I decided to spend the huge amount of cash on the housing, strobes, lens etc as I love to dive and I love to photograph/video all the amazing creatures on, in and around coral reefs.
I have used point and shoot cameras in little plastic housings and the quality, flexibility, and performance of an SLR just doesnt compare.
It IS a HUGE outlay of $$$ but will last for many many years. As for cheaper housings the only real option is Ikelite an I just couldnt bring myself to spend around $1500 for a plastic box.
The Nauticam housings are outstanding. The controls are perfect and the housing is compact and handles fantastically. Also at the moment it is almost completely neutrally buoyant without the addition of floats.
As for using a GoPro, I do that too, I clamp it onto one of my strobe arm balls on the housing. You will need to add a flat port to it or everything will be out of focus underwater. Also, unless you are right at the surface you will also need to add something like a Magic Filter to it or everything will look blue and you will have no color.
As for the Tokina 10-17mm, I picked it up last sat and played around with it on land for awhile. What a cool lens!! I can tell Im going to have lots of fun with it!!
Maldives in 3 weeks!!!!!