Camera for diving and travelling

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

I'd go with a compact camera with housing. Interchangeable lens options are expensive, and bulky. In the past I've used a series of Canon point-n-shoots (SD630, SD870is, s95, s120). All have been very good for the price, running $400-500 for the camera and new Canon dive housing. Unfortunately that class of camera has mostly disappeared - but I bet you could find great deals on the used market.

I went from the Canons to a Sony RX100 II, with Nauticam housing and dual strobes. Added a focus light and some wet lenses, and I was at $5000.

Nowadays, one could get a good Sony RX100 II used for ~$250-300,  and a new Meikon housing for it for less than $200.   Then one could get a couple of good slave strobes for a couple hundred each,  and cabling, brackets, counterweights, etc, for $500-800 more.

I personally went the route of a Nikon 1 J4 and Nikon's own WP-N3 housing for it for even less money.  My reason for going this route was that I feel that the Nikon housing is superior to the Meikon cases, although one could argue that the Sony is a slightly more capable camera, it's not by much, and the J4 has the benefit of interchangeable lenses.

One could also spend a similar amount on a few year-old Olympus M43 outfit and Olympus' own underwater housings.

These rigs would all run in the vicinity of $350-500 for the camera with a standard lens + housing, and they are all roughly comparable photographic platforms.   A reasonable lighting setup and you are still in the ballpark of $1000 or so all in.

Used it a year, and while the strobes made a world of difference in the shots I was getting, the autofocus wasn't much different from the point-n-shoots. Still, these types of cameras have improved autofocus in every revision, and the new ones may be fine.

I went on to a $10,000 DSLR rig, which is truly an effort to bring on trips.

Anyway, I'd recommend something from Canon, with matching Canon housing. The housings are good (look like Meikon products) and rated to 130 feet. As far as USING the cameras underwater, I have been much happier with the Canons than the Sony - Sony menus are a mess, the menu print is very small, you have to dive through menus to change stuff, etc. Canon is simply much easier to use.

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Phoenix Arizona Craig
www.cjcphoto.net