Point and Shoot vs. DSLR

I've been using a point and shoot, and getting fairly decent pictures. My Webpage. I believe the external flash (new) was broken for that trip and have since sent it back and am waiting the manufacturer's response... it overexposed everything regardless of setting.

I am tempted to try the camera again with a properly working flash to see how it performs with a working flash. I know next to nothing about the ins and outs of photography and feel like I might be better off sticking with the smaller, easier to handle and pack point and shoot category of camera. And yet... people obviously take better photos with better cameras....

My girlfriend says she'd like a beter camera to take diving - she's a new diver and quite frankly, I do not envision her having the discipine needed to learn to shoot with a d-slr. Of course that means she'd get my sony point and shoot and I'd be left to discover if >I< have the discipline to learn to shoot. I assume people don't just put their d-slr in auto mode and start shooting underwater, wating to fix anything that needs fixing in photoshop?

If I go d-slr, it seems "silly" to get an entrylevel camera if I am going to outgrow it. But will I outgrow it? Put me down in the category of people who rarely takes a picture topside, but likes to photograph his dives twice a year....and heading to indonesia in 2009. General/specific advice appreciated.

Hi there,

I'm still a beginner so feel free to take this with a pinch of salt, but what about going for a high end point and shoot like a Canon Powershot G9? I've seen some absolutely amazing pictures taken with that camera and it seems a popular choice...

Sarah

Just to add, found this link with lots of sample pictures from the G7, the G9's predecessor:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t18903.html

It seems some people on the thread were having the same dilemma as you about D-SLRs.

I would start with the G9 or Sea & Sea's DX-1G together with a decent strobe. Either of these cameras will get you into proper manual use and RAW format for photoshop editing. Skills that you will carry into DSLR use.

Don't think you are making a big compromise....check out this website. Ed takes all his photos with a Canon G9;

http://www.edvineng.com/gallery/main.php

This outfit will end up costing you FAR less than a mediocre DSLR setup and will be MUCH simpler to pack. I kept mine as a backup when I upgraded to a DSLR. It was a good thing I got a decent strobe as I then bought a second and used the old one with my DSLR. If you want to shoot on auto, this will do the job too.

I do recommend some reading in order to understand the basics of shutter speed, aperture, etc. You can find a lot of this online and probably have a lot of fun experimenting on land with your new camera..... once the revelation hits as to how things work, you will never see things in the same light again! Taking UW photos will take on a whole new dimension.

Hi there,

I'm still a beginner so feel free to take this with a pinch of salt, but what about going for a high end point and shoot like a Canon Powershot G9? I've seen some absolutely amazing pictures taken with that camera and it seems a popular choice...

 

Sarah

Hi David,

Welcome to the party! You've come to the right place. FWIW I would concur with all said above. A great place to start reading is Martin Edge's book "The Underwater Photographer" Simply a great book. Make sure you get the third edition. There is a ton of great info here on specifics too. Get used to using the search feature on past threads,

By the way it's considered by some here to be bad form to diss your girl then use her as an excuse to buy a new camera. It will be especially bad when she starts coming back with better images than you do. You have a rare opportunity, take some lessons together at one of the great photo trips and give her tons of encouragement. You'll have a great dive buddy for life and you'll never have to explain the cost of the new DSLR and housing. Have fun!

Steve

Another vote for going down the top end P&S road. I got my G7 after shooting with a little Powershot A75 for years. I was looking for something a lot better than the A75, and that I could add strobes and lenses to easily, but wasn't looking to forking out the cash for a full dSLR setup.

I've gotten some photos with my G7 that I'm really happy with, and have won me some local comps, beating people with dSLRs. It's been a great camera to learn with, but from the start I started shooting in manual mode (Michael Aw's books were a great teacher for this).

I'm now looking at moving into a dSLR, although this will be for topside at the moment, as the other benefit of a P&S is it's so much smaller and easier to travel with (including housing, etc). If I'd gone for a dSLR back when I'd gotten the G7, I would've ended up with an entry level, now, I'm looking at something mid-range (ie 40d), so I consider that a bit of a saving too because I waited.

One other thing, if you do go for the G9, don't waste your money on a Canon housing. Put it in an Ikelite housing, make the most of the eTTL function when conecting a strobe (and when you do get a strobe, go the DS-125 unless you think you'll end up rigging up 2 in the furutre), and regardless of what a lot of posts on here have said, a WA lens works really well on this settup.

Hope that's some help,

Ry.

As someone who migrated last year from a P&S to a low end DSLR I can tell you even the lowest end DSLR is a huge investment in both money and luggage space. It also takes up a little more of your dive profile if you know what I mean. Here's a quick summary from me.

Things you'll miss:

Although DSLR lenses are getting more versatile by the day, a DSLR can't match the underwater versatility of a P&S with wet lenses. You pretty much have to decide up front if you're going after macro or WA.

Video mode - Although I didn't use it much, there were occasions when I just decided to do a dive using the video on my P&S. Though low quality it was great to share with family and friends

This the DSLR does a lot better.

Little or no lag times including shutter, write times, flash recharge times, and focus issues.

No battery life issues.

Very sharp lenses made for specific purposes...ie professional glass.

I'm sure others can chime in about dynamic range, high ISO capability etc (see Dr Steve's Posts about the Cenotes).

I probably jumped a little quickly but overall I'm glad I made the transition. I'm still figuring out the camera and housing setup but its one I'll have for years down the road as I have no plans in the near future to upgrade. One thing this site has taught me is that its the artist, not the equipment that truly makes a great photo.

Boil it down into pros and cons and see what matters to you most

Cost:

DSLR: probably $650 minimum for body and a reasonable starter lens. Add minimum of $1100 for a housing and port.

PnS: good one for $350-400, another $400 for a fairly high end (e.g. Ike) PnS housing.

Delay:

PnS will have higher shutter delay than DSLR almost regardless. Not to say some of the best higher end PnS's aren't fairly brief on the delay though.

Framing: with a very few exceptions, DSLR's will make you use the optical viewfinder to frame your shots. PnS's let you take the picture with the 'screen' as your viewfinder. If this is important to you, it either limits your selection of DSLRs (and some of those that do live-viewing suffer some shutter delay, probably not the same as for PnS, but some) or points you back toward PnS.

Weight/packing: DSLR is way heavier. My entry-level system (e330, 2 DS50 strobes, Ike housing) completely fills a LowePro Vertex 300 large carryon camera backpack. PnS in housing is much smaller and lighter. Underwater the DSLR is bulkier as well, but possibly more neutral weight-wise than the PnS with the right arm setup. I'd say underwater they can be a wash. I'd even argue there's no additional mental task loading with a DSLR, since a good PnS will want to be shot in at least Aperture priority with manual White balance, if not full manual, same as a DSLR.

Lighting: for either cameras external strobes are the "best" bet. But a PnS housing generally can use the internal strobe, while that's not true for many (but not all, the OEM Olympus e410 housing comes specifically to mind) DSLR housings. So if you do add external strobes, for many DSLR's you need some sort of iTTL (electronic) sync cabling vs a fiberoptic or plain old sensor type slave firing.

Picture quality: here a DSLR can 'win' assuming (as ce4 has rightly pointed out) the right glass for the right job. The higher end PnS cameras have the same # of megapixels as the 'entry level' or enthusiast DSLR's. Certainly not the same as the pros. But megapix count isn't the end-all, as the color bit level, dynamic range, amount of light reaching the sensor (e.g. lens quality) etc all play a big factor. Short answer is a DSLR won't magically buy you a "bigger" picture, but handled right should be qualitatively a 'better' picture in some circumstances by allowing things like depth of field selection and the like that PnS's can't do (even with add-on external wide-angle lenses, can only approximate).

Theft risk, etc etc. I'd say make a list of why you want to shoot underwater, what you want to shoot (e.g. little macro critters, wide angle, etc) and then rank things in order of interest to you. For me, I wanted PnS convenience but DSLR quality, so I went with a (now already outdated) Olympus e330 that I just got the housing kit for and will dive with for the first time this coming week. So frankly, I haven't even TESTED my decision yet to see if it was the right one.

Thank, you everybody for all of your help. FWIW, I bought an AF35 flash for my sony camera but I think it was broken (awaiting Ikelite repair department to get back to me) as it overexposed every shot regardless of setting. I hope it was broken, otherwise it was a huge waste of money.

Someone mentioned it was a bad idea to use my girlfriend as an excuse for buying a new camera and that I should treat her right and I won't have to justify buying expensive equipment. Believe me when I tell you this - she would support my spending a small fortune on equipment, as my trip to the Apple Store will attest ("I think you should get the 30 inch monitor if you like it!")

Money would not be an issue if I knew I'd be thrilled with what I had. And based on what I am reading and on what I know about myself, I would be thrilled with a great PnS camera that took great pictures with relative ease. I happen to enjoy shooting video in my camera underwater. And I'd miss the flexibility in shooting with wet lenses (something I don't do now, but will now be looking into!

I suppose if I get the Cannon and house it with Ikelite and a ttl flash, I will give my loved one the sony and ikelite flash -- assuming they fix it. I love shooting with the 3" screen and think the camera takes very nice shots. (Nobody commented on my photos at www.divelove.zxq.net so I am hoping nobody looked rather than everybody being politely silent.

Thank you for the links and the references too!!

So the Ikelite housing has a footnote (I LOVE footnotes!),

"Standard flat port provides full zoom capabilities, but length of lens precludes any advantage to the addition of external wide-angle lenses. Optional #9305.92 Flat Port for G-7 and G-9 Housings slightly limits camera's zoom range, but allows for the effective use of 67mm threaded external lenses."

Does a diver want a slightly limited zoom to make effective use of a 67mm threaded external lens? I assume the answer is "Maybe!" or "Depends". Nothing is ever easy. And the DS125 "deluxe" on the ikelite website has a price tag of #3944.75 Deluxe Package ($ 1,100). Gadzooks. I'm starting to rethink money is no object as long as I am happy, and instead wondering about shallow water diving shooting with ambient light to help save the environment....

I got the flat port for my Ike about a month after I got the housing with standard port. Since then, I haven't taken the flat port off! With it, you can zoom in to (I would guess) about half way, which is as much as anyone would need underwater!

With it, you can use a WA lens, which you will def want to add to your kit. You have to zoom in a tiny bit to get rid of the black corners, but it's not much. If you head over to the digicam section, there were a bunch of posts about this.

And if the price on the strobe package is worrying you, you can always start with a DS-51, and stick a second one on there later on. It does do a very good job, it's all I've been shooting with for th elast 12 months.

There's some great photos in there too mate ;-)

After much soul searching (okay, web surfing) I wound up buying the Nikon D300. Still waiting for it to arrive. I figure if I am going to spend some money, I might as well compromise my retirement. But, by golly, I better get more use out of this thing than I do my home gym!

All that agonising about P+S's, then you jump in with the D300

I was warned by Tim Priest that the temptation for dSLR just grows with time - I just didn't realise how quickly!

BTW you will now need to start using the multi gym in earnest to build up those muscles in order to carry your new rig around in your now heavy luggage.

Cheers

Dave

 

The higher end PnS cameras have the same # of megapixels as the 'entry level' or enthusiast DSLR's. Certainly not the same as the pros.

 

 

BUT...

 

... this isn't the end of the story. A physically large chip (DSLR) will have better separation of the light wells on the chip, and less "crosstalk", that is, it will produce cleaner, sharper images. This is how professionals did advertising billboard images with 2 megapixel cameras at the turn of the millennium: enlarging from very clean studio images. The best compacts have physically bigger chips (I used a Nikon Coolpix 5000 for a while, and the images were good), and make cleaner images.

 

I would consider the G9, but if you might succumb to the temptation of really good images, you will, eventually, want that DSLR...

 

... you see!

 

Tim

 

B)

I've been using a point and shoot, and getting fairly decent pictures. My Webpage. I believe the external flash (new) was broken for that trip and have since sent it back and am waiting the manufacturer's response... it overexposed everything regardless of setting.

 

I am tempted to try the camera again with a properly working flash to see how it performs with a working flash. I know next to nothing about the ins and outs of photography and feel like I might be better off sticking with the smaller, easier to handle and pack point and shoot category of camera. And yet... people obviously take better photos with better cameras....

 

My girlfriend says she'd like a beter camera to take diving - she's a new diver and quite frankly, I do not envision her having the discipine needed to learn to shoot with a d-slr. Of course that means she'd get my sony point and shoot and I'd be left to discover if >I< have the discipline to learn to shoot. I assume people don't just put their d-slr in auto mode and start shooting underwater, wating to fix anything that needs fixing in photoshop?

 

If I go d-slr, it seems "silly" to get an entrylevel camera if I am going to outgrow it. But will I outgrow it? Put me down in the category of people who rarely takes a picture topside, but likes to photograph his dives twice a year....and heading to indonesia in 2009. General/specific advice appreciated.

I went with the G9 / Ikelite and a DS-51 stobe a few months ago following the same debate. No complaints. I used it on multiple dives in St. Martin back in February and was very please with the results. Most of the arguments above a right on. Money is a big one. Also packing and complexity. I found the G9 very versitile. Don't go with a canon housing. Ikelite is much better, especially when it comes to adding strobes.

I am glad you are happy with the G9! I am more than 50% certain I would have been very happy with that setup as well. Hopefully the new setup when its all pieced together will be usable and much loved!

I've been using a point and shoot, and getting fairly decent pictures. My Webpage. I believe the external flash (new) was broken for that trip and have since sent it back and am waiting the manufacturer's response... it overexposed everything regardless of setting.

 

I am tempted to try the camera again with a properly working flash to see how it performs with a working flash. I know next to nothing about the ins and outs of photography and feel like I might be better off sticking with the smaller, easier to handle and pack point and shoot category of camera. And yet... people obviously take better photos with better cameras....

 

My girlfriend says she'd like a beter camera to take diving - she's a new diver and quite frankly, I do not envision her having the discipine needed to learn to shoot with a d-slr. Of course that means she'd get my sony point and shoot and I'd be left to discover if >I< have the discipline to learn to shoot. I assume people don't just put their d-slr in auto mode and start shooting underwater, wating to fix anything that needs fixing in photoshop?

 

If I go d-slr, it seems "silly" to get an entrylevel camera if I am going to outgrow it. But will I outgrow it? Put me down in the category of people who rarely takes a picture topside, but likes to photograph his dives twice a year....and heading to indonesia in 2009. General/specific advice appreciated.

I would definitely recommend the Sea&Sea 1G, it's a 10MP camera, very small housed and with the DX 110 strobe gets great shots. Check my site