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Well its been a while since I posted. My girlfriend and I are going to Jamaica. Since the water there is so clear we talked about either snorkeling or scuba diving while we are there. We are not certified Divers so we would either have to take a very expensive course here or take part of a day out of our vacation and take a course that would certify us for a period of two weeks with the resort only. The resort does provide all the equipment while you are there and its included in our trip price.
We decided that since it would take up a good bit of our time to do this we did not want to invest the time or money in diving lessons, so we are opting to snorkel. Some where along the line I started thinking about what it would be like to photograph under water. Its something I always wanted to do but never have. So the next thing I did was start exploring waterproof cameras and underwater housings.
Currently it appears that most companies have moved to making digital housings from the SLR type digitals and there is a whole slew of point and shoot camera's that are water proof coming from the likes of Canon, Pentax, and Olympus. There are also many off brands out there as well as throw away and reusable point and shoot film cameras.
One of the major problems is shot to shot times on the point and shoots but with the film version that is not as much of an issue. Another problem is the limitation of shots you can get with film because you cannot just open the camera and change rolls, but with digital your card and file size will determine how many images you can capture and you can also delete pictures that you do not like. The deeper you go the more your light and color is affected. How clear the water is and what is stirred up on the bottom or in the surroundings can make a big difference and this is where the use of a strobe and or color correction filters can help. Of course color correction can always be done in photo shop after the fact, but the goal at least for me is to always get the best image out of the camera itself.
I decided I did not want to deal with a throw away film camera. I know I will have images I want to capture both above and below the surface. I also did not want to deal with slow focus and shot to shot times of the compact digital cameras. My next thought was to consider using the Olympus E-1 or One of my Canon Camera's that I currently own. At this point I did not even consider film because the number of images I could capture was a limiting factor. So I started looking at Water-Proof housings for both Canon and Olympus. Talk about falling out of your chair. When you start looking at Water Proof housings you will find they are very expensive. Even the older ones are still $$$$ if you can find the one for your camera. I noticed there are several companies that make housings and also EWA Marine makes a water tight bag that you can put your camera in. For me personally the EWA Marine solution did not seem acceptable although it might do fine for others. I did discover that IKELITE is a very popular underwater housing company. Also they are about 3 hours from my house and they continue to stay in business. So I started looking for a housing for my E-1 only to find out they have discontinued that housing. I checked Ebay and no joy. What I did come across was a guy selling an IKELITE housing with a Canon EOS 630, Lens, ports, cable release, sync cord, and the manuals came with it. I debated on bidding this and in the last hour after a lot of internal soul searching and calling Ikelite and some dive shops, I jumped in and bid.
I was very lucky and got all this equipment for a very good price. I feel that I can even get my money back if I find out this is not for me or I lose interest.
Anyway I will edit and continue this post in a bit.
Jason
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Originally Posted by Greg McCary
