Hi guys
I'm in the market for a good yet not overly complicated, beginner's dive camera. I'd like a digital camera but dont have the money for some big multi-thousand dollar monstrosity. Probably just something good for point and shoot type stuff. I'm a total newbie when it comes to photography (land or sea), never taken a photography class and only have limited experience with underwater photography. We (family) used to have a Sealife Reefmaster 35mm camera, but it was mainly just the "family camera" that my dad and I and my brother would trade off and take pictures with. As you can imagine most of them were rather crappy to say the least. After it flooded about 4 years ago we were told it would be more economical to just buy a new camera then bother with trying to fix it, so we just said screw it to underwater photography for awhile. Now however I'd really like to be able to start accumulating some pictures.![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
So with a dive trip to the Cayman Islands coming up at the end of August, I was hoping to find something, and start learning to use it in time to get some decent pictures. I first noticed the "Sealife DC500 Digital Pro Elite Set" and was pretty set to buy that, but after checking reviews and reading some stuff on this site I'm a little wary. Seems to be alot of Sealife hate and I think a big problem is that alot of "pro" photographers out there seem to be pretty hung up pushing the big expensive DSLR setups which quite frankly I dont want to mess with at the moment.
So what's something good for a newbie like me? Something that gives me a bit of versatility yet doesnt require me to take a semester of photography lessons or bankrupt me (poor college kid here) in the process? I'm hoping to keep it in the $1000 dollar range, plus or minus a bit. I understand that I'll never have the "Discovery Channel" / "National Geographic" photos that the big boys will be able to produce, but I'm not after that. So any suggestions will be very welcome, thank you!
p.s. Sorry for the length!
I'm in the market for a good yet not overly complicated, beginner's dive camera. I'd like a digital camera but dont have the money for some big multi-thousand dollar monstrosity. Probably just something good for point and shoot type stuff. I'm a total newbie when it comes to photography (land or sea), never taken a photography class and only have limited experience with underwater photography. We (family) used to have a Sealife Reefmaster 35mm camera, but it was mainly just the "family camera" that my dad and I and my brother would trade off and take pictures with. As you can imagine most of them were rather crappy to say the least. After it flooded about 4 years ago we were told it would be more economical to just buy a new camera then bother with trying to fix it, so we just said screw it to underwater photography for awhile. Now however I'd really like to be able to start accumulating some pictures.
So with a dive trip to the Cayman Islands coming up at the end of August, I was hoping to find something, and start learning to use it in time to get some decent pictures. I first noticed the "Sealife DC500 Digital Pro Elite Set" and was pretty set to buy that, but after checking reviews and reading some stuff on this site I'm a little wary. Seems to be alot of Sealife hate and I think a big problem is that alot of "pro" photographers out there seem to be pretty hung up pushing the big expensive DSLR setups which quite frankly I dont want to mess with at the moment.
So what's something good for a newbie like me? Something that gives me a bit of versatility yet doesnt require me to take a semester of photography lessons or bankrupt me (poor college kid here) in the process? I'm hoping to keep it in the $1000 dollar range, plus or minus a bit. I understand that I'll never have the "Discovery Channel" / "National Geographic" photos that the big boys will be able to produce, but I'm not after that. So any suggestions will be very welcome, thank you!
p.s. Sorry for the length!