What camera?

[Ricochet]

The end of the year is near and I still got some working capital left, therefore I'm looking for a nice digicam for 400€. Preferably one that makes nice underwater pics and videos ^^. (u/w housing must be available)

Any recommendations?

[wackass]

Hallo Richochet,
woher kommst du denn aus deutschland?
I have a Canon Ixus 750 with the original housing and am very happy with it until now. Nice photos, nice videos and the housing is tested until 35m without any problem.
The only problem that i find is that you can film videos only 9min long. Then you have to press the button again and film again. With a 4gb sd card you can film a total of 40min.
I bought it from amazon.de last year.
Fotos can u see in the gallery here in db, videos on the link below in youtube.
Hope i helped!

[Ricochet]

Hiho!
Ich komme aus Köthen. Das ist in der Nähe von Dessau.

Canon Ixus 750 sounds good. The u/w housing is the WP-DC 80, right?
The Canon PowerShot S80 seems to be a good camera as well. Though, test reports claim that this cam is too expensive for its perforemance.

[rslomkow]

The current generation Canon's are very nice for this purpose. You can live without RAW with the fine setting for jpeg. Also DIGIC-II cpu is fast, and gives decent color and low noise, at a very attractive price.

Reasonable priced housings, basic underwater color correction (stills only). I also have an Ixus 750, with the Canon case.

http://flickr.com/photos/robinslomko...ags/underwater <-- stills

Dailymotion - Share Your Underwater Videos

<-- video

My girlfriend has an A 620 (not sure what the European model number is)
It is a plastic body and larger. Exact same internal electronics, a physically bigger lense and it allows zoom while doing video. May be a little bit cheaper. It is just as good if not a little bit better as underwater Camera.

http://parts-unknown.com/gallery/april2006-reef_dive <-- stills from A620

I like my photos from Croatia better, but I think I got better at using the Camera, and the colder water was clearer.

I would purchase at least a 1GB SD card, I picked up a high-speed (133x) for 21 Euro here in Munich.

[wackass]

Ich wohne jetzt in Erlangen!

Rslomkow is right, very attractive price for 7mp photos and 640x480 30fps video.

I think that you can have some sort of basic underwater color correction for videos also by choosing Set->My Colors-> and then Vivid Red.
The housing is the WP-DC 80.

You definately need a 1gb card or greater since it stores video in very large .avi files, appr. 1gb=8~9min video.

An annoying thing is that you cannot use the zoom function during a video. You must choose your zoom level before you press the rec button. So if you are filming a fish in a large distance and it decides that it wants to come a little closer to you you have to stop the video, zoom back and then start again!

[gabe13]

I have been using an Olympus c770 which in my opinion shoots good videos and pics, check out my myspace page at www.myspace.com/mayhemmonkey441 and look at the vids on the left and the underwater shots on the slideshow which were all done on this camera.

[Ricochet]

Thanks all, I ordered the Canon Ixus 900 Ti, today and will buy the UW-housing as soon as the camera order is confirmed.
Will shoot some pics and post them here

[Fondueset]

Too late then
All the shots on the bottom part of my site (after it says 'New Camera') were taken with the Canon S80 - movies too - but quality is degraded due to compression for the web.

[Ricochet]

I REALLY like your pics. I visit your website regulary
Unfortunately I didn't get the S80 for 400 €

In fact there are a few online shops where you can buy them for a little less than 400€ but these shops don't accept invoice payment, which was the only option for me since I bought the camera for my work (yeah sure )

[Fondueset]

Near as I can tell the model you ordered has the same size ccd as the s80 - also 10 mp - should be good!

[Ricochet]

Yeahaw, the camera arrived already!
Makes nices pics.... in the office

Guess I can now buy the UW housing and a propper memory card.

[SpeerO]

Does anyone know if the Canon G5 is good for underwater pics? How will it compare to the S80?

Thanx
Zane...

[Fondueset]

Not sure how close they are but the G7 got sort of a lukewarm review on dpreview.com - they didn't think it was all that much better than the 640.