similarly tough, waterproof camera that’s geared to an adventurous lifestyle. It has less megapixels under the bonnet but edges ahead for image quality and can shoot in RAW quality mode instead of just JPEGs. It costs $549 / £499 / AU$759 to buy.

The Kodak PixPro WPZ2 is a tough, waterproof, dustproof and shockproof camera that aims to keep costs to a minimum. Nevertheless, it features a 4x optical zoom lens, a 16MP image sensor and has built-in Wi-Fi.