Hi AggieDad,
Recently I bought a Sea & Sea DX8000G with the YS-90 strobe.
First, where I'm coming from. I am new to the world of underwater photography, but I have been an avid topside photographer for, oh, 30 years. I shot slide film with manual cameras, period. The Sea & Sea DX8000G was my introductory setup for underwater photography. It is also my first digital camera. (Am I dating myself?)
So.....
There's a good review at Wetpixel that you might wanna take a peak at:
http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/sea-and-sea-dx8000g-review/
You can also check out the Sea & Sea website for the technical specs, so I won't address those issues.
THE CAMERA
The camera itself is nice and compact. I like it because it has a 28-85mm zoom, which is wider than most of the "point-and-shoot" digital cameras. This is the main reason I bought this camera rather than other "point-and-shoot" cameras.
It also has a convenient "adjustment" button that allows you to change LCD screen brightness, ISO, focus modes and white balance without having to cycle through all of the menus. How does this work?
If you want to change ISO, you can hit "MENU" and cycle through the menu pages until you reach the ISO setting. Likewise, if you want to change white balance, you can hit "MENU" and cycle through the menu pages until you reach the white balance setting. Etc., etc.
OR, you can hit the "ADJUSTMENT" button once, that takes you to the LCD screen brightness adjustment page.
You hit "ADJUSTMENT" a second time and you are at the ISO setting page.
When you hit "ADJUSTMENT" a third time you are at the focus mode adjustment page.
The fourth time you hit "ADJUSTMENT" you are at the white balance page.
The "ADJUSTMENT" button is nice, but it would nicer if you could program exactly which pages it sends you to. For instance, I never found it necessary to frequently adjust the LCD screen brightness but that is your first stop on the "ADJUSTMENT" train ride.
The camera also has a really nice macro mode that allows you to focus on subjects about 1.0cm away from the lens. I have not yet mastered underwater macro photography (something to do with not being able to control my buoyancy within millimeters of my subject long enough to focus and snap the shot). So I cannot comment of the quality or usefulness of this feature. Seems pretty nice though!
The camera is advertised at 8 megapixels. At that resolution I can get 32 photos on a 1GB SD card (uncompressed TIFF file). At the next lowest resolution I can get about 320 photos on a 1GB card (3MB JPEG photos).
The friggin' camera goes through batteries like **** through a goose. I used 2300mA NiMH rechargeable AA batteries. The batteries lasted two dives before dying. There's not much warning either - indicator says full battery then - POOF! - camera shuts down. I would change batteries at lunch time and then change batteries again at dinner before the night dive. Maybe that's the norm for digital cameras. I tended to leave the camera on because the power-up process was quite lengthy and I didn't want to miss a shot.
The camera, housing, tray, arm, strobe and wide angle lens are just slightly negatively buoyant. I can let go of the camera, let it float in front of me, do something like clip off a light, then reach out and grab the camera again.
As far a replacement camera is concerned... isn't the Ricoh Caplio GX8 the same camera as the Sea & Sea DX8000G?
THE HOUSING
The housing itself seems beefy. There is a single gasket (kinda spooky, if you ask me, for a $700 camera). All of the housing controls work perfectly and smoothly. They're actually pretty nice.
WIDE ANGLE LENS
I also purchased the o.6x wide angle lens. I have some issues with this lens, specifically with the bayonet mount. It is nice to be able to remove and replace the wide angle lens underwater. HOWEVER... the lens is a bit loose on the mount. One little twist and there goes the lens...... I placed some duct tape in the groove to tighten things up a bit, made me feel a whole lot better. Nonetheless, I kept a good grip on both the housing and the wide-angle lens when I was swimming around.
The other issue is the lens caddy. Same problem, the lens sits on the caddy rather loosely. A little duct tape in the groove tightened things up nicely. The caddy attaches to the strobe arm with a velcro strap. BAD NEWS!
On one dive, I jumped in the water and a crewman handled me the camera. I looked down to start my descent and noticed my wide-angle lens making a bee-line for the ocean floor. I grabbed my nose and kicked like hell for the bottom, equalizing all the way down. I caught the errant lens 10 feet from the coral. Turns out the velcro strap just came loose and the lens caddy fell off. I'm gonna attach the lens caddy with a hose clamp from now on.
THE STROBE
You're not asking about the strobe, so I won't comment. Except to say that I got advice from Scubatoys that the YS-90 was preferable for the wide angle lens.
SUMMARY
All in all, I'm quite satisfied with this camera. I'm still on the steep part of the underwater digitial learning curve, so take my comments with a big grain of NaCl.
Anything I didn't cover?
