JahJahwarrior:
I guess I might be looking for a tutorial on choosing a good first camera....... I'm just having trouble finding a good place to get a housing, especially for the Kodak C533.
The only low priced housing are those made by the camera manufactures. canon, olynpuis, sony and the like make them for most (not all) of their small point and shot cameras. All of the third party housing, while much more robust are very expensive (typically double the price of the camera inside) the manufacture's housing are priced between about $140 and $190 depending on model
Whne shpping you need to check if a housing is even available before you deside on a camera
Expect to pay at least $500 for a new digital camera and housing. High end SLR equipmet can run 10X this amont or more
There are two low cost options.....
(1) Rent. You may find that you can rent an UW camera setup from a local dive shop for maybe $100 or so. If you are not going to take UW photos near your "normal" site site at home and only need a camera for a once a year vaction then be all means rent the camera just for the trip. but do try it out locally before you go.
(2) Buy a used 35mm film camera.
Go to the clasified section of scubaboard and place a WTB ad for "any UW film camera" and state your maximum price. Film camera are dirt cheap on the used market right now. In fact they are darn hard to sell. You can get a basic setup for about $25. No kidding. Film camera are selling for abut 1/5th of thieir new prices, so low that people don't bother trying to sell them but a WTB ad might motivate someone to sell it because you have made it easy for them.
But you realy, really want to get the camera BEFORE your trip and dive with it a few times. It is not so easy as you might think Those vacation dives cost like $50 a minute if you add everything up better to educate yourself at home where it is just the cost of an airfilll and gas money. getting the exposure and focus and so on will take a couple rols of film at least. So if the goal is good pictures you need some minimal experiance first. No one does well with their first hundred or so exposures. Get that overwith at home.