Nimar Underwater Housing for Nikon Coolpix AW130. I recently got a Nikon Coolpix AW130 to take underwater videos, and added the Nimar Underwater Housing for safety and ease of handling. I had previously used the Olympus TG-3 camera with the Olympus housing, and shoot routinely with a Subal ND800 with the NIkon D880E.
Before diving I sat down and spent time with the Coolpix in the Nimar housing, and found the zoom and the video control buttons on the housing barely worked some of the time and not others, plus the control buttoms are crowded together and hard to find by touch. When I looked closely inside the housing, I could see plastic flair sticking out of the black tubing on the control buttons, plus what looked like scissors snip marks on these pieces of tubing.
I then removed the Coolpix camera and compared the ease of use of the video and zoom buttons with those on the Olympus Tough TG3. The Tough won hands down as its Menu is shorter and easier to use, the Microscope and the underwater fish functions work great, and the controls are easier to understand and use, particularly by touch. The picture quality is about the same for both cameras.
From now on I plan to dive with the Olympus Tough in an Olympus housing. The Nimar housing I have now returned to the seller, as it is unusable. =
