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Olympus and Canon offer their own housings which cost a lot less than metal or Ikalite housings but are limited to less than 120’. They’ll go deeper but the shutter won’t work!
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I’ve used a Canon point & shoot for years with great success. Never had an issue with depth either, taking it down to 130’ on several occassions. When choosing a camera make sure that the model you consider has an "underwater" mode, to compensate for the lack of color at depth. When I went shopping this past Xmas I noticed only half of the cameras seemed to have this feature. Plus make sure there is a housing available before you buy the camera. I found everything I need on Amazon.com. These days you can get a top of the line camera (I suggest at least 8-10MP) for $120, and the housing for about the same. I would start with that, and then later add a strobe to really help your photos pop. Have fun. It’s a great hobbby!
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I have a Sealife DC1000 and I love it. Very easy to set up & use. Not too expensive.
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There is no shortage of info out there, I suggest checking out the digitaldiver and wetpixel websites. Locally in S.D. we have the Divebums website which has a cool photo of the week section, it is great for actually seeing pictures produced by various cameras.
One thing to consider is a strobe, even if you’re not starting out with something fancy you’ll want to have some room to grow into, so make sure there is a decent compatible arm/strobe setup available.
There are plenty of older model cameras available second-hand that are of excellent quality. 5 megapixels should be enough for almost anyone. My first decent camera was an Olympus 5050c zoom and in fact I’d still recommend it. I bought the camera used and later picked up a used DS-50 Ikelite strobe for $200, vice over $700 I recently spent on a DS-160 strobe. Just make sure you get everything insured through DAN or DEPP before ever getting wet.
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thank you very much for the input i will pass it on to my buddy im sure it will help
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I ended up buying a Sony Cybershot WSC-80 and the housing along with a 4GB SD card for around $400.00 it takes great stills and really good video.
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bhphotovideo.com and adorama.com have the best underwater selections of cameras, strobes housing etc. B&H Photo Video being the larger selection. I think the guy that owns Adorama is related to the guy that owns leisure pro. Both have about the best prices on the web.
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