Good Little Digital Cameras

[Sergiu]

an some 5 underwater pics taken with this camera, in the philippines - great for close-ups, less so for uw landscapes (without external strobe that is)

http://www.photopoints.com/main/phot....aspx?ID=12290
serge

[tylerz]

Regarding strobes, for those of you unaware, you can get external strobes which sync (fire) without any wires or connections when your on-camera flash goes. They sync by the external strobe being triggered with light given off by the camera.

[Fondueset]

Right - they work off the 'pre-flash' - when shopping you have to make certain it will work with your cameras preflash sequence.

[dwwestesq]

What seems to be the best combination camera for diving (to max 50-60 feet) and surface use? Or is this a lost cause?

Looking at Pentax Optio WP or the Olympus Stylus 720 SW and their respective underwater housings. Would be purchasing a second memory? card (largest and fastest) and battery (largest).

Other candidates must be waterproof cameras plus available manufacturer (cheaper) waterproof housings for diving.

Thoughts? Thanks!

[Fondueset]

All I've used are the little casio exz50-57 and the canon s80 - pics from both are on my site. The casios do a great job - and are quite inexpensive - the Canon is definitely a cut above. Both have very nice housings for under $200.
The casios are so small that you can wear them on a wrist while spearfishing. The canon housing is a little bigger - but very nice.

That's all I've got experience with.

[fjohnson]

Originally Posted by dwwestesq

What seems to be the best combination camera for diving (to max 50-60 feet) and surface use? Or is this a lost cause?

Looking at Pentax Optio WP or the Olympus Stylus 720 SW and their respective underwater housings. Would be purchasing a second memory? card (largest and fastest) and battery (largest).

Other candidates must be waterproof cameras plus available manufacturer (cheaper) waterproof housings for diving.

Thoughts? Thanks!

These 2 cameras are only good to 5 to 10'.. not 50 or 60'

[dwwestesq]

Re: Pentax Optio WP or the Olympus Stylus 720 SW - also looking at their respective underwater housings that are advertized as good to in excess of 100 feet.

[Fondueset]

Here are a couple I've taken with the S80. It focuses more slowly that the casio, but takes a much richer and crisper image. I would say if you want a camera to jump in and start snapping with that is relatively cheap - go for the Casio. If you don't mind tweaking, want higher quality images or movies - go for the Canon. I don't know anything about the two you've mentioned but you could go to www.digideep.com and bounce them around in the forums there. You're more likely to get informed opinions on a variety of cameras there.

If you just ask me - I'd say get the casio for what you are looking at - they are one of the fastest among the cheaper cameras and there are ample examples of the pictures taken with them on my site - but then they are all I've used. The Casio was recommended to me for it's speed and low-light performance. The Canon S80 was recommended from several sources as a very good upgrade from the Casio. The housings for the olympus and pentax are comparable to what I have for the Casio and the Canon. Pretty level playing field there. I guess with both my question would be how much are you paying for the useless ability to go 1.5m - 3m underwater when you are going to need a housing anyway? I'd rather put the money into stuff that influences picture quality.

[Geo]

Okay just my 2 cents

For underwater, manual control should be your first criteria i.e. manual control over white balance, manual shutter priority and manual aperture priority modes should be there - but for some unknown reason most small digital cameras don't have these features and those who do have there is no housing for - go figure!

In this segment I definitely think the Olympus housings is superior to the Canon and Sony housings, have never handled a Nikon, Casio or Pannasonic housing so can't comment.

The Olympus cameras are on the slow side though and most make use of XD cards which ain't as good as SD cards.

To find a camera in this segment, with the above manual control, a great housing and captures RAW is extremely rare if it does exist at all.

Personally I would love to see a housing for the Casio Z850 or its successor. (the Z850 suffers with bad video quality) Other than that, it's got all the manual controls you would want, its fast in start up focus and shutter lag (three other features any UAW photographer will dearly miss if its lacking) and it has good picture quality. It lacks RAW and I know it would be great to have, but if its going to impact negatively on the speed of the camera I can live with out it. On my previous camera I got along just fine without it.

Now if Casio can only bring the Z950 onto the market with the video problem fixed and build a quality housing for it, there would be a great option for UW photography in this price segment. (or any of the other manufacturers can fullfill these criteria it would get my money)

[Geo]

I notice on digideep that there are two Canon housings for the S80, other than the phisical appearance, what are the differences?

[Fondueset]

The s80 has several programmable or manual modes - including shutter and aperture priority, manual white balance etc as well as manual control over those functions. You acces the various modes - which can be pre-programmed - via a labeled wheel on the side - which the housing allows access too via an easy- to use wheel on the right side. You can setup up pre-programmed modes accessible via the wheel - in addition to the ap/sp modes that are built in. (movie mode is also on the wheel)

On the small casios a few of these options are also available - including white balance - but they are strictly menu driven which is awkward underwater. I'm just starting to get with these features - now that I have a camera with a little more jazz. In addition to being able to do alot on the fly manually - it's nice that you can pre-program modes and switch to them just by turning the wheel instead of fiddling with the menu underwater (esp for freediving). The housing also has a nice rubber shade for the LCD - which is a huge help. I also like the way the buttons on the back are staggered - this makes it way easier to access them with gloves on and by feel.

I don't like the built in underwater white balance setting on the canon - I'll tweak it in photoshop instead until I come up with my own.

The older model of the s80 - the s70 - will shoot in raw mode - but I wanted the digicII processor and better movie mode, battery life, lcd etc in the s80.

The s80 also has a larger sensor than the small casios. I would like to see housings for those higher end casios though. I had a exz600 in hand and thought the focus was quite slow compared to the earlier ones. May have been defective.

The little Casios I've used do do a great job right out of the box with no fiddling. The housing is good, but not as good as the Canon. (the combination of menu driven programmable presets and a manual wheel to access them is really nice!) I have the WPDC1 - no idea what the diff is.

[Geo]

Hi Fondueset,

Thanks for the feedback on the S80, that is sure good to know and I don't know why I got it wrong on the S80 about the manual settings - think I have been looking at just too many camera lately

I also agree and glad that you also highlighted that those manual functions should have dedicated buttons/controls instead of running through menus as this is no good underwater.

One of the article I have read suggested that all 8mg camera suffer from bad video quality, what your findings with the Canon, it might be that the article was referring to all camera using a specific make of processor.

Also on the video function, how is the 1Gig limit applied for example say you have a 4Gig card in the camera can you then make 2 1Gig recordings during that dive or it the total maximum length of all video clips on the card limited to 1Gig?

Lastly, how many dives have you done so far with the Canon housing. The canon housings I have handle in the past felt very flimsy. Like there was quite a bit of play with the back door once opened and the buttons did feel solid. How do you find it?

[Fondueset]

I've only done two dives - and a couple of movies on land. Movie quality seems quite good at 640x480x30fps - but I'll need to test that underwater. There are a couple of videos from my casio on my site - they are not too good - choppy and not real sharp.

The housing is quite solid. The buttons have good resistance - with care I am able to press the shutter button halfway for focus with 6.5 mil gloves on. The housing is larger than for the Casio but no larger than it needs to be. Overall design and button layout - is superior and there is full access to all functions. The Casio housing, because the camera is so small, is actually about the right size - it adds some stability and makes it easier to hold the casio steady - The Casio is a good one to take along spearfishing or something because of it's small size. The Canon housing isn't huge - you can let it hang off your wrist and do other stuff.

I've no complaints about the Casio housing - but I'd say the Canon is definitely better designed and, if anything, more heavy duty.

I plan to shoot a short movie with it this weekend and I'll upload it as soon as I do.

Just to reiterate - so far the only thing I could fault the Canon on is being slower to focus - but I may be able to tweak that so we'll see. Oh yeah - battery life. The Canon goes 200 plus shots with no flash - which certainly is no problem. I've taken probably several hundred shots with it. I dove with the casio for two weeks before I even remembered it had a battery!

[Mr. X]

Originally Posted by tylerz

Regarding strobes, for those of you unaware, you can get external strobes which sync (fire) without any wires or connections when your on-camera flash goes. They sync by the external strobe being triggered with light given off by the camera.

I used cave as a teenager. One of the guys used to use a slave flash unit, triggered by the main camera-mounted flash (I could be wrong but I don't think "pre-flash", for red-eye, existed in those days). His pictures were incredibly good, especially considered the conditions (pitch dark!).

[sunfishtuba]

I use the olympus C-750. not bad underwater with the housing, esp low light conditions using the flash. i do mostly close up with it on scuba. only major con is lack of adaptability, ie no other lenses can really be used that i know, and it can be a bit bulky at times. however, i do like the 10x optical zoom on the surface, and the 40X zoom when using a cheap mini tripod ($10). good system, batteries are just AAA, so no worry about needing special ones if out on a trip.