This will be my second digital camera and I’m still pretty young and not very experienced (aka I’m not going to be spending lots of money).

However I would like to get another camera and get a good housing with it to play around. I do enjoy shooting photos underwater but I don’t get to do it enough to develop good techniques, etc.

Previously I owed a Canon A70 and then the housing from Canon that went along with it. Unfortunately I broke my camera and it’s time to upgrade and was just wondering what some suggestions were. Thanks for the help.

If you are happy with Canon cameras, you might consider the Powershot A630 or A640.  They will be quite similar to your A70, although with more Megapixels!  You can get a Canon housing for either of these cameras, and generally, the two cameras work pretty well underwater.  I’m probably a bit biased towards Canons in general, because I find them to be very capable little cameras with the fewest number of things that annoy me about them compared to other cameras I have used. 

For underwater use, I don’t think that any of the current Sony cameras are well suited, due to physically small lens sizes, fewer manual control options, and in some cases camera functions that are controlled via a touchscreen LCD are unavailable when the camera is in a housing.  The now obsolete DSC-P150 and DSC-P100 did a reasonable job underwater though, so might be worth a look for a used one.

Olympus have done a pretty good job over the years of catering for u/w use of their cameras, and some of their current range looks good on paper.  I don’t have any experience of them however, so beyond that I cannot comment.

If a new camera works out a bit expensive, second-hand or used cameras would be an option.  From Canon, I suggest you look at the Canon Powershot S70.  IMHO, it rocks!  One of the few compact cameras to provide RAW, and it has a wider wide angle than most compacts (equivalent of 28mm rather than 35mm).  I have found it to work well underwater.  The only problem with the S70, is that the sliding lens cover (which is also how you turn the camera on) can get a bit loose and not work very well, so watch out for this when buying used.

I know with my last camera there was a problem upgrading to a strobe.  Is one really needed and do any lower end models like the ones discussed above have the option of upgrading?

Also I’m not too familiar with RAW.  What’s the true advantage to this technology and is it really need?  Thanks for all the help.

Strobe use with compact cameras can be a bit of a game.  The main issue is getting the strobe to ‘sync’ with the camera (i.e. to get the strobe to go off when the camera strobe goes off). 

This sync issue is complicated by the fact that most digital compacts fire the strobe more than once for each shot - the first strobe firing (called a pre-flash) is usually so the camera can measure exposure (and may or may not be a full power burst).  The second firing is then for the actual picture being taken.  External strobe units have to be able to ignore the first flash, and trigger on the second flash.

Strobe manufacturers have solved these problems though, so you can get strobes that work with compact cameras (you could have got one that worked with your A70 incidentally).  The strobe systems mostly use either a fibre optic cable to enable the strobe to ‘see’ when the camera’s own flash is going off, or a sensor that points at the camera’s flash. 

With these types of systems, you have to manually control the power level of the strobe to achieve correct exposure, because the camera’s own flash is blocked, and the pre-flash cannot allow the camera to determine exposure automatically.

A few compact cameras have a ‘hot shoe’ (a bracket on the camera that is usually used to connect an external flash).  Depending on the housing you choose, this hot shoe can be used to connect a sync cable to most external strobes.  If you are using a sync cable, you may be able to use the strobe in TTL mode, which means that the camera controls the strobe power automatically as if it was it’s own flash.  Getting TTL to work tends to require you to pick your camera, housing and strobe carefully to ensure that they all work together.  If you have a look through the various u/w forums on the net you will find the opinion on strobe TTL is somewhat divided:  some photographers hate it because they find they can achieve more accurate exposures manually, others find TTL works fine for them.

Strobe manufacturers I suggest you look at would be ikelite (they have a pretty informative website in general, so well worth a look), inon, and sea and sea.  There are certainly others too.

As regards RAW, this is the ability for the camera to record the information from the camera sensor in an unadulterated format, so that you can then process the image yourself using software on your computer.  The advantages of shooting RAW underwater include: 
- improved ability to tune the colour balance over jpeg files,
- some ability to recover over-exposure (usually limited to 1EV or so)
- total control over the sharpening applied to the image.
The disadvantages of RAW include:
- RAW files are much bigger than the jpegs would have been, so you get fewer shots on your memory card (although these days with the big cards available, this isn’t so much of a factor)
- you need to process the images yourself to create jpegs (depending on how much time you have, and whether you really enjoy the process, this could actually be an advantage!)
- you need the appropriate software to process the RAW images.  Mostly the widely used packages cost $$.  There are probably a few freebies out there.
- it helps to have a reasonable background knowledge (and interest!) in how computers display graphics so that the technicalities of processing your RAW images are not completely foreign.

Whether RAW is a necessity is very much a personal decision.  For most people, especially those using compact cameras, RAW is not a necessity - they just want to take their photo, view it, print it, share it or whatever, with the minimum of fuss.  For these people, RAW is just an impediment to what they want out of their photography.  For those who enjoy the tweaking and fiddling, and want to feel that they are totally in control of the whole process, RAW is the way to go.

Personally, if I were scoring my photos for quality, using RAW enables me to get an extra 10% to 20% because of the additional tweaks possible over jpegs.  That 10%-20% matters enough to me to be worth the effort.  Others may, with validity, argue that getting the photo right in the first place (when it was taken) can get that extra 10 to 20% (and more).

hope that helps

Sorry, I forgot to outline the benefits of strobes!

Strobe use provides the following main benefits:
- by giving you control of the angle the light comes from you can reduce backscatter in claggy conditions.  Also, you have greater creative control over the lighting for your photo.
- strobes are more powerful than camera flashes, and have wider coverage, so you can illuminate bigger subjects at greater range from the camera (although range is rarely more than a few metres)
- strobes (like camera flashes) restore the full colour spectrum to your photos.  A major advantage below 5m.
Disadvantages include:
- cost !
- encumberance - a strobe on an arm system along with the tray that is usually required to attach the camera housing to the strobe system, plus the cabling induces drag, and is a physically large sized item to move around with you underwater.  You also need a much bigger case to lug your kit around with you above water.
- added task loading.  The strobe is another thing demanding your attention when diving, which can impact your personal safety, your awareness of marine life, bouyancy control etc.
- added technical difficulty.  I think nearly anyone capable of getting through their open water qualification could probably be taught the required knowledge to operate a strobe well, however, there is a learning curve involved, and that curve impacts people to different degrees.  I think most people who add a strobe to their rigs initially find their photos suffer, until the figure out how to use the strobe in each photographic circumstance.  Some people relish this challenge, others find it tedious!

As I outlined in my previous post, you should be able to get a strobe that will work with almost any compact camera, although if you want TTL, you need to pick and choose your gear very carefully, and you will be limited to only a small number of possible cameras and housings.  If you don’t dive much, and have a limited budget, it may be best to focus (pun not intended) on just the camera and housing initially.  As your interest and experience grow, you can then add a strobe.

On the topic of RAW, there are now a number of ‘hacks’ for popular compact cameras like the Canon Powershot A640, that enable them to utilise RAW.  Of course, these hacks are not supported by the manufacturer, and they almost certainly will invalidate the manufacturer’s warranty. 

Hope that helps too!

Thank you very much for the information; there’s tons of it.

So I received a Canon catalog the other day and started to look the their new products.  One Powershot caught my idea.  I’m looking to get back into the underwater photography hobby and thought I might have found my avenue back into the sport.  Canon has a new product - SD 750 model and it looks great.  Relatively inexpensive, 7.1 megapixel, Canon Housing (WP-DC14), but the best thing I think is the size of the LCD screen.  It’s a whopping 3in.  I think this is a great advantage to shooting underwater because you can actually see what you’re shooting.  This is definitely a large improvement compared to my Canon A70 I had a few years ago.

Does anyone have any experience with this camera of housing that could give me some feedback or insight?  Thank you.

Hi airj1012,

and welcome to our forum from my side again.

I was unable to test the product you mentioned,
but I consider it as a good start where not much
can go wrong.

Instead of a strobe at the initial purchase
you might also consider the Magic Filter
solution and techniques taught in the recent
PADI digital underwater photo course.

It is an affordable combination for beginners
or users that transit from film to u/w-digital.

I must out myself, that I am involved business-
wise in the Magic Filters and I was hired to co-design
the specialty course and material for PADI.