jwood1

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I was lucky that this octopus decided to pose for me. He sat on a rock, and I was able to dive down and take several pictures of him. Shooting in raw made it easy to fix the color balance in ACR. I learned a lot from reading this forum. Thanks.

Great shots.  Very shallow depth of field with that lens.  Did you find focusing difficult?  There is a shot of the whole crown of thorns, and then an extreme close up of the thorns.  Were these both done with the Inon "insect eye" lens?  If so, this lens seems to be pretty versatile.

Wow, great pictures!  I have an S90 and will be buying a housing and WA lens.  I have been looking at the ikelite + UWL-04 lens, and seeing your pictures tells me that this would be the right combination for me.   Reef photo told me that the UWL-04 will work well in the Ike housing using the supplied 67-52mm conversion ring.  What do you think?

Ok here is my shortlist

Canon S95 with Ikelite housing - total to around $675 from what i've researched
Panasonic LX-5 + Ikelite housing - total to around $970
Olympus XZ-1 + oly housing - Total to around $705

Should i conclude with the S95 ?
it's cheaper and have read some good comments about it...

Thank you everyone for helping! i wish i manage to decide 1 between these 3
and for strobe.. i'll go for an Inon S-2000

and i prefer macro shots... i'll see what macro lens i can add on to that

I too am a newbie with respect to underwater photography, but not land.  I have an S90 and am also looking for housing and assorted accessories to give me a good setup on a budget.  I absolutely love my S90.  Have taken it on two sailing trips and it takes fantastic pictures and video.  The main difference between it and the S95 is that the S95 has HD video.  If I were on a budget, I would go for the S90 and save some bucks there.  The video on the S90 is outstanding, even when shown on a 50 inch flat screen TV.  If I had the S95, I probably wouldn't shoot much in HD just because of the enormous file size.  You will also save some bucks with an S90 housing.  The ikelite for the S90 is about $75 less than for the S95.  Also missing in this thread is that the Canon WPC DC35 housing has an adaptor made by Inon for the 28AD mount lenses (about $80).  So, with this, you have the capability of adding Inon AD (bayonette mount) lenses, both wide angle and macro.

Here is an example of such a set-up, including a strobe and WA lens, sold on ebay for $500.00
http://www.ebay.com/...e-/260856836350

I would also go for the Canon. RAW shooting gives you more possibilities to edit but it is not (always) necessary when you shoot with good light. At the moment I get quite nice effect using a LED torch and partially light the subject and shoot without flash.


Camera: Canon Ixus 85; LED torch; no flash.

Outstanding!  I have an S90 and will be getting a housing to do some available light photos while snorkeling.  I have been looking for someone who used an LED torch to augment their shooting without a strobe.  Can you provide some more details:  Type of torch, number of lumens that work well, how you mount it?
Thanks
Jerry