I have been considering the S90 and would appreciate knowing why you selected the Canon housing over the Ikelite or Fisheye FIX housing. Like you, I would use the camera for recreational use, but am somewhat concerned about the housing not keeping out the water. I am generally from the school that worries that saving a few hundred bucks on the less expensive housing may ruin a $450 camera. There are a lot of threads on the S90 and housings from people that seem very savvy on photography, more than enough to confuse me, so I would appreciate a new users viewpoint on the Canon housing.
Thanks in advance.
Guy
I've seen the S90 as low as $350, so $450 is WAY too much.
(Kills me a bit, considering I paid $430 for mine, but such is the cost of being the early adopter.)
If you're just using the camera for recreational snaps and have no intention of adding lenses, the Canon housing is just fine. Just be sure to pay very close attention to the o-ring as you seal it up, make sure there's not a single hair or grain of sand. (Good advise for all housings, frankly, even the expensive ones)
Adding the new Inon adapter, you can even add some external lenses to the Canon housing, so it's not as big of a sacrifice as it was initially. You do give up the deeper rating and the back wheel control, but many people are used to that anyway. The Ikelite housing gains a deeper rating, and
some ability to add lenses, but still no back wheel control. Only the Fix offers that.
FWIW, Canon depth viability seem to vary considerably. I know people that have taken them down to 150' with no problems. I know people who have had buttons stick at 100'. Personally, when I had a canon housing on my SD550 6 years or so ago, I had mine down to 130' (perhaps a smidge more) and no problems. So it's something of a crapshoot, I think. Usually they don't leak, however (at least, not at reasonable depths)... usually the issue is the springs cannot keep the buttons out with the added pressure, so they stick until you ascend enough to pop them back out, then all is well again. So it's not as severe an issue as you'd think. And odds are quite good that if 130' is your max depth, it'll be just fine.
As for complaints about the S90: The only ones I've seen are a couple people saying they had issues with the lens itself extending (isolated faulty units, IMO), and complaints about the rear wheel spinning too freely. I fully agree about that one, but that's an issue only on land. In a housing, well, Fix is the only one that can even rotate the wheel anyway, the other two just use buttons to push the edges, so that's a non-issue as well. The Fix wheel is stiff enough that it doesn't rotate freely.