Waterproof or Underwater?

I'm a diver. I really only dive once every couple of years but my wife and I remain certified and enjoy a dive or two on trips during which diving is an option. With that in mind I was interested in a new "waterproof" offering from Pentax.

 

Then I read the specs and learned that it is waterproof to 20 feet. Not nearly enough to be a good camera for SCUBA diving. The typical 2 tank SCUBA excursion includes 2 dives, one around 60' and a second around 40'. 

So, of course, I recently decided to see what's out there for us divers even though I really have no intention of doing any extensive underwater photography.

Canon has an interesting offering, the D-10.

It's said to be waterproof to 30'. No thanks.

Looking through some listings from my favorite on line vendors I did find a housing for my compact camera, the Canon SD780IS that costs around $165.
It has good controls and, best of all, it's rated down to 130', more than enough for most SCUBA diving.

Many such housings are available for a lot of the compact cameras on the market.

Here's the most interesting device I've found.
It's a camera built in to the dive mask from Liquid Image. It will also take video. Exposure is automatic. It's a cute idea but it's a 5mp camera and my compact camera is 10mp. It's good to 130' and reasonably priced but, if I were to go with underwater shooting I'd probably get the housing for my compact camera.



I'd love to be able to shoot underwater with my Canon 5D or 5D mk2 but that would require a housing that made the camera's controls available. Here's such a housing offered by Sea & Sea, a very well known supplier of underwater camera accessories.

It's a beautiful piece of equipment and would cost me way more than the camera cost.  If I were planning to make money with underwater photography it would be a possibility but no. 

A housing for my favorite DSLR is available from Aqua Tech for just under $2000 and, sure enough, it's rated to 33'.

One more alternative is the EWA Marine bag. These bags are available in several sizes and depth ranges and, again, we're getting back to prices in the hundreds instead of the thousands. I've used one way back when I was shooting film SLRs and it works but I found it a little cumbersome. You must get used to having your hand reaching in to the camera through a glove insert in the exterior of the bag. You must control the bags bouyancy by making sure it's inflated before you dive to compensate for the compression of depth. Still, it works and you can get on down to enjoyable SCUBA depths.