mdfaunce

Waiting with baited breath since I have the same system and have been looking at getting that Inon system for a while now ...

Inon makes a kit for the MPK-PHB housing that allows easy use of their strobes as well as their macro and WA lenses. No personal experience with it, but it's on my wish list

I've got 2 Sony digital cameras, a video camera, assorted Walkmen (radio, cassette, CD, MP3, various combinations), boom-boxes, headphones, universal remotes and some stereo equipment and I've never actually had to deal with Sony CS. The stuff works and does what it's supposed to do. Doesn't really answer your question though ...

I think the fact that many (if not most) of the people I meet say "I won this on e-Bay" instead of "I bought this on e-Bay" should give you an idea that they think of e-Bay as a contest instead of a store. You don't "win" the stuff you buy at a store, but on e-Bay the competition seems to over come even normally level headed people and they don't stop to think about what they are doing. As others have said it doesn't make sense to pay more on e-Bay than you could buy a new one at the store. It especially doesn't make sense to get in a bidding ware with someone when buying from e-Bay stores where they put 1 or 2 of the same item up for auction at a time but have 100 in stock and will be auctioning off another every week for the next year. When I buy stuff on e-Bay, I find the item I want and then enter my maximum price (don't forget about factoring in shipping costs) and let it go. If I "win," great, otherwise, I start looking for the same item again ... Also, again especially from e-Bay stores, look at the stores website, sometime you can buy the same item directly from them and not get involved in an auction at all.

I've got a DSC-P100 that I'm very happy with. Pics here: http://www.fauncefamily.net/album I'd skip the DSC-P93, it's going to have lag and other "last generation" issues. The DSC-P93 is actually several generations behind (P93-> P10 -> P100/120/150 (same cameras at 5/6/7 MP) -> P200) I'm planning on getting a P150 for my wife as it uses the same housing as the P100 and she's getting tired of the lag and response time on her P10. I'd get a P200, but there isn't a housing and according to Sony support desk, there isn't one on the horizon either unless the successor to the P200 uses the same body -- like the W series, the housing with introduced with the W7 and worked with the W5 and W1 since they use the same body. Inon also has a kit to allow their strobes and external lenses to work with the MPK-PHB housing that the P100/120/150 use so you have an easy "growth" path with that system. A 256MB Pro card holds just over 100 pics (I usually get about 110-115 before filling the card). I've played with the video part, but haven't really used it, so I don't have a clue how much video a 256MB card would hold. As someone else stated the battery in the P100 holds a charge pretty well. I typically fill the 256MB card on two dives and the battery is still going strong, even with forcing the internal flash on every shot. I've got 2 batteries and an external charger, so I swap batteries when I empty memory stick.

I'd stick with the redundant HD's or CD/DVD before I went to tape. My experience with tape is that they have to be restored and rewritten to new media at least annually or you'll discover the tape you want has gone bad. Especially true with media that's "pushed" -- like DDS4 where they are getting more storage space by using thinner media and hardware compression and ... to "force" more data onto the same media. Plus tape technology changes just like digital camera technology and a 3 year old tape drive is mostly useless and unrepairable if you have a problem. What do you do when you can't read a tape because you can't find a drive to read it? I'd stick with redundant HD's and an internet based backup scheme. Check out www.livevault.com and some of their competition. You run a backup to their storage library across the internet. Works well for archival information (information that doesn't change very often). Data is encrypted on their storage and can be retrieved from anywhere as long as you remember the key. Small restores can be done "live." Larger restores they can ship you CDs, DVDs, tapes or a NAS device for appropriately sized fees.

Whether it's worth $150 or not is a pretty personal decision. But I can say this: Diving with a digital camera is MUCH different than diving with a film camera. Cost stops becoming an issue (taking a shot and then deleting it costs $0). WIth an appropriately sized memory card you can take hundreds of pictures a day/dive. You learn about what works and what doesn't MUCH faster because you can see what works immediately and make corrections to your technique. The "cycle time" is reduced to minutes instead of days. But, on the other hand, diving with a camera changes the way you dive. I now routinely dive the same site and move much slower during a dive. Going slow and looking for subjects and backgrounds and positive and negative space and this and that and waiting for a subject to get used to your presence and come into focus and ... I can't imagine diving without a camera anymore. I do take my camera with me all the time. When I'm going somewhere where the camera could get wet, I put it in the housing (in a canoe or hiking in the raid for example). The housing for the DSC-P100 is about as small as possible and while it does make the camera much bigger (about 3x bigger) it's still not "that" big. All the controls are still accessable and you can fully use the camera inside the housing. The only thing that won't work with the camera in the housing is the focus assist light which is blocked by the lense port "bumper." But, if you're 3 feet of less from the subject underwater, the P100 does a pretty good job of focusing without it. Shots that are out of focus are typically because of surge, user error (moving the camera after it's focused) or trying to take a picture of something that's moving to fast or while you're moving too fast. Anyway, for me the $150 has been money very well spent. I'm planning on upgrading my wife from the P10 to a P150 in the near future. In my searching, it appears that the MPK-PHB (for the P100/150) may be getting in short supply and the current P200 doesn't have a housing available. Ikelite shows a new housing for the P100/P150 on their site for near future release. YMMV

All the pics here: http://www.fauncefamily.net/album/2004-07%...tion/index.html and http://www.fauncefamily.net/album/2004-11%...tion/index.html were taken with Sony DSC-P10 or DSC-P100 in MPK-PHA or MPK-PHB (respectively) housings. Keep the o-ring clean and lubed and you'll be ready to go. I typically only lube it before and after a trip and then inspect it each time I open the housing to swap the battery or the memory card. As far as taking pictures, get as close as you can as the onboard flash isn't very powerful. You'll have no problem shooting close, slow moving objects, but wide angle is pretty much out, even at 30ft. Shooting up helps as well to take advantage of the ambient light.

Ran it through a routein in PSE to "get the cyan out" or "put the red back in" depending on your point of view. I don't have a strobe, so I'm getting pretty good at doing it quickly.

Hope you don't mind, but as a fellow Sony shooter (DSC-P100), I couldn't help myself. I've got both a P10 and a P100. I don't get to dive very often -- a couple of trips a year or about 20 dives a year max -- so I'm very much still learning the underwater stuff. But you can see a gallery of pics taken with the P10 and the P100 here: http://www.fauncefamily.net/album The Cancun section and the FL Keys section both contain diving photos. Here's the 1st photo color corrected:

I always put the camera in the housing before I leave in the morning. I figure the air in my A/C'd house/hotel is going to be less humid than outside. I also keep a little silica gel packet in the housing all the time -- even when I'm diving with it. But, I think the important part is to keep the camera/housing out of the sun and cool before you dive. I think a hot camera/housing going into water is what causes fogging/condensation on the inside.

All our UW digital pictures are taken with Sony DSC-P10 or DSC-P100 cameras with only the internal flash. See http://www.fauncefamily.net/album/2004-07%...tion/index.html for examples. I'm fighting internally now over whether to get a strobe or not. The benefit is greater flexibility, but I'm not sure it's worth the cost my self. My personal answer is it depends on your budget. If you can afford it I'd get it, but if price is an object it's definitely something to consider. A strobe (and associated electroncs) is (at least in my case) the same price as the camera, housing, additional memory cards and batteries together.

My wife has a Sony DSC-P10 in a Sony housing. She's happy with the camera and picture quality, but would like to add a strobe to get some better pictures while diving deeper or in shadows. I've got a similar Sony DSC-P100. We'd rather keep things as simple as possible and don't want to have to change settings before every picture. Both cameras have the "pre flash." I've been reading as much as I can about strobes, but end up with more questions that I had when I started. Money is an object and we'll only use the strobe a couple of weeks a year on trips. Her "rig" only cost about $650. Mine was about the same. We want to keep things on the simple side to keep things fun. Anyone have any feelings about the strobes that Ocean Brite sells? See http://www.oceanbrite.com/moreinfo.php?id=346 . Looks like this would be about $495 for the entire kit with tray, arm, strobe and electronics. After reading the review at http://www.digitaldiver.net/images/strobea...rticlescrn2.pdf it seems like the Ikelite DS50 would be best. Looking around their website it looks like these would be in the $725 range after getting the strobe, appropriate electronics, arm & tray. Sony sells a video light and arm that list for $550. But, that looks just like a high powered flashlight on a short arm. I think I could do better than that myself with a eLED dive light and a home made arm. As an aside to this question, as long as we stay within the flash distance (say under 4') will a strobe really add that much? I know that by moving the strobe to an angle that you can limit or get rid of backscatter, but what other advantages are there? I know we're dealing at the low end and that alot of you have spent more on one component then we're talking about spending on an entire system but any input would be appreciated. TIA