Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 Likes it Rough, Wants to Film in HD

Kick it, drop it, dunk it the Panasonic DMC-TS1 can take it and your pictures too. Submersible up to 3m or 10 ft. and drop-proof for about 1.5m or 4 ft. This 12MP tough guy wants to go everywhere with you and snap everything in your path. It comes with face detection and memorization for personalized face exposure adjustments, but the latter of which may sound a little hokey until there's more details on how it actually works. Also behind its bulletproof facade packs a 28-129mm equivalent lens and a 2.7" LCD with Lumix's well-reviewed image stabilization technology. Hardcore camera fanatics will love the ultra low shutter lag times and up to 10fps continuous shooting.

But that's not even the best part, the DMC-TS1 is adding in HD movie mode in one of our most favorite video standards: AVCHD. This is the second Lumix that can capture HD videos at up to 720p at 60fps in AVCHD Lite. DMC-TS1's ability to record at such high frame rate compares favorably to Sony DSC-T500. Though, there's a few downsides of this newer HQ format which may put you off grabbing one. First, AVCHD is a great digital format for computer viewing and great digital archiving due to its high compression rate compared to some other formats, but it's not native to any traditional players except for PS3. You'll need to go through the process of converting it before burning it to a DVD or BD disc for Blu-ray players. Secondly, you'll need to shell out a little extra for SD cards that can handle 10MB/s writing. At only $399 and boasting more features than many models at this price point should be good choice if you've got that much cabbage to spare.