Underwater Digital Camera?

[zelachang]

Hi all, I'm going to be heading south for vacation this summer and I was wondering if anyone had experience with underwater digital cameras. I'd probably be using it just for snorkeling but in the future I might take it for dives. I currently have an canon xsi but going for a housing seems like a huge investment for something I'm going to be doing once a year at most. I've used my dad's sony tx7 + housing for a few dives and it has produced pretty decent pictures so I think a point and shoot would be fine for my purposes. I've seen a few cameras that are "waterproof" to a certain depth but I'm not sure if that would be a viable route compared with going with a regular point and shoot + housing. My budget is between 250-500, but less is always better. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Lemon law]

You might consider renting the underwater camera or housing.

 

[heymrdj]

If you have a decent camera, there's many places on the gulf coast that will rent out universal housings. Alot of the diving/snorkeling places have them.

 

[Gooberlx2]

The Canon-made underwater housings you can get for their P&S cams are great. I've taken one to 100ft before.

More than image quality, the huge advantage to the big SLR rigs is the ability to use high-powered off-camera flashes. The on camera flashes are certainly not strong, and will produce a lot of backscatter if much sediment is suspended.

There are UW slave flash/mount kits, but I never explored that option.

Otherwise, yeah, just rent from a dive shop.

edit: Note that not all of the Canon housings are waterproof to 100+ feet. In general, it seems the ones with blue latches are the dive oriented housings. It's also listed in the description in the store.

 

[zelachang]

Thanks for the replies! I did a quick search for housing rentals and they seem to be rather expensive (~900-1200 a wk) so I think that's out of the question for me, unless my google-fu is off and I missed some better prices. At those prices I could probably get a P&S+housing+strobe. Good to hear that the canon housings can go down to 100 ft. After some googling I'm leaning towards an S90 since it seems to be a great camera.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Yup, the only real option is to go with a point and shoot with an underwater housing that will probably cost about the same as the point and shoot itself. Especially for diving, regular waterproof cameras won't work, and an off-camera strobe is a must because like Gooberlx2 said, there is a LOT of backscatter from on-camera flashes. Ambient light photography will be rather difficult depending on where you dive, how deep you go, and how much noise the camera produces at high ISO.

Make sure you follow all the directions on taking care of the enclosure though - take care of the rubber sealing rings, wash out any sand, rinse with fresh water after each dive whilst pressing all the buttons, put the recommended amount of goop on the rings, and keep your desiccant packets dry, although this may not be too much of an issue in warm waters. Also make sure batteries are fully charged before a dive, and prepare for a hard to read LCD display.

 

[soydios]

Or find an underwater point-and-shoot that will go to 10 meters ... like an updated version of my Olympus 1030SW. The image quality kinda sucks, but at least there's an image. I have a DSLR when I want image quality, and the waterproof camera for places where I obviously cannot take my DSLR.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Or find an underwater point-and-shoot that will go to 10 meters

For snorkeling that's fine. But it's just not adequate for diving, unless you know you're going to be staying at less than ~30ft.

 

[Rallispec]

Thanks for the replies! I did a quick search for housing rentals and they seem to be rather expensive (~900-1200 a wk) so I think that's out of the question for me, unless my google-fu is off and I missed some better prices. At those prices I could probably get a P&S+housing+strobe. Good to hear that the canon housings can go down to 100 ft. After some googling I'm leaning towards an S90 since it seems to be a great camera.

you can rent a water proof P&S for $100 a month
http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/camera-compact-underwater

 

[zelachang]

There are UW slave flash/mount kits, but I never explored that option.

Otherwise, yeah, just rent from a dive shop.

edit: Note that not all of the Canon housings are waterproof to 100+ feet. In general, it seems the ones with blue latches are the dive oriented housings. It's also listed in the description in the store.

I've seen a couple setups with a P&S in a housing + a strobe connected by a fiber optic cable though I have no idea how that works. I figure if I need a strobe later on I can just add it on right?

Yup, the only real option is to go with a point and shoot with an underwater housing that will probably cost about the same as the point and shoot itself. Especially for diving, regular waterproof cameras won't work, and an off-camera strobe is a must because like Gooberlx2 said, there is a LOT of backscatter from on-camera flashes. Ambient light photography will be rather difficult depending on where you dive, how deep you go, and how much noise the camera produces at high ISO.

Make sure you follow all the directions on taking care of the enclosure though - take care of the rubber sealing rings, wash out any sand, rinse with fresh water after each dive whilst pressing all the buttons, put the recommended amount of goop on the rings, and keep your desiccant packets dry, although this may not be too much of an issue in warm waters. Also make sure batteries are fully charged before a dive, and prepare for a hard to read LCD display.

Thanks for the tips! I can imagine how a leaky o-ring could be catastrophic. Since I'm going to be just snorkeling for this trip I think I'm hoping to get by with the onboard flash.

For snorkeling that's fine. But it's just not adequate for diving, unless you know you're going to be staying at less than ~30ft.

When I snorkel its more like semi-freediving so while I doubt that I would go much past 20 ft it worries me a little that its only rated for 10m.

 

[Jeeebus]

We took our old crappy P&S Canon with us to Tahiti a few years ago and borrowed a friend's underwater housing who had a similar Canon camera. Picture quality wasn't anything to write home about (the camera itself wasn't exactly high end, even back then), but it worked fine for all of our underwater pics. We only snorkeled (no diving), so I can't say how it would work 50 feet down. Couple pics I managed to find laying around:

 

[Gooberlx2]

I've seen a couple setups with a P&S in a housing + a strobe connected by a fiber optic cable though I have no idea how that works. I figure if I need a strobe later on I can just add it on right?



Thanks for the tips! I can imagine how a leaky o-ring could be catastrophic. Since I'm going to be just snorkeling for this trip I think I'm hoping to get by with the onboard flash.




When I snorkel its more like semi-freediving so while I doubt that I would go much past 20 ft it worries me a little that its only rated for 10m.

I would look at waterproof P&S cams like I do waterproof watches. I use a 2x rule. A watch rated resistant to 200ft means I'm comfortable to take it to ~100ft (~130ft actually as that's the deepest I've been). I'd be comfortable taking a 10M cam to 20ft, but not for hours on end.

Housing are a bit different since you're dealing witch silicone, o-rings, etc... I doubt I'd take the 200ft rated P&S housing to 200ft though.

 

[cohenfive]

i had a canon housing and it leaked, so now i'm really gunshy about them even though my situation was evidently very rare. in your price range you might want to check out the canon d10 which seems to be the current state of the art for an underwater digicam. i don't know why more companies aren't making them now...too much of a niche perhaps? nikon used to have the great nikonos cameras but they haven't made any digital versions.

 

[Gooberlx2]

even though my situation was evidently very rare

What was your situation?

 

[radioouman]

I have a Canon EOS 1000D, but for quick shots and underwater we use our Fuji Finepix F40fd. We have the underwater housing for it, and it does a decent job with underwater pics. I won't risk bringing my SLR underwater, but I could handle a leak with the Fuji. It is a great point and shoot, but nothing that I couldn't live without.

 

[cohenfive]

What was your situation?

leaky underwater housing....most people are quite satisfied with the canon housings, just wasn't my experience.