articles search
- Dive Tips
- A Few Good Tips for Great Underwater Pics
- SCUBA-Free Diving?
- Fitting Your Back Plate and Harness
- Scuba Destinations
- Florida's Top 5 Artificial Reef Dives
- Channelling Your Dive: "California" Island Sites
- Swimming with Whale Sharks: Australia’s Ningaloo Reef
Point + Shoot? An Undersea Camera Review
08/24/2008 - By Staff Writer Not too long ago, underwater photography was a difficult, expensive venture best suited to professional photographers. With recent improvements in technology, though, underwater photography has expanded to invite even casual divers into its fun.
PADI evenoffers widely available training in underwater photography. It may well be worth your while to get some help learning to balance awareness and accomplishing a new technical task.
A new technical task, however, doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of new technology. You may already have most of what you need to become a successful underwater photographer.
All the major digital camera manufacturers—Olympus, Sony, Nikon, and Canon—offer waterproof housings for their land cameras that can turn the digital camera you use in daily life for a fascinating new scuba accessory.
Alternatively, if you don’t have a camera yet but want to experiment with underwater photography, an everyday point and shoot digital camera and waterproof housing will allow you to take all the shots you want in AND out of the water. There are only a few other items you’ll need.
A typical underwater photography kit includes:
1. A camera
2. Waterproof housing
3. External strobe flash
4. A carrying case
5. A wide-angle lense (to extend your range of possible shots)
If you’re not ready to commit, you may wish to fool around with an underwater disposable camera. They are durable, affordable, and come pre-loaded with film. Some brands are waterproof up to seventy feet, and are perfect for getting your “eyes wet” on a shallow dive.
Perhaps, on the other hand, you’re ready to move past the casing and purchase a dedicated underwater camera. Now that digital cameras are similar in price to film, it’s best to buy a digital for your first underwater camera. With resolution in the 10 megapixel range, digital offers as clear and detailed a picture as film while offering many more options. Digital cameras can take many more pictures at a time, allow you to delete bad shots, and in some cases, record short motion picture clips. The LCD screen on a digital camera allows you to compose and shoot a picture while holding it away from your face—a big plus for safety and flexibility as well.
If you’re already an experienced photographer and are quite sure you want to try underwater photography, then you may be ready for an SLR (single lens reflex) camera. SLR cameras afford the user a much higher degree of control—but to use them successfully you will need to learn a great deal about photography and how to manipulate the results you want!
Learning to do this underwater through a waterproof housing is additionally challenging. Unless you’re sure that you’re ready for an SLR camera underwater... you’re probably not.
If you’re serious about a camera that you can manipulate without using a waterproof housing, some of the better options on the market right now include:
• Sea & Sea DX-750G Waterproof Digital Camera , which retails at around $1100 US. The Sea & Sea DX-750G offers the serious photographer marvellous flexibility and accessories. This camera is an investment for the long-term.
• Pentax Optio W30 Waterproof Camera is a very affordable option at around $200 US. Basically a point and shoot, this camera records beautiful still images and movie clips underwater.
• Sealife D600 Camera receives rave reviews for its ease of use, white balance settings (to adjust to deeper waters), “Shark mode” (for super-quick pics!) and automatic timer, allowing the photographic diver to snap great shots of himself as well as the beautiful surroundings. At around $700, this camera is a great way to upscale without breaking the bank.