1000$ budget for a new camera

just started to scubba dive and i think underwater photography would be a nice hobby. i own a canon powershot s2is 5 megapixels. the housing at ikenite is 600$. so for the same price, i could get a canon G7 with housing by canon. would this be a good camera? at 600$, are there better models? i've always had canon cameras but if there is better, i will gladly change. as per strobe lights, from what i've read, they are like a must to get nice pictures. any suggestions? i do not mind going over budget by a couple of hundred but i do want to get true color pictures and not just blue green ones... i know there are alot of lens out there so try to keep it simple. i'll taking freshwater pics and also going to Cuba in December. thank you for your replies

I just got the G7 and SP-DC11 underwater housing....will be trying it out over the next few days.

I would say that if you have the patience, the G9 and its corresponding housing are coming out in the next month or two. The camera phyisically looks the same but is 12 MP and it adds back RAW support---I don't know that I will ever use RAW but I am sure some in the forum will swear by it. It stores unprocessed image data and leaves any enhancement to you, but maybe you don't want to go through the effort or deal with the larger files.

I like the G7 format, does nice macro shots (dry) and is pretty fast (startup and release response) as compared with other digital point and shoot units I have used....preconfigured underwater whitebalance mode too, I assume that will be a plus.

Ikelite housings offer more options than the Canon units, but are a lot pricier. Only way I will go to an Ikelite will be if I upgrade to an SLR when I get more die-hard on the underwater photography.

Plan to spend a good bit of your budget on strobe(s)--good units can cost as much as the camera.

Plenty of folks around here with more experience than me on technique and pros and cons of the G7, but figured I'd let you know about the G9.

Regards,

JAB

I am no expert, and there are many people on the board that can help, but I think a lot of what you get depends on what you want to shoot. I just bought my first underwater setup, and I knew that I wanted to shoot mostly macro. I didnt need a super powerful strobe, so I just bought a cheapo one to get my results. I used the sealife 960d. I then spent the money I saved to buy some Inon macro lenses. If you want to shoot wide angle or just without a lense, you will need a better strobe I think. My non macro shots were pretty lousy compared to my macro. I thought the strobe did a good job for macro! Here are some examples of non macro and macro shots to show the difference. Mind you, I am also very beginner, it was my first time out.

Not so good non macro

A bit better with the macro, mainly due to the fact that my strobe could only handle macro, but thats what I wanted!

Hi,

I fully agree with Jab: don't forget a strobe.

I had a G7 (that I broke ) and a housing from Ikelite with light DS51 (with synch cord). I was really amazed by the quality of this camera, and i would strongly recommand it. Following advice of the instructor in the dive center where I first started with photography, I have my G7 set up on user mode (f:5,6 @ 1/125) and I only play with the power of the light (that you can controle from the housing from 1:64 to 1:1) and manual focus for macro.

G9 will bring with resolution and raw mode. I don't think that those "improvment" bring a lot underwater (a real wide-angle would have been much more interesting; and raw is really intersting if you are ready to spend a lot of time doing home-works on your pictures). Apparently the G9 fits in the housing (I will confirm as soon as my shop receive the G9), and I will move to it, since I have to replace my broken camera. But G9 + housing + light will probably exceed your budget by more 50%. So my advice is that you should carefully think about what will give you the best result:

1. a new G9 with housing and light (I guess around USD1600)

2. your 'old' powershot + housing + light (probably around USD 1000)

3. a new G9 and its housing but NO light (around 1100 USD)

If you can afford the first solution, then do it, but between 2 and 3 I would choose 2, or I would wait: underwater photography is a hobby that suppose a lot of patience. At least it was my choice.

regards,

marco

PS, I attach a few pics, so you can make your idea. The 2nd is a detail of the 1st.