00wabbit
Contributor
thanks for all the replies. Has anyone owned one of these DC1400 Pro Duo | Sealife Cameras packages? If so thoughts on them? Also is this a camera that will allow me to learn more advanced manual photography?
The short answer is no. Sea life isn't really meant for advanced manual photography. They are simplified systems for folks that just want to take photos without too much hassle. They do have some control, but not a lot. One of the biggest drawbacks for me is they don't shoot RAW. RAW will allow you to correct much more after the fact for under or over exposed shots as well as shots with bad color balance etc. If you are shooting in colder, darker waters I would say this is a must. Someone recommended the canon s110 or s100. These are great starter cameras. They are pretty forgiving but have full manual controls and shoot raw. I started with an older one of these called the s90 (s100 or newer is better because they shoot hd video)
What kind of shots do you want to take? I don't use a stobe at the moment because I take mostly wide angle shots. If you are more than a couple of feet away from your subject the strobe won't really help.
Here is a link to a post I made to show why RAW is so important. The first video is mine, the second post is a friend of mine with a very high end dslr and he shows what he was able to do with a bad RAW file: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ti...why-i-shoot-raw-video-tutorial-lightroom.html