wow, $65/dive. It adds up quickly.
You might ask what accessories are you getting for that price?
Does that include a strobe or any other lenses.
If not, you should be able to purchase something will will give you similar
results for about the same cost.
On your existing camera, you need verify if you have the IXUS800is or the SD800is.
They are different cameras.
Canon uses stupid numeric conventions and they are
different for the US vs the rest of the world.
They overlapped the numbers an there is no simple way to get back and forth.
On the IkeLite vs the Canon housing,
On many of the Ixus & SD models (not all)
I'd actaully go with the Canon over the Ikelite.
Reason being is that Ikelite did not install buttons in their housing to work all the
buttons of the camera.
Depending on which camera you have, you have a <print> button that
can be assigned to a custom white balance function.
Ikelite did not put in a button to push this button on the camera.
(Sucks because they show it in their photo on their web site, but I confirmed
that it isn't there on the real housing).
You might ask why do you care about the "print" button while underwater?
Well it turns out that printing is only available when in playback mode, so
the camera lets you reassign the button to function of your choosing
while taking pictures.
It is very useful to assign this button to the "custom white balance" function.
When shooting jpeg pictures, getting white balance correct is what allows you
to get proper colors. Canon has an underwater scene mode but it doesn't work
as well as doing a custom white balance.
(If you think about it, it can't. Because the color correction adjustment needed
varies with depth and water conditions. The built in function can never know
these parameters so it has to have a canned setting).
If you shoot "RAW" then you can do the whitebalancing topside on
you laptop s/w. RAW preserves all the color information, where jpeg doesn't
so proper whitebalance is important when using jpeg images.
See this thread, for some information about this and a few shots I took
that shows the difference.
SD 850 vs SD 870. Which would you choose and why?
Its mainly about the SD850 vs SD870 (which are like Ixus 950, and ???) anyway
there is some good discussion about white balance.
All that being said, my guess is that you have an IXUS800is which is a SD700is.
I don't think this camera supports the custom print button function or has
the the <print> button the WP-DC5 housing for that camera.
However, the canon housings are around $180USD, ($190AUD).
So its a much cheaper way to try out some photography than renting a unit.
It can do a custom white balance but you'll have to go through the menus to
do it. You should try this out and see how bothersome this is for you before
you decide to buy a housing if you decide to go that route.
If you want to get rid of all that blueness in the photos you will have to
to use the custom white balance every time you depth changes a few meters.
I recently pickup up a SD850is and WP-DC15 housing for around $400USD ($422AUD).
You can currently buy these from Amazon.com for around these prices.
I wanted a small point and shoot for land use so that is what drove me to the
SD series. Plus there is a firmware release you can load on that adds the ability
to take RAW photos.
The A650 is a much better camera than the IXSU850is/SD700is.
It is 12mp but more importantly it has the upgraded DIGIC III image processor.
Also the battery life is longer on that camera because of the 4 AA batteries.
This means more dives without having to open the housing to change batteries.
You can purchase a A650 and canon housing right now from Amazon for
around $475USD ($500AUD), although this is a camera that could really
benefit from an Ikelite housing in the long run.
If you decide to get a housing for your current camera make sure to purchase
at least 1 extra battery. They are super cheap on ebay.
Not sure if any of this was helpful or not.
But it gives you an idea about what things cost to buy
and some information about white balance.
--- bill
