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Do some research on light penetration. As you get deeper, you will lose more and more colors. To get accurate colors you will need to bring your own light source.

IMO, lights are glass are the most important purchases. In 5 or so years you will be shopping for a new camera, but (hopefully) your lights and lenses are still working well for you. Imagine yourself as a very successful underwater photographer. You can buy just about anything you want. Think about what kind of pictures you are taking. Now, what type of gear do you need to take those pictures? Do you need a lot of different lenses? How elaborate is your lighting and arms?

Now take a step back. what could you buy (within reason) that would meet your needs then as well as now? What things are simply too expensive to justify buying at your skill and interest level?

I did this and I imagined me with a top notch SLR, lots of fancy lenses, and some really good lights. After shopping around I found some strobes that were not (too) expensive and I would still be comfortable using them if I bought a UW case for my SLR. I also found a good focus light that works well for me and I could use in the future. The camera I bought was a entry level Olympus for around $500 for the camera and case.

For you, this plus a base plus a focus light would be a good start. Not sure where you dive, but researching wet diopter lenses to put on the front of the UW would be helpful for macro. Once you are comfortable with that, add a strobe. It will take a while to get good with your new setup. Next you can decide if you want a 2nd flash. As for flashes, I would recommend a Sea & Sea YS-D2 or something similar, but that would depend on your long term goals. As far as arms go, I only know what I own and I have not heard anything bad about any of the brands out there. I would recommend something that you can buy locally.

Hopefully this helps.

You can get a few Point and Click Cameras that come with OEM Underwater housings that can take some pretty impressive Photos.

For instance a Canon S90, but I think they are about $500 (im not entirely sure) The underwater housing would be about another $180.


There are a number of cheap compact Camera's you can go for...

My advice... to get good bang for your buck, the Fujifilm compacts are pretty darn good.

I have a Fuji EXR F80 (not sure if you can still get them, think its discontinued) If not I think the EXR F550 is its replacement

http://www.amazon.com/Fujifilm-FinePix-F550EXR-Geo-Tagging-Function/dp/B004HO58KW

http://www.amazon.com/Fujifilm-FinePix-F80EXR-Digital-3-0-Inch/dp/B0035WTVQE

Its $180 and the housing is about the same.


Here are some pics iv taken with it to give you an idea:

http://imgur.com/a/194r2#0

What I like about the Fuji is that is has an underwater mode, so you can shoot on auto without having to learn manual and it delivers surprisingly good pics for under $500. It also does 720p video about as well as a GoPro. As an entry level camera you cant really go wrong.


I know you dont have too much time to do homework, but just check out a few Sony or Canons as well. Many of them come with underwater housings and perform well.


If you can afford a bit more... Canon G series is the way to go :) Cant get a better compact than that.

Hope this helps?

Seeing as you say be gentle - I'm guessing you're looking for a little feedback.

So - there's some nice shots in there, and some so-so ones. I think you're post processing needs some work - you have photoshop so you have the tools.

In terms of the actual shots first - try to avoid shooting down, or shooting where you just have rooks in the background. Here, for example, the background isn't great. Yellow and blue are complimentary colours - so this fish would have looked stunning with a nice plain blue water background. Also - get close close close. If you can't shoot up, try maxing out your strobe and stopping down to blacken the background whilst lighting the fish.

Most of your shots are landscape and some could be improved with a little cropping.

Now for processesing. Did you white balance? Even with a strobe white balance helps. Your pictures could use more contrast to pull out the colours. Your blues are a little off (IMO and water colour is a quite subjective thing - I like deep blues - others may not so much). Play with the blue hue to deepen them a little. Also adjust the levels to get a nice even histogram.

I took the liberty of having a little play with a few of your pictures. Here's what I did.. Like I say you have some nice shots.

If you're serious about underwater photography and have the means - I would recommend these tutorials and this book

No comments yet? In Oct of 2018 I upgraded from a GoPro Hero 3+ to a micro 4/3 mirrorless system. I used the old GoPro rig for like 50-70 dives.

Here's a pics of my rig. I'd like to think mine is the upper range of cheap. The camera I bought for diving but also rock climbing and backpacking so it couldn't be heavy and I wanted weather sealing. I bought it when Olympus was having a camera/kit lens/dive housing combo for $1400 and sold the housing for half the combo cost because I couldn't afford third party ports for the lens I wanted.

> Olympus EM-5 mkII ~$700
>
> 12-40mm f/2.8 (24-80mm f/5.6 ff equiv) $540 ebay
>
> 60mm f/2.8 (120mm f/5.6 ff equiv) macro. $299 ebay
>
> Meikon underwater housing+dome port $390+S/H
>
> Light and Motion Gobe 700 Wide video lights $350 from Amazon back in like... 2014 for my GoPro with some locline arms.
>
> This dive tray. Came with a couple of aluminum arms. $200 in 2018
>
> Clip for left D ring on BCD
>
> Clip for right D ring on BCD with bungee
>
> Σ ~$2200. Ouch, it felt a lot cheaper than that.

Unfortunately I just (on Friday) got back from a dive trip in Maui where one of my dive lights crapped out and a day later the other fell off the locline sometime during kick out. So now I really have an excuse to upgrade to strobes. My photos have slowly gotten better; here's my photo album, I suggest starting from the bottom because they're in chronological order.

When I went a few years ago I brought a gopro and an extending selfie stick. This is supposedly a good gopro equivalent for much less.

You'll probably want a red filter for any camera you get since the colors get washed out even pretty shallow and it's hard to fix in software.

For any camera I highly recommend the extending stick because you're not going to want to get close to a moray or reach into a cave.

Yep. The only complaint I have about the waterproof housing is that you can't get a red filter for it for scuba diving. However there are other inexpensive cases that will work with the camera that do have red filters, so it's not a big deal. There's also software to correct the blue cast.

This is the memory card I got

If you go with a different size/brand, just make sure it is class 10.

Glad I could help.

Yes. https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Mirrorless-Digital-Camera-16-50mm/dp/B00HNJWU3G/ref=sr_1_4?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1467316479&sr=1-4&keywords=sony+a5000 and this https://www.amazon.com/Camdive®-Waterproof-Underwater-Housing-16-50mm/dp/B013OX0UY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467316508&sr=8-1&keywords=sony+a5000+underwater+housing for $600 roughly.... Solid camera and housing and I bet you can get better deals than this, I didn't even tr to look and am from UK too.

A red filter is typically necessary. I bought this cheap one, and it worked wonders:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JL0U0E6?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

I didn't use any strobes, I simply put the GoPro on a $10 selfie stick and had really good luck with it.

Sony RX100: $500 for the camera, shoots RAW (color correction made easy!), Monoprice RX100 dive enclosure <$200, $200 for a Fantasea strobe


That package will do 10fps RAW, has lightning-fast focus, and is the best thing ever.

This is great for getting scratches out of a dome port. Looks bad when you start out but when you finish its like new

http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Mesh-NC-78-1-Acrylic-Restoral-Kit/dp/B00EKLU5QY

I've been diving with a pair of these for a while without issues. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MCGWLBW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Polaroid-Waterproof-Underwater-Housing-Digital/dp/B006ZCFW78?th=1&psc=1

I don't have a setup like yours, but I would bet it needs only small floats.

My camera is an Olympus with one Sola 1200 and one Sea&Sea strobe. The strobe is dramatically heavier than the Sola, and the rig is very negative without floats. I added four jumbo floats (quantity 1 of: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001RMYZ8I/ref=pe_385040_30332190_TE_3p_dp_1) and that made it overall slightly positively buoyant.

Probably if you get one of the non-jumbo version of this and allocate some time for buoyancy checks in the pool at the destination, you'll be fine.

yeah, thats a little much for my needs.
I already have this
can I combine it with this or will it kill me?