5d ii or Nikonos V?

I suspect that you will find the UW photography learning curve will be 10-20 times faster with the instant feedback on the DSLR versus the Nikonos. Yes the Nikonos has the potential to take as good or better photos relative to the DSLR, however it may take you a several hundred dives with the Nikonos (adding film/development costs) to make the progress you could make in 10-20 dives with the DSLR.

having started underwater with a nikonus 111, then a nikonus v; now I have an Olympus c7070wz with an Ikelite housing. All the feed back you receive regarding number of shots, learning to shoot with a digital and any other benifits are TRUE!! Yes I do beleive that slide images are still better but shooting limitations, lense selection prior to water entry, the immediacy of digital and the inwater ability to adapt to different subjects during a dive far outweigh the 35mm film options or ANY advantages quality may have had. Digital is the new Underwater medium, and if you wish to spend your bank account on photography equipment - wait untill you flood your unforgiving Nikonus V, try to have it repaired - not a simple task either.

I would recommend that you house your DSLR, become familiar withit and move forward. Best of all - great diving and happy pictures.

as probably one of the few film photographers left here-Ill pipe up for a second. There are a few ifs in my statement, but I locked onto the desire for final image quality. IF you can master the Nikonos V with the 15mm water contact lens and get a sharp desireable, properly exposed and focused image on film, and IF you drum scan that image you will come up with something that will not be able to be beat by current digital technology. I shoot digital and like the macro results, but have yet to shoot a wide angle digital image that comes close to what I used to be able to do with film and either a housed film camera or even better yet- a Nikonos setup. The look of sunbursts and blue water backgrounds still hasnt been equaled with digital exposures (it keeps getting closer, but isnt there yet in my opinion, even with the newer 14 bit cameras) and the corner to corner sharpness of the Nikonos 15mm lens can add punch to an image that a wide angle lens behind a dome port loses when max-enlargements are made. That said, there it is no secret that the learning curve to shooting film is steep and you will get more disappointing results in the beginning than you will get winners- personally, when I have a known wide angle situation that I want something just a little bit better for (especially when there is a sunburst or "Snells Window" background involved, I shoot it first with digital to get general lighting and exposure etc... figured out and then I repeat the shoot with film and bracket the heck out of the situation. Good luck with whatever you decide to shoot!