Camera and Housing Recommendation?

Although I love looking at other people's dive photos, I've never really cared about taking them myself - until now. I'm planning a liveaboard trip in Indonesia, and hope to have some good photo opps. I'm looking for something simple and straightforward, and am considering the Ikelite 6147.8 Underwater Housing Kit with Canon SD800 Digital Camera. I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thanks!

can't comment on that particular camera but yes, Ikelite is a good way to go.

One thing you want to make sure the camera can do is give you manual control over shutter speed and fstops as well as manual white balance control. I know the Canon A series does this, not sure about the one you mention. If it does then it would be a good camera for sure. I personally like the Canon line up of compacts

I just returned from a trip where I used the SD700 Canon.

It's not a good camera for underwater use because it has no manual controls - only "point and shoot."

At the minimum you want a camera you can use in A or S mode - otherwise the camera will always think you are topside and try to expose your photos accordingly :-( You need to take over the control and "change the camera's mind."

A good alternative would be the Fuji F31fd or a Canon or Olympus camera w/ manual controls.

Cheers

James

New here. I have watched/followed for a while and decided it was time to join. Canon "S" series cameras can indeed take good underwater photos. I used a Canon S410 in a Canon housing on numerous dive trips and the results led me to the SD 700 IS. My Zenfolio page has photos from a Cayman Aggressor 06 trip which are almost entirely from a "S" series camera. There are also 6-7 photos from my SD 700 IS which were taken in terrible conditions on two dives in Key West this past December. Almost "whiteout conditions" and those are the only images I took. With the addition of the Inon strobe and lenses I expect to get even better results with the SD 700 IS than I did with the old S410. If your looking for something simple and uncomplicated a "S" series could be your answer.

YMMV

Hi Jeff, welcome to Wetpixel.

Cheers

James

what are "S" and "A" modes

S is shutter priority. You set the shutter speed and the camera picks the aperture. A is aperture priority; you pick the aperture and the camera picks the shutter speed.

A can be very useful UW. As a dSLR shooter I usually insist on have a manual control over the camera. However my sales rep pointed out the for the small consumer digicams the automatic modes can often do better than manual control. The manual controls can often be difficult to use with these cameras.

Many digicams have an UW mode. This might be the thing to look for in a camera. You can do comparisons and get all the details of a camera on dpReviews.

As mentioned the Fuji F30 and 31 look like good bets. They have an UW mode and at least two available housings available. They also have an A mode which might be better than manual for these types of cameras.

okay..well..I have a sony dsc-w50...I was looking at a housing for it, but want to make sure that it's an okay camera for this..