UnderWater Camera

[LIPstudio]

Are there any divers out there that love to photograph underwater? I've been looking at some new underwater cameras and I have my eye on the Sea & Sea DX-1G. I also thought of just buying the housing for my Nikon D200 but the houseing itself would cost me more than the DX-1G and two strobes (good strobes too). Are there any cameras that you would recommend?
I'll tell you what I'm not looking for, point & shoot or max. depth of 20'-0", I"m looking for semi to professional camera.

I've also starting debating if I should find a camera that also shoots video. Any leads on that?

Any recommendations on cameras on this subject would be much helpful.

[gwndwn]

Welcome to the world of underwater photography $$$. I would barely call myself an amatuer photographer but there is no real "cheap" way to take your SLR underwater. A good housing is going to start around $2000 bucks by the time you put a port on it and get zoom gears. Then there are the strobes about $700-$1200 bucks each plus sync cords (~$100). The strobe arms are going to come in around $200.00.

You will have to start getting into pro cameras before the camera is actually worth more than the housing.....and even then. I went with Aquatica for my D70s and probably spent in the range of 3500 when all was said and done...that's with one strobe......that said I still love doing it.

There are others around here with better setup than I have but the price will only start to go up. B and H photo has quite a bit of u/w equipement and will give you an idea of what your in for

[Torrey]

There's some discussion over on Scubaboard here about the DX-1G. I originally thought this was a sealed camera, but after further review it looks like it has an external housing. Personally, it doesn't sound like a bad choice. For that kind of money, I would probably take the DX-1G over buying a housing that costs 2x as much and risking flooding the Nikon.

[jamesw]

Have a look at the review of the Ricoh Caplio GX100 over at dpreview.com - that's the camera inside the DX1G actually. Sea and Sea and Ricoh have a long relationship.

This is a "prosumer" or compact type camera, so you're going to have to deal w/ all that comes along w/ that. This means a high-noise sensor (so you can use base ISO only), short battery life, etc.

With that said, it's one of the better compact cameras.

Cheers
James