Non-photographer on budget

[shellbird]

Just spent ton of $ on gear but want to document my dives on film. Anybody have any low-budget recommendations for underwater camera/photography? How are the disposables, are there alternatives?

 

[Spectre]

Originally posted by shellbird
Anybody have any low-budget recommendations for underwater camera/photography

You'll be hard pressed to get out of the camera thing really cheeply, but it all depends on what your price range/credit card limit is.

I had been thinking of a camera for diving, and considering going digital. I then realized I needed a camera for a business trip I was going on, so I stepped up my search. I found that Canon has underwater housings for a bunch of their cameras [both the A and S series at least].

So for $280 I got the Canon A40 at Best Buy. Another $80 for a 128 Meg card, and some amount for the 4 year warrenty. Then I picked the housing up for $180 online.

I've only used it UW once, and the pictures were ok. I'm sure I'll get better with it. Land based photos with the camera have been really nice [all the ones on my profile picture are from that camera].

 

[shellbird]

Will you be bringing it out Saturday? I would love to check it out.

 

[Burke]

I don't know much about cameras but you asked about disposables so I figured I would give you my 2 cents. The underwater water disposables are about the same as the above water disposables as far as picture quality and ease of use, they are alittle bit more money but not much. They don't go too deep, I think they say they are rated to about 15 feet but that would be enough to get some pictures of yourself underwater and take some pictures underwater, nothing fancy and not a good long term idea at all but for something to say "check out what I did" they work fine. By the way the coolest pictures I have ever taken where of a whale shark with a kodak waterproof disposable camera.

 

[shellbird]

You should share that picture! I'm going to try out the disposables and compare them. I would think you would need one with a hearty flash (especially up here in New England)

 

[Stone]

I saw a UW disposable rated to 60 ft while in Key Largo.

 

[kodiak]

shellbird
I asked that same question a couple of weeks ago, since then I have been looking at the sea & sea mx5 2 w/strobe, bonica seaking, and a couple of others. the sea & sea is rated to 120', I have found it on the net for as low as $94. diversdiscount.com has it w/ strobe for $379.00. good luck

 

[Spectre]

Originally posted by shellbird
Will you be bringing it out Saturday? I would love to check it out.

I'll definately have it. And not just to see what sort of blackmail I can gather, but also 'cause I'm going to need more practice with it before I try to get that poster picture of U-352!

My first round of pictures pretty much sucked... but:

http://eisner.decus.org/~schreiber/temp/2002-06-011.jpg

(the ones that have "filtered" in their names are the ones that I played with the color on)

 

[Spectre]

Originally posted by shellbird
You should share that picture! I'm going to try out the disposables and compare them. I would think you would need one with a hearty flash (especially up here in New England)

Internal flashes aren't always a good thing up here. Yea, it's dark, but there is a lot of crap in the water as well, and the internal flashes often give you back-scatter.

Take a look at the thumbnails I pointed to above. 102-0287 was the one that made me decide to turn off the flash, and then after color correction on the no-flash shots they came out better than with the flash..

Now eventually I'll get myself an external flash and be able to get around the scatter that way.

 

[shellbird]

Blackmail huh? Gonna have to watch out for you am I??? Anyway, the pics are great! Let's face it, that is pretty much what it looks like right?