Can you suggest a first dive camera?

[tarponchik]

I did not know A590 can shoot in RAW:

Canon PowerShot A590 IS Review

JPEG,AVI,WAV

 

[mrivken]

You can use hack: CHDK Wiki
It allows to many Canon P&S cameras shot in RAW ( I use it for A720)
Works good, does not requires load new firmware, but a little slow

 

[rajohn]

One caveat to the argument for buying used equipment is to make sure it is not "orphaned". I bought my underwater setup many years ago, it's an Olympus C4000 Zoom with an Olympus PT010 housing. I love this camera and it takes amazingly good pictures but it uses a SmartMedia card which is only available up to 256mb. It's an outdated media and no one uses it anymore so there is no further development of it. I can still buy the cards, but they are limited in their capacity. I would make sure whatever I bought used an SD or memory stick or something very nearly universal such as these. Of course I'm assuming you plan on digital and not film which is another whole ball game.

 

[tarponchik]

You can use hack: CHDK Wiki
It allows to many Canon P&S cameras shot in RAW ( I use it for A720)
Works good, does not requires load new firmware, but a little slow

Thanks for the tip! Since I have SD550, this should work for my camera.

 

[rab1412000]

I don't have a strobe on my ($50) camera and am happy enough with my shots.

you shot your fiji pix ona 50aud camera with no strobe???
wow thats amazing!

 

[Sas]

you shot your fiji pix ona 50aud camera with no strobe???
wow thats amazing!

No that was mostly with a Panasonic TZ-15 or an FX48 (no strobe) , as my camera didn't work often during Fiji trip (but mysteriously started working as soon as I got to Melb again ). But the rest of my photos from local diving are taken with a strobeless Sony P93 which cost 52USD all up.

$50 camera Fiji pics include:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saspotato/3940954628/in/set-72157622299260139/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saspotato/3940954918/in/set-72157622299260139/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saspotato/3940177809/in/set-72157622299260139/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saspotato/3940178491/in/set-72157622299260139/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saspotato/3940956758/in/set-72157622299260139/

Plus a few more. Flickr has the camera listed in the photo properties. The other newer cameras I used are clearly superior in picture quality so I am saving up for a new camera at the moment

 

[rab1412000]

Plus a few more. Flickr has the camera listed in the photo properties. The other newer cameras I used are clearly superior in picture quality so I am saving up for a new camera at the moment

im thinking of replacing my canon sd790 with a panasonic lumix zs3. agreat camera that doubles well as a videocam for 299 atm. its just so hard getting the u/w case locally of from the u.s.
are you familiar with this model? id say its the best bang for buck p&s atm