But some of us like taking pictures, so we carry one anyway. I'd recommend starting out with a simple P&S with no strobe,
Hard to get pictures in low light or not shallow dives without strobe which is essentially all dives in our area.
I dive a PS with a digital strobe. Wide angle lens so focus is at a fixed setting. Only one adjustment on the flash distance. That is near, close, far. Pretty simple. For macro I pop off the fisheye and then I also have an automatic focus to deal with.
Point is that strobe is really important in many areas. But agree completely with keeping it simple especially at first. In my case forever.
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I am working on my fish ID and sometimes a quick photo looked at later is helpful in telling exactly what you saw.