housing for canon s410

I'm a beginner and just purchased the canon s410. Does anyone have recommendations on a housing for it? I'd like something that will allow me to go without a strobe but enable me to add one later.

For a beginner, I would just go with the Canon housing - the WP-DC800 is the correct one for an S410, and at under $200 it's about as cheap as you're likely to get. I dove with a Canon S230 in the Canon housing for over a year, and found it to be a great way to get into dive photography. I took some pretty good pictures with this setup, and I still take it along tucked in a BCD pocket as a backup or when snorkeling. You can find this housing online (e.g. at B&H Photo for $169, http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...u=278236&is=REG , or you might find it at a local camera store. Make sure you get the right model.

One warning - the Canon Powershots are a pain to use an external strobe with, because they have an exposure-evaluating preflash that you can't disable in the camera. When you want to add an external strobe to this setup, you'll need either a strobe that can ignore the pre-flash (e.g. the Sea&Sea YS90DX or the Ikelite DS50 or DS125), or a strobe that can duplicate the preflash (the only one I know of is the Inon D180). The camera itself does not have a strobe connector cord (e.g. a PC Sync cable or a TTL hotshoe) - all the synchronization comes from the external strobe "seeing" the internal strobe fire - so pretty much any housing will allow this, and like most, the Canon housing has a "tripod mount" on the bottom for attaching a mounting tray for strobe arms. You can generally get a package deal on the strobe+arms.

Do NOT do what I did and waste your money on the $200 SeaLife strobe. That will work okay with a camera with no pre-flash, but if you want it to work with a Canon Powershot, you have to take every picture twice (once to lock the exposure, once to take the shot), and wait for the strobes (internal and external) to recharge in between. A great excercise to teach me patience and dealing with frustration while diving, but not a way to get great pictures.

Whoops, hit submit too soon. It's been a while since I researched strobes for my Canon - it looks like you could (eventually) go with a lower-end Sea&Sea strobe, like the YS25DX kit (at B&H - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...t#goto_itemInfo) and have your entire strobe system for around $500. (note that's additional to the housing, of course.)