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[Fiona]

<font color='#0000FF'>It's very nice to look at everyone else's photo's, Great photo's Allan, but would be even better if I could look at my own.  

I used to have an MX10 but sold it earlier in the year as I couldn't be bothered with it and the results were not that good, which was my fault not the cameras just didn't practise enough.  On my Maldives trip there were 4 people using digital cameras, 2 Olympus and 2 Sony have seen the results of the Sony and they are quite good, a Sony was also used by the crew on my Oz trip last year.  

So my question is are there any other digitals anyone could recommend or should I go for either the Olympus or Sony.  I could have bought the Sony and housing at Male airport but decided against it as I thought I wouldn't be going on holiday until about September next year and technology would have moved on by then, but now I have a trip planned for April and I would really like to take a camera.

I have a digital camera but was shortsighted enough not to buy one I could put in a housing.

Afterall, the 10 metre disposable ones will only take going to 40 metres so many times as we found out when two flooded on the same dive trying to take pictures of Mantas at 16 metres    

Afterall what else is there to do on a liveaboard between dives.  

Fiona

[Dr Stevil]

All depends on your budget, Tim has a nice camera, Oly C5050Z, that's what I'm planning on getting too, sometime in the near future, about £430 for the camera, the housing for a shade under £140.

I doubt if it's worth paying too much more for a digital as if you want the real high quality is has to be film/slide which probably contains about 10 times more pixel-equivalency, at least according to a colleague of mine who is a keen UW photographer.
HTH
Steve

[Allan B]

Hi Fiona

I also have an Oly C5050Z and it dos seam to be very popular, the only thing is I have it in a Ikelite housing which is more up to the demands of UK diving.

Allan

P.S. Thanks for the comments about my pics

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>The Olympus C5050 mentioned above is available on e-bay including housing for £529 (fixed price, not an auction). I've been thinking about it myself and haven't seen a better price. Someone may know better. Looks like a very nice piece of kit, and the results posted here speak for themselves (though I am sure that they have much more to do with the skill of the photographer rather than the equipment).

I made the same mistake last year when I wasn't doing too much diving - bought a digital camera and didn't check whether a housing was available. Quite regret that now as I really struggle to justify splashing out again. But when did common sense ever stop us from buying dive kit?

[lizardfish]

<font color='#810541'>Pentax have 4MP cameras that have marine housings for a decent price. I would check out the website/ walk into a shop and take a look.

Otherwise... Sony cybershot 4MP is the way to go.

I currently have a Sony 3.3 MP cybershot (3 years old) and I luuuuuuuuuurve it! Sony now make laptops that have a memory stick drive so you can take your photos out of your camera on the stick and put it straight into your laptop... it's sweet!

Haven't heard much about the Olympus.

[Fiona]

<font color='#0000FF'>Thanks for the replies, I am now kicking myself for not buying the Sony P10 at Male, it did seem rather indulgent at the time, especailally since I hadn't actually paid for the holiday, mind you nothing wrong with that &nbsp;

Still don't know how idiot proof the underwater packs are, photos on land with digital give quite good results, don't know if underwater it is still down to the operator and not the camera. &nbsp;

I have until about March so hopefully the price might come down a touch.

Cheers, everyone.

Fiona

[Tim Ingmire]

Hi Fiona,

of course, I'm going to recommend the camera that I've bought, and why not?

The camera is a best buy for land use (you can get it for well below £500 if you shop around) so is a damn decent camera in its own right. &nbsp;You can buy a range of housings for it ranging from the cheaper PPt-015 (at about £150) up to the Ikelites, which are more expensive but, I believe, have a hot shoe connector for TTL strobes.

One of the nice features is that it takes two different flash memory cards at the same time (mine currently has a 256mb XD card and a 512mb CF). &nbsp;

There was a review of the C5050z and PT-015 setup in Dive a while back but, IMHO, the review was gash. &nbsp;Take a look atDigital Diver where a lot of the posters have this setup.

In my view the C5050z and PT-015 cannot be beaten for the price. &nbsp;Add-on an Inon flash (with fiber optic cable) and you have a quality set-up.