It was for my husband when he was diving he loves said it takes great pictures. The shark mode works great.The pictures were very clear.

Loved this! It is awesome because it is BOTH land and sea camera, so you need just one! You can get tons of accessories and flashes for it. It is easy to use and the program it comes with allows you to do all kinds of cool corrections INCLUDING making your photos MORE in focus in case you shot them blurry!

I cannot wait to use it again, well UNDERWATER for diving I mean!

If you are going to lay out $500 for a camera, you should expect a fair amount of camera.

However, I have a few gripes here. First, there is no remote control for it which makes setting up a shot tough. All the Nikons in the D series can use a wireless remote. You can buy an underwater case for those magnificent Nikons so you can shoot underwater. You can get over 10 megapixels in a D80, or D200 and you get that great Nikkor lens. You don't get much of a lens on the DC500, and 5 megapixels don't get you very far when it comes to printing and publication quality images. Lets face it: this is an expensive point-n-shoot camera for a tourist, not a serious camera.

Nuff said.

-J

Decent camera, but not great. Shark mode is nice. Housing looks good, but mine leaked at ~20 ft...camera was dead by the time I got it out of the water. Good news is that Amazon processed the defective product return rapidly and credited my account in about a week. Net result was one decent picture and a disappointing Christmas present. Next time I will buy a housing for a better camera. Canon has some nice ones.

This is a great camera for someone who know how to read instructions and use it propery. This camera is not for idots who do not read the instructions then complain why there camera leaked becuase they failed to check that the camera was securely closed before they took it in the water. This camera takes excellent pictures I have used several times. You can get great pictures from a 5.1 MP. Don't waste your money on a $1,000 which is very bulky for those who want to use a nikon or canon SLR. Also, those cameras do not have the shark feature, as well as the sea feature and strobles are very difficult to use on those cameras. All that said I highly recommend this camera, especially if you like take pictures snorkling.

The picture quality was terrible and the camera would lock and/or fog with each use. Virtually unusable. My friend brought her Casio EXILIM with Underwater housing.... a much better option. I borrowed it and the shots were much clearer and it never locked. I don't know why there is any hype around this camera. It is just a below average camera in mediocre housing.

I took this camera on 2 week long dive trips. During the second dive trip, (and having taken the camera on a total of about 13 dives), I noticed on the first day that that little plastic cap on the shutter button was gone. When I checked my photos, I realized that there were many missing shots. When I thought I was pushing down the shutter button to take the picture, I guess I didn't press hard enough and basically, was just focusing on a scene, not shooting it. During the rest of my trip, sometimes it took a picture, sometimes it didn't. Then to add insult to injury, the metal plate on the front of the casing fell off sometime during one of my dives. The casing seems to be poorly made. I never had a problem with leaking or fogging. But who know losing that little plastic cap on the shutter button would lead to so much frustration when I didn't see pics I KNEW I took. (PS the camera was not even an year old.)

Great camera for those who like to take pictures but are not trying too hard. Mine didn't leak at all, went down to up to 100', just make sure you follow instructions. Clean it properly and watch out for the O-ring. Cons:
- adjusting the exposure and macro; mine came out blurry or way over exposed even in sea mode but I figured that was also due to lighting, so buying the flash with this would probably make the pictures come out better
- remember to switch to "take pictures"! I missed taking pictures of sharks, turtles, octopus (all in one dive) because I hadn't put it in picture taking mode.
The spy mode is pretty amazing as well, learn how to use it and it can give you great pictures. You can also take normal pictures on land since it's a digital inside a case, colors are sometimes off and exposure was my main problem.
Still pretty amazing though, I definitely don't regret buying this.

I've had this camera about a year, and must say the case is pretty nice. No complaints with it at all. I know 4 other divers with the same camera and they like it. The camera itself takes horribly grainy pictures, nowhere near as good as a real canon or nikon pocket-sized camera. My battery was also shot after a year. You can tell the camera is cheaply made just by holding it - it's all cheap plastic. The case is pretty rugged though. To do it again, I'd get a case for my Canon 850 IS.