Looking for advice for a compact travel cam that can shoot underwater.

Hi, I'm looking for a small travel camera that can shoot underwater, in this one case, salt water. Also, having a camera that can fit in my pocket is far easier than lugging around a 5D MkIV.

If there isn't really a decent answer that won't cost as much as a new SLR, I do also need to get a new phone. I'm more of an android guy, so I was possibly looking at the new/er Samsung Galaxy model. Do any of those allow for good underwater photography?

BTW this is snorkelling, not scuba diving.

Thanks

I know of no experiences with them yet, but Kraken, probably others too, have a $300 smartphone housing available.   Not sure which models fit in the case, but the controls work via bluetooth so the housing works with multiple phones.

The newest Androids have pretty good cameras, depending on the model.  I have the Samsung Galaxy S22Ultra (which might be too big for the case), and it has 3 cameras, for wide, normal and macro.   IQ is decent, though the macro is more enhanced sharpness in post than a strong macro lens.

Olympus TG-5/TG-6 if your primary use case is stills, GoPro 8 or newer if the primary use case is video.

Darkmatterx76 wrote:

Thanks. I'm almost exclusively a photographer. To bad for me since it seems like video is pushing still art right out the back door.

What was that song? "Video killed the radio star?"

Take a loot at the Olympus TG5/6.  Check out Backscatter.com for more info on how well the TG5/6 performs underwater.

There are very few compact cameras left for sale these days.  TG5/TG6 is probably what you want.  Canon G7 X would be the other, and it, with housing, isn't cheap.

Used RX100 version ?? with housing, if you can find it.

I have an RX100 ii with a Nauticam housing I bought back in 2014.   It's my backup underwater camera now.   Quite expensive new though.

kelpdiver wrote:

Nevermind. I saw the price, and I cringe at spending that on a cellphone case. heh

If a $300 case makes you cringe, not sure what to say. That's essentially the minimum unit price of any UW photography equipment. It gets a hell of a lot worse.

If you're certain you won't drop it, a case for a smartphone is probably the cheapest decent solution for stills. Next is the TG6. And then you jump to the G7xIIII, or even further to the Panasonic's LX100 II with its 4/3rds sensor. And then it gets ugly with ILC systems.

Because the 5D III and IV can often use the same housings, you might be able to find something not horrendously expensive in the used sector, but you still need a dome port for wide angle, a flat port for macro, and then the gears for the zoom. The gear alone is typically 200-300. But shooting from the surface with an SLR is going to produce meh results. You'll need to be a half decent free diver and get down.

All very true, the OP can look into the Olympus EPL9/10 with the Backscatter housing (made by AOI) you can get the camera and housing for somewhere in the $1200-1300 price range.

When I switched from a D850 to a Z9 this summer, it cost me - and this is reusing expensive parts like my 230mm dome port and dual strobes - $18,000.

The housing alone was $7600, including leak detector.

How well does the touchscreen (for a phone solution) work underwater ? When I got a DJI Osmo Action (primarily as a "dashcam" for my bicycle), many of the comments I saw suggested that the touchscreen didn't work too well under water (the Osmo is waterproof to around 10m and takes around 20Mp stills from memory).

Since the only way to operate a phone is using the touchscreen, this may make things a little harder if correct ?

Andy01 wrote:

How well does the touchscreen (for a phone solution) work underwater ? When I got a DJI Osmo Action (primarily as a "dashcam" for my bicycle), many of the comments I saw suggested that the touchscreen didn't work too well under water (the Osmo is waterproof to around 10m and takes around 20Mp stills from memory).

Since the only way to operate a phone is using the touchscreen, this may make things a little harder if correct ?

Most underwater phone housings do not involve using the touchscreen - instead, you run an app on your phone, connect it to the housing via Bluetooth, and use the buttons on the housing to control this app. Some cheap ones, generally model-specific, have physical buttons tapping the phone screen in specific locations when you press them. One exception is DiveVolk SeaTouch series; that one does allow you to use the touchscreen underwater. You can find a number of reviews online that rate its performance.

Coming back from 2 weeks diving in Indonesia, I would agree with what was suggested here by the other posters. I bought the Olympus TG6 for this trip (plus housing and grip, which you won't need) to replace a GoPro Hero 7. The GoPro just drove me mad, froze all the time, pictures weren't really great, one had to shoot a video to get good results.
The TG6 was a nice surprise. Like always, you get what you pay for - it can't compete with an 18k Nikon Z9 equipment. But the results were very pleasant for this price point. Especially after using Dive+ for a very easy and straightforward post-processing. What I like the most: It gave me the flexibility to shoot some landscape during landfall or other out of the water pictures (e.g. we followed some dolphins), something were the GoPro was hopeless. The quality was acceptable - a high-end smartphone might provide better output, but it will set you back financially quite a lot.
Other divers had the Nikon W300 and were also ok with their results. Again, if you invest more, you'll get better results, but for the price point, the pictures were totally ok. They'll be shared via Whatsapp most of the time anyways - so even further compressed.
The advantage of the TG6 is that it has some auto modes for underwater. So if you decide to switch from snorkeling to scuba diving, that's easy to do and not much more difficult than the GoPro.

Still, a cheap China GoPro knock-off for snorkeling plus a decent compact camera might be the better option. Pricewise, the difference would be not that much, and you'll have more flexibility. The knock-offs also offer decent output nowadays and you might value the higher quality compact camera after the trip even more.

Darkmatterx76 wrote:

Honestly, that's a fair comment. I guess with the cost of the trip and my current equipment, I was feeling reluctant to spend a lot of money on what would be me trying out a new type of photography.

We understand.

Others have been on your path. I really like diving and photography, so combining the two hobbies was a natural for me. Plus my wife, who got me back into diving after 35 years, was also into photography.   She paid for me to get PADI certified, and we went on a Caribbean cruise and dove at several ports.

I started out with one of those disposable ISO 400 film cameras.  Here is my first underwater picture:

ISO 400 disposable film camera shot from Coco Cay - 2006

Well, it only took the roll of film from that camera to convince me to get a better camera.  At least there were a lot of choices then.   I picked a Canon Powershot SD630.

2007 - Canon SD630 in Hawaii

I used that camera on a couple of dive trips, plus out of the water as well along with a D300.

But I had it packed in a duffle type suitcase, and I didn't zip its pocket shut all the way.  It fell out during air transport from Hawaii in 2009 and was lost.

On to the next camera - this time Canon SD 870is - first camera with image stabilization.  (Which didn't seem to work for portrait orientation, oddly).

2009, Canon SD870is with internal flash and diffuser.   Getting my teeth cleaned in Fiji

In 2009 I did a Liveaboard in Fiji, and I experimented with external flash a bit.   (Badly though).  I had been shooting the internal flash through a diffusing panel that came with the camera, but it had no range at all.  I brought an Ikelite AF-35, which was a revelation on the shots that were more-or-less correctly shot, but after a few dives the battery compartment flooded, and I never tried using it again.   I couldn't figure out the power controls at the time, so I quit trying to use it.  (Still works, still sitting on a garage shelf).

The flash had me thinking though.  I definitely wanted more light.

I kept shooting the point-n-shoot, and after the SD630 was lost, I bought a second 870is for my wife, and we both enjoyed shooting them.  It was nice to have the same camera in that one wasn't going to be better than the other, but it produced some ripples in post-processing to avoid duplicate file names.  (I came up with a naming scheme that differentiated both cameras.)

By 2014 I had taken as many point-n-shoot shots as I could stand and decided I needed to step up a notch from point-n-shoots with no flash.   I got an RX100 II with Nauticam housing, dual YS-G1 strobes, a focus light, a wet macro lens and a wet wide dome lens from Bluewater photo.  I thought a 20mp, image-stabilized, 1 inch sensor 'modern' camera would do the trick.  Cost me $5000.   All those Canons with their dedicated housings were under $500 new, each.

2015, RX100 II with dual YS-D1 strobes.   Still a point-n-shoot

I did a couple of dive trips with the RX100, and I learned I really wanted to use those strobes.   But the AF was typically point-n-shoot slow, and I got a lot of shots of fish tails leaving the frame.   At least they were well-lit.

Also in 2014, my wife got Pancreatic cancer and had a Whipple procedure.  Living now on borrowed time, I decided to put the camera I wanted to use underwater in a housing an live with the risk.  Best decision I could have made.  I bought a Nauticam housing for my D810, moved the focus light and strobes to it, and didn't look back.   Took the rig on several dives on a Caribbean cruise, and I was hooked.

2015, D810, San Thomas.   The last picture I took of my wife underwater.

The D810 completely blew away the point-n-shoots, including the RX100.   Focus was fast, was where I wanted it, and was accurate.   36mp allowed for massive cropping.   I shot in raw and learned more about post-processing.   On the same dive I took the shot of my wife above, she took one of me with the 870is:

Same dive as previous image - 2015, Canon 870is.   Note the difference to the D810

The above shots should give a nice contrast between a point-n-shoot w/o flash and a D810 with flash, plus the ability to shoot raw and post-process more.

My wife died in January of 2017, and things stalled out for me, change-wise.

I shot the D810 for 4 years underwater, and the last three of them I shot a D850 above water.   Eventually I decided I wanted my best camera underwater, partly because it is the most challenging type of shooting I do, and partly because my housing was due for an expensive maintenance anyway.   So I bought a housing for my D850 and used it from 2019 until last summer, when I convinced myself to upgrade to a Z9.  But the images from the D850 and Z9 are akin to the D810 images.  Mostly in the same class.   I can heartily recommend a used D800 or D810 rig as very very capable of getting extremely high quality results.

One of my last D850 shots underwater:

D850, 2022 Bonaire - playing with snooted flash

I did 38 dives in Roatan in September learning the Z9, mostly wide angle.  Barely got to video, but here is a nice still.

Z9, 2022 Roatan - playing with snooted flash

IF you get into underwater photography, you'll enjoy your first point-n-shoot immensely, but as a photographer you may feel extremely limited with the type of results you get.  If you just want fish and diver portraits, they're decent.   The newer ones give better results than the RX100 and have faster AF as well.

You may end up on the path I, and others (with $$), have taken.   I'm very happy to have done so, though I've spent enormous amounts of $$ on it, and may still spend $$$ more.  (There are some specialty lenses out there I'm very interested in, except for the price tags above $5000.)

I'll have to check to see if I can rent a camera once I'm down there, or maybe for a future trip.

Go to Lensrentals.com here:

https://www.lensrentals.com/rent/cameras/photo/underwater

Finally, Adam Savage (Mythbusters) states a philosophy of his is to buy a cheap tool to see if it deserves a place in his workshop, and if it does he replaces it with a very high quality one.   If not, he is only out the cost of the cheap version.

Oops - last shot ,my wife took of me wasn't with the old 870is, but instead a much-newer Canon S120.  I think I missed an S95 in there too.