“One of the fun aspects of walking through trade shows is finding wacky products. That does not mean bad products, just ones that seems to come out of left field. This year’s winner is Liquid Image’s SCUBA Series HD320, a diving mask with a built-in digital camera.

Due in spring for an estimated cost of $250, the HD320 looks like a standard SCUBA mask with the camera molded into the top edge. As a former SCUBA instructor and underwater photographer, I was impressed with the design. Good down to 115 feet, you get 5-megapixel still images and 720p high-definition video. Large levers — good for use with diving gloves — on the top right corner of the mask trip the shutter or start and stop video. Colored LED light above your eye let you know if your are shooting still or movies. Your images are stored on a micro SD card and four AAA batteries power the whole thing.

Given the price and the challenges of shooting underwater, the camera has a fixed lens and fully-automatic controls. Its ISO has a limited range, 100 to 200, which to me seems too low for shooting underwater. But the mask does have attachment on either side for optional lights.

Resort divers are the most likely candidates for the HD320, but the person I met on the show floor said that serious underwater photographers might want it for a backup or as a way to take video recordings while using their more expensive still cameras. And I could see her point.”

Thanks to CameraCyte.