Beginner's camera question

[anniemcd]

My husband and I have recently become certified and plan on doing a Bahamas liveaboard this summer. We'd really like to buy a camera prior to our trip. Since we don't currently own a digital camera, we are debating whether to buy a standard digital and an underwater housing, or an underwater digital camera (currently looking at the Sea & Sea DX3100). Which would be better for a couple of beginners? And is it better to have a standard digital with higher MPs, or an underwater digital with fewer?

Thanks for any input!!

Annie

 

[dbeedle]

I went with the Sea & Sea DX3000, housed digital camera and am eying the new DX5000. I wanted small and the flexability to use the camera underwater as well as on the surface. Not that you can't do that with the unhoused underwater cameras but the housed ones seem less bulky for surface use.

If you want to see some examples of the DX3000 (Ricoh Caplio G3s camera) I have some on a web page: My Scuba Page

As for MPs, more can be better but more expensive of course. A 3 MP camera will do a reasonable to good job for 8x10 prints. I'd go with as big as you can afford as with anything technilogical, todays high end will be tomorrows average!

 

[RonFrank]

I went with a Canon S70, and the Canon housing.

The Ricoh camera's have ONE advantage (as advertised) that I have NOT verified, and that is they boast of VERY fast shutter lag. They boast faster than ANY digital camera which a load of horse hocky as EVERY DLSR made is MUCH MUCH faster. However that does not mean that it is not better than most every PnS digital out there.

The real quesiton is does this take into account the time to aquire focus which is REALLY where PnS type camera's slow down. The S70 has a very fast shutter lag ONCE the image focus is aquired.

In any event, the S70 (7mpix) + the housing ran me about $550 shipped. It's going to produce better top side images for enlargement due to more mpix, and a very well designed camera (mpix is not everything). It's also small, and about the size of the DX3000 when in the housing.

I've read the Ricoh's do a good job, but they are actually MUCH more expensive vs. what you can do with a land based camera and a housing. For the $1000 pricetag on the DX5000 you can get an Oly 8080 and the housing. I guarentee the 8080 camera is MUCH better than the 5mipx Ricoh in MANY MANY ways including Optics which are the best in a PnS camera to date from what I've seen.

Realize that the DX3000 is NOT an UW camera, it's a land camera with a Sea&Sea housing. For the $$$ it's a bit overpriced as one can get 3 mpix camera's for under $200 with housings for about $100.

I guess you don't bother to say what you plan on using the images for. If you never make prints bigger than 8x10 than a 3mpix camera is adequate. But you will have little in the way of cropping options with a 3mpix camera, and a 5,7, or 8 mpix camera is going to provide more options for cropping, and enlargements.

There has been quite a few discussions on selecting PnS camera's including talks about he DX3000. Do a search.

 

[MoonWrasse]

My husband and I have recently become certified and plan on doing a Bahamas liveaboard this summer. We'd really like to buy a camera prior to our trip. Since we don't currently own a digital camera, we are debating whether to buy a standard digital and an underwater housing, or an underwater digital camera (currently looking at the Sea & Sea DX3100). Which would be better for a couple of beginners? And is it better to have a standard digital with higher MPs, or an underwater digital with fewer?

Thanks for any input!!

Annie

My current UW camera is my dry land camera, a Sony DSP-100 5MP with Sony's UW housing. About $500 for the set, I can shoot all day or 4 dives easily on a single battery.
Also it does mpeg2.