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

there is a lot of nuance to this. The only really affordable and effective solutions are GoPros and smartphones.

with iphone, it is waterproof on its own, so I think catastrophic failure in a housing while snorkeling is limited. The main downside of this solution is control - touchscreens do not work under water.

gopros are also ok, but everything is ultra wide. Nevertheless control is fairly good and the stick gives it a lot of manoeuvrability.

olympus tg is often suggested for stills. It’s a bit the birding superzoom equivalent of underwater photography, iq is not very impressive but it’s a functional alternative.

the next step up is various housings. I don’t have enough experience to give good advice, although finding one that fits a dated larger sensor camera fixed or interchangeable, may be sensible, even if it makes you buy a new used camera. just check it’s seals are well functioning.

lighting is also relevant

kelpdiver wrote:

SafariBob wrote:

olympus tg is often suggested for stills. It’s a bit the birding superzoom equivalent of underwater photography, iq is not very impressive but it’s a functional alternative.

for most divers with a TG, they are the limiting factor, not the camera.

Maybe so, but to site a knowledgeable person:

to get the sort of images you expect topside with with IV, underwater, it's hard.

and the tg will not deliver that in any circumstance.

Robin Horlock wrote:

SafariBob wrote:

there is a lot of nuance to this. The only really affordable and effective solutions are GoPros and smartphones.

with iphone, it is waterproof on its own, so I think catastrophic failure in a housing while snorkeling is limited. The main downside of this solution is control - touchscreens do not work under water.

Actually touchscreens do work underwater. The Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max underwater smartphone housing is a great example.

Perhaps make that - SOME touchscreens work underwater. Many/most don't work well at all. The DJI Osmo Action camera (which is waterproof to 10m or so without a case) was clearly described as having limited touchscreen ability under water and I believe the GoPros are similar - and that is without the added complication of having the native touchscreen inside a case.

I am not saying a touchscreen will NOT work, but rather that many touchscreens may not well nearly as well under water as they do in air. YMMV.

kelpdiver wrote:

I'd be very suspicious of taking a housing that claims to allow touch to 4 atms of pressure. There's a reason why virtually none offer this functionality.

I was recently on a liveaboard with a diver who was using this housing; she did not seem to have any issues down at 30m.

kelpdiver wrote:

SafariBob wrote:

to get the sort of images you expect topside with with IV, underwater, it's hard.

and the tg will not deliver that in any circumstance.

Since then I saw what the photo/video pro on the Philippines Aggressor can do with a TG6 and a wet WA lens. The TG's microscope mode is well known, and the small sensor has a big advantage here, along with the smaller case size, for getting close to tiny critters, the ones that are hard to see with 50 year old eyes. But the WA stuff was striking. This is where FF generally has an advantage, less effort to get it.

The guy who dives 3 times most days and repeats the sites gets to practice the same bucketlist subjects over and over, so definitely has an advantage. This Cebu circumnavigation was a variety board - whale sharks, thresher sharks, coral cat sharks, sea snakes, frogfish, nudies, pipefish, nudis, and critters smaller than your pinky nail. Each day you had to tackle something different. In those cases, simpler can be better.

He didn't have to pick between the 100mm or the 8-15 each dive.

I understand where you are coming from, and you are much more experienced than I am, in fact I very much appreciated the advice you gave me previously. but, I think there is a slight philosophical difference here.

for me there are two main parameters in photography, it’s image quality, and hit rate. I take very few images that are so good that image quality does not matter. Up until a couple of years ago, my keeper rate was around 1%. Now it is maybe around 10%, partly due to new camera and lenses. With the tg obviously hit rate would go up, but iq would remain low, so overall keeper rate would remain low. I personally find the iPhone fairly acceptable for a lot of photography.

kelpdiver wrote:

SafariBob wrote:

for me there are two main parameters in photography, it’s image quality, and hit rate. I take very few images that are so good that image quality does not matter. Up until a couple of years ago, my keeper rate was around 1%. Now it is maybe around 10%, partly due to new camera and lenses. With the tg obviously hit rate would go up, but iq would remain low, so overall keeper rate would remain low. I personally find the iPhone fairly acceptable for a lot of photography.

Yes, I agree there are two axis in play, though both are variations on the potential of the camera and operator.

For UW, and esp UW where lighting doesn't matter (subjects more than a few feet away), the large sensor cameras are much easier to get an acceptable image, with with less need or effort to correct for white balance. So long as you can handle the heft, it's a win and increases the hit rate.

But with macro, it's a mixed bag. More light gathering is a plus, but the narrower depth of field is a big minus. For truly small macro subjects, I think the TG and the 1" cameras are much easier to get an in focus target. It is massively difficult to get it on a FF, particularly if you don't have the rig neutrally buoyant. It also probably requires you do use manual focus at least some of the time, whereas with a m4/3 sensor that was rarely a need, and with the smaller sensors not at all.

i am completely convinced that lighting is critical, like it is for all types of photography.

Complicating this further is the OP is a snorkeler. To shoot stills on breath hold is a significant added difficulty unless one is pretty good at staying down in the depths. No camera will shoot down well. (Though I get to challenge that axiom with the most common counter case- humpback whales- in September)

Yes, hoping to get more experience as well. I agree that shooting up into the light is much more interesting. But over / under and slight subsurface is very interesting too.