Underwater camera vs land camera & Housing?

[hoochie]

Hi there

I'm wanting to buy an underwater camera in the next couple of days. I'm in the UK and I'm looking at 3 different models at the moment, The Sealife DC800 for Ž£310, The Canon Ixus with Housing WP-DC23 for Ž£350, and the Fuji F100fd with housing WP-FXF100 for Ž£330. I'm looking at these as I want a simple Point and Shoot camera that will take good photo's, without having to learn all the settings and technical details. I appreciate they may have more functionality if I wanted it in the future though.

I know the Canon and the Fuji both have an "underwater" setting, which I assume adjusts the aperture and other settings for the light conditions? Does this make them on par with ones specifically designed for underwater use like the sealife?

I'm struggling to find reviews on the canon and the fuji for the underwater side - lots of reviews for land but I have a separate camera for that, so i would only ever use this camera underwater.

Any advice you can give me?

Thanks!

 

[marcaumarc]

I've used a Canon Powershot SD1000 underwater with the Canon housing. I think Ixus is maybe a different name for the same line of cameras. If you want to see some photos, the ones here have not been edited afterwards, except the set called favorites, so that will give you an idea of your options without photoshop, and also these are from before I had an external strobe:

Collection: Bermuda 2008

I don't know what model of camera it is exactly, but my canon has a couple options. Underwater will make things a little less blue/green, maybe looking like this:

IMG_0394 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

My camera also had the ability to set the white balance, so you can select a white spot like sand or a slate and set the white balance, which gives you something more like this:

IMG_0373 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Of course if you don't do a very good job setting the white balance, you can overcompensate and get weird stuff like this:

IMG_0062 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

But then just reset the white balance and get back to what looks good to you.

If you don't have a strobe, and don't want to color correct in photoshop afterwards, being able to set white balance manually is probably a feature you want. not sure which cameras have it, but they should list it in their features. Hope it helps.

PS: Here is about as good as I did with the powershot before getting a strobe, keep in mind, being both a new diver and new underwater photographer. Some of these photos have been color corrected in photoshop:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theactionitems/sets/72157614547614663/

Also, my camera is discontinued, so probably all the cameras you are looking at now are better than what I was using.

 

[hammerhead man]

I would also consider the Sea&Sea cameras. I have the DX-1G and the 2G is coming out is a few weeks. They come with their own housing, can be used in a full manual mode or can be used as a point and shoot camera. You may want to stay with the point and shoot but if you want to manually set the shutter speed, and f-stop you have that capability as well. The camera is, in my opinion, very compact and takes great above water pics as well as underwater pics.

Whatever camera you get, I would recommend that you have the option of having the ability to manually adjust the camera settings. You can click on my "photos" link to the left and see some pics taken with three different sea & sea cameras (3000G, 8000G and the DX-1G).

Regards,

Bill

 

[hoochie]

Wow thanks for that mate. It looks like the Powershot SD1000 is the Ixus 70, the 7mp version, so this gives me a great idea of what to expect from the Ixus 85.

I think that has made my mind up for me, they are beautiful pictures. I might have to go to bermuda too!

All i need now is to read up on how to use photoshop... :cool2:

Thanks again

 

[ScubaSteve]

All i need now is to read up on how to use photoshop...

If it is CS3 you will be using, I have some help for you. This thread HERE describes the process I use for adding red back into my pictures where I have issues with my strobe. It is far from a perfect system but it definitely improves the picture and takes about a minutue per picture once you get used to it.

Remember this comes from someone who is lucky to know which way to hold the camera (and sorry for the width...I am at work and unable to resize them):

A PRE processing example

A POST processing example

 

[hoochie]

Wow thanks very much for that info, I'm amazed at what you can do already! I can't wait to get in the water and start clicking away!!

 

[SeaLife Joe]

Hoochie, you might want to contact the folks at Cameras Underwater as they are your #1 resource for shooting underwater. You can contact them through their site
Cameras Underwater: Digital stills and video cameras and housings. Gates, Ikelite, Epoque, SLR, DSLR, Sealife, Sea&Sea.

 

[hoochie]

Hi

As it turns out I've ordered my camera from camera's underwater, they were very helpful and friendly on the phone and I should expect my camera to be delivered on Monday!

 

[SeaLife Joe]

So which camera did you end up purchasing?

 

[hoochie]

Hey

I have ordered the canon Ixus 85 - there was a mix up with my order and it didn't get delivered last week but it should be here any day now. I'll post back when i've had a play around with it - I go to Egypt on 14th April for a week so i'll have proper photo's to talk about then!

Cheers