Hi, I just thought I would start a post in this section and would be interested to hear from others with the same housing.  I bought the WP-DC300 underwater housing in Ireland for €250.  It had to be ordered from Japan. Took about 1 month.
I have only used it twice as I only have it 4 days   First time I used it, the lens fogged up after about 30 minutes.  The visability off Dublin coast was not too good either so the shots I got were dissapointing.  Second day, and I decided to use the liquid that comes with the unit to stop the lens cover from fogging up.  This worked out fine.  The vis was also better and I finally got some pleasing shots.
I am very happy with the housing and I do think its cheap compared to some of the other housings around. 
Thumbs up canon !! 
Now to get that picture of the week !!  :wink:
You can check out my pictures @ www.scubabreaks.com

I am glad to see you had a good experience with your setup!  Especially since I just ordered the same setup.    I enjoyed your site and look forward to any technical issues you may have with your camera. 

I don’t know when I’ll get to use it underwater again, but I am going to Japan and to the Natural parks in the western US next month so I’ll test it thouroughly.  Hopefully, I’ll get to go diving one or two more times this summer. 

Also, were you using a separate strobe with your shots?  I hadn’t planned to invest in the strobe portion untill next summer when I head to the Bahamas.

Dave Bush
Florida, USA

hi,
I dont have any external strobe. Have not looked at them too much yet either.  Maybe sometime in the future i will get a strobe but for now im going to make do with the built in flash.
I hope to go diving this weekend with the camera again so look forward to getting some better shots.

cheers
Tank,
www.scubabreaks.com

Hi,
Your pictures came out pretty good. I just bought the D300 for $250 CAD and I’m going to try it when I go diving in Cozumel in a couple of weeks. I wanted to ask you about whether you used a flash at all (and does it work underwater with the silt in the water) and what you’d recommend as the best setting to take pictures with (as far as white balance, exposure, etc...). I would appreciate any info on this since I couldn’t find this anywhere. Thanks.

hi,
The pictures I took im sure can be much better, but for the east coast of Ireland they came out ok - thanks.
The pictures I have taken with my canon s40 and the wp-dc300 I normally leave it on the AUTO setting.  I will experiment with white balance and so forth but as I only have it a week im just getting used to the actual camera itself.  Nearly every shot taken, fired the internal flash.  This seemed to work well and not much backscatter showed up.  I noticed on a lot of my photos they were not as sharp as I would like them.  Maybe its the visibility here. 3 meters :cry:
I have posted the information from the camera for each shot which is just under the pictures.  (mainly on the http://www.scubabreaks.com/ireland/skerries/skerries.htm link)

Ill bet you will get fantastic photos in Cozumel. I would like to see how they turn out.  I myself am off to tobago in a couple of weeks for a 6 week duration - scubadiving 2 times a day.  Looking forward to getting good pics there.  Ill post all the pics i take on my website when I get back.

Cheerz !!
TANK

Thanks very much for the reply. I will put the pictures up for you guys to see once I get back. I’ll also let you know which setting works best (I’ll have time to experiment since I’m going to be doing at least 6 dives).
Take care,

Sass

Regarding settings, you can check out Canon’s advice at the following site:

http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/uwphoto/index-e.html

It is a good primer on underwater digital photos.  Basically they reccomend daylight WB for the first 30 feet and then cloudy WB after that.  Lots of other good stuff here too.

Dave Bush
Florida, USA

Also regarding the backscatter, I wonder if you can’t use the “noise reduction” filters to reduce or eliminate it.  I guess if it is not too bad, you might be able to take it out by hand with an image editor.

Dave Bush
Florida, USA

Hi Tank, I’read that you use the automatic “P” setting, but sharpness is a bit disapointing. I’ve used the same equipment on “T” 1/250s with flash, usually short distance and flash intensity reduced by 2/3 stops. This yealded the best and sharpest images. I hope to create a website in the coming weeks; if you like I can mail som compressed pics.

Nice site!