Small Digital Camera for ex 35mm user?

[Isaac-1]

I am looking for a good small general purpose digital camera set up to take with me on vacation to tropical waters in a few months. I have not done any underwater photography in years, and most of my old camera stuff is gone or dead (Nikonos/ Ikelite SLR case, etc.), I found it too much of hassle to travel with, and photography is no fun in local waters with 4-5 ft vis. Therefore I am looking for advice on a good digital camera setup with remote strobe, that is small enough to tuck away in a gear bag and not go over modern air travel weight limits. What would you suggest in a budget of between $300-600 or so, used/ebay, etc deals included? I think I would prefer a submersible camera opposed to a surface camera in a housing, if there is a good one out there.

thanks Ike

 

[Nimleth]

Hi Isaac,

Wellif you forget about the strobe I would suggest the canon powershot SD750 with its housing WP-DC14. The reason is that it lets you configure the whitebalance manually underwater. A mate of mine has the SD650 (which I think they don't sell anymore) and the photo's are awesome, especially the one without use of the flash.
You can get this for about 350US at andorama.com. Don't know about the local stores. I tried to buy it when I was in miami and although they had the camara almost everywhere I couldn't get the housing, so I ended up buying the olympus f280 with housing. Makes nice pictures but it laks the manual whitebalance.

Cheers
Dennis