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Which Camera (Housing) Should You Buy?The easiest way to select a camera for underwater photography is to determine the available housing selections and choose the housing rather than pick the camera on its merits alone. Many times, great cameras will come out but no housing.A digital underwater camera system will depend on several factors. First and foremost, it will depend on your budget, how much you are willing to spend right now for the housing and then later how much you can spend on accessories that will be added on in the future. Most underwater photographers, after experimenting with casual cameras, sell their original equipment, taking a huge loss on the sale, and end up buying new camera systems. This is even more so present in the fast devaluation of digital camera equipment, similar to computer equipment. The second most important factor will be your photographic goals. The person who just wants photos to put on a webpage will probably be satisfied with a casual set up, while a serious amateur or pro will want something entirely different. Also, if you are an established film photographer, you probably will not be satisfied with a fully automatic only digital camera and will want a full featured model with total manual/shutter/aperture priority capabilities. Here are some (biased) opinions to get you started. Note that this is only an estimate of the camera and housing combination. Adding strobes and other accessories will require addition to the budget accordingly. Low Budget - Casual Digital UW Photography (3-5 Megapixel) $500 to $999 rangeIn the good old days, I started out with the Olympus D450Z/PT-003 combo and you can still find this floating around my bathtub somewhere...It was a 1.3 Megapixel camera and you can see a sample of the shot that was taken of my SOB Steve, perfect for web photos or e-mailing to friends.Digital cameras and housings have come a long way since that time and your money will buy a lot more camera. Most consumer point and shoot cameras will have some manual features. In the 3-5 Megapixel range, you will find a lot of bargains such as the Olympus Digital Stylus series which are basic point and shoots ($200-400 range) with the Olympus PT-016 housing ($200 range). Middle of the Road (3-8 Megapixel) $750 to $1500 rangeThis is where it gets tough because the most choices are currently in this range. My current recommendations would be a Canon A95 (5 Megapixel) with Canon WP-DC50 housing or S70 (7 Megapixel) with Canon WP-DC40 housing, or the Olympus 5060 (5 Megapixel) and the Olympus PT-020 housing. Although I have the Oly 3040 with PT-010 housing, I lean towards the Canon for their more compact bodies and housings in this category.Serious UW (Film) Photographer Wanting to Do Digital (The Expensive Way) (6-8 Megapixel and more) $1500 to $3500 rangeProfessional UW Photographer ("The Sky is the Limit") (8-12 Megapixel and beyond) $3500 and above rangeWe used to have 2 sections for these catagories but the distinctions have become blurred due to the availabilty of high quality, reasonably priced housings from Ikelite and the cost reduction of consumer dSLRs with 6-8 Megapixel capacities. Other housings are available from Aquatica, UK Germany, Jonah, Zillion, or Sea and Sea housings. Please check the digideep database for lists of compatible housings for available dSLR models. The discussions regarding these high end models are left for the forums on Wetpixel. Basically the biggest choice is whether to get one of the prosumer 8 Megapixel cameras with electronic viewfinder or to go for a true dSLR. Updated: May 8, 2005 Copyright 2000-2005 Matthew Endo / Mar Scuba All Rights Reserved |