Sealife DC 500

[Dive Right In Scuba]

RE: Professional vs hobby.
I am under no delusions about my purpose here. I am a computer geek that likes to dive and I love to take pics. Right about now, I should mention what my 35 mm SLR setup consists of - a Kalimar KX7000 - never heard of it? Minolta sold their old XGM product - I bought an XGM in 1982 (I'm showing my age) and have taken 1000's of pics with it - the light meter finally fried in 2000 and I replaced it with the current model. Believe me this is a nothing special camera - no self respecting prof would use it - but it's very easy to use and it's quite reliable. And one final thing to be clear - it's a mostly manual camera - I focus, I set the f-stop, and I can set the shutter. (I pd $200 for the body, and a 35-70mm lens) I have a 70-310 lens and a fisheye that I can use also - that I bought years ago for the XGM.

One other comment - I purchased a Vivitar Cruise cam in 2003 (Ok everyone cringe now please) - it's a 35mm point/click in a plastic housing. Very reliable and takes reasonable pics - I've had it to over 80' - no external flash though. My point is my bar is not real high here. I have reasonable expectations and the Sealife product failed to meet them on several accounts.

As to the picture quality, I am a bit of a purist here. I expect the picture from the camera to not require an doctoring. Having to involk Photoshop to clean up every picture is not only time consuming, but makes me feel like I had to cheat - I don't like cheating. It is still my work, by now am a passing off computer assisted graphics as a picture I took. It ain't the same.

Granted I don't have as much experience underwater as on land, I have the basics under control here. I just don't like having to fight the hardware. When I get frustrated enough or find someone willing to buy the sealife setup I will replace it - I just don't have $1k or so right now to do that. sigh.

Did you take an underwater photography class? We give an underwater specialty to all that purchase a Digital Camera. This way you are more comfortable and know more about taking pictures underwater which is completely different than land. I think you said in your last post that a pic of the sand didnt turn out......and I wouldnt really expect it to. The flash will do nothing if there is nothing to bounce the light back to it....Just trying to figure out more of what happened so I can better help my customers......

 

[rawls]

I have had to send mine back 3 times...Housing flooded, camera freezed up, got picture error when I tried to review thumbnails, the round shutter release keeps popping off. It has been in the shop more than I have had it diving. I told Sea Life that if I had to send it back a fourth time for them to just keep it.

 

[Diver_C]

I've had mine since May. I accidently got it wet, so had to buy one from the factory at a reduced price, but other than that it's been a good camera. I take TIFF picture, so can't get more than one dive per battery, but spare batteries are cheap, and I did find much larger batteries on the internet. They are pretty cheap too. I use a very fast 1 gb card. I also use two strobes. Camera has frozen up only once, at that was at end of the dive. The shutter button popped off, but service sent me several for free, and after super gluing it on, it has never come off. I have my camera set on during the whole dive, but sleeps in 30 seconds. Overall, I like the camera. The DC600 is tempting for the 2.5" screen.

 

[427Dave]

I just received the DC 600. I have been using it on land and really like it so far. I have not taking it swimming yet. They made a few changes, they no longer have the docking stand, they have cables and the 2.5" display is great for older eyes.. The battery life however does not seem to good... Although alot better than my old Olympus D-340 land only camera and alot smaller and lighter.

 

[CheddarChick]

I thought I had an issue with my DC500 random firing off the strobe. I emailed Sealife, and within an hour Monica emailed me back and said to send it in so they could look at it. On monday Jan 8 I sent it UPS to Sealife, they got it on 1-11. By Fri 1/12 I had spoken to the Service tech Carl about the issue. He asked questions, and listened to my questions about the camera. He replaced the head, laughed at and then reworked my routing of the slave wire, tested my battery (a 650mh) said it was working ok but he was replacing it with the new 750mh. (Told m e it was a better battery). He called me back told me what he had done to my camera to fix the problem. Repackaged it, sent it and it was in back in my hands today 1-19. I have to tell you I am impressed!!!! I love the camera, but the wow factor is the service... All at no charge...

 

[Dive Right In Scuba]

Its always great to hear about excellent customer service!! Glad you like the camera.....Now go take some pics

 

[Hutchel]

I thought I would throw in my 2 cents here also - this is kind of a followup to an earlier post - I had purchased my Strobe through MLDS and was complaining to them about my issues - well they took it and dealt with Sea Life directly. Just got it back - they upgraded the cable and replaced the head also. Looks like I also got a 750mAh battery back in the camera - the spare that I had in the case is still a 650 though - oh well. Unfortunately I will not get an opportunity to try them out for many months ;-(.

Lee

 

[Bbarnes]

*sigh*

I made that mistake....I spent close to $1000.00 on Sealife before I wisened up. I thought it was me that was screwing everything up....duh....it was the cruddy camera!

I received one for my birthday and didn't even take it out of the box. It was sent back.


Which one is it???? It is strange how you have so many criticisms about a camera that you say that you "didn't even take it out of the box." :shakehead

Did you pay "close to $1000.00" for your own birthday gift?????? Sad.