parisgal

A great little housing never had any problems with it. I've also found the base tray and external weight for neutral buoyancy, and an Olympus 41-52 adapter. I can send photos if you're interested. Asking $75 including shipping

Mmm, yes, not a good thing. That's not what I saw (or heard about, since I didn't actually *see* the talk, just heard both parties talking afterwards), but that would be problematic.

Just to add my two cents - I dove at Wakatobi about 6 years ago. I dive with a camera and my dive partner doesn't. I found the dive staff a little bit more forceful in enforcing their regulations than most resorts (which I think is a good thing). All resorts / dive shops say they want to protect the reef. In reality, most won't say much to paying customers about behavior that is damaging to the reef. In Wakatobi they would. That hurts egos. And those hurt egos are the root of some of the more extreme comments about Wakatobi's policy. The "talking to" that I saw was deserved (I'd seen the person in question break coral and not even notice), and the person who received it was very offended and didn't understand why he'd been "singled out".

So for several reasons, I am looking into upgrading my underwater set up. I shoot Canon, and have a 20D that I'd like to take under (I'd love to take the Rebel 400, but I'm going diving in Nov, and don't see getting it a housing before then). I'm thinking of the Ikelite housing and was wondering if there were any strobes that did TTL other than Ikelite's? Do the Inon? And although I would like to be able to use TTL, I assume that I will want to shoot manual sometimes -- so would like strobes with a fair number manual settings. What would you suggest? And what suggestions with out TTL capabilities? (Also the housing isn't purchased yet, so feel free to tell me if you really like another housing )

I've see lots of good points, and I'm sure I'm going to repeat several people here. Yes, of course, it depends. If a diver just has OW, I doubt that they are ready to pick up a camera. To finish OW, you just need to have 2 open water dives, right? And for AOW, you could be looking at someone with 7 open water dives, and that person, too, would scare me with a camera. Not me personally, of course, since I can swim away fast enough ;-) Maybe, if someone had just run through the classes, doing no "extra" diving on the side, I would want at least AOW + a bouyance control class. Or OW + a photography class (which would include more bouyance that photography skills in my mind). But the reality is that the ppl best suited to dive with cameras will only rarely be easy to "point out" by certification. I've been diving with ppl that have lots of experience, both with and without cameras, in at least semi challenging conditions. These same ppl I wouldn't let on the reef if it was my choice to decide. And I've dove with others, with less experience, but who have made an effort to be considerate aware. They are better divers and better UW photographers from the reef's point of view (and maybe others, but that's another subject). But what prompted me to respond was one person's comment about a new dive master with 150 dives, and no dives with current. Now that person, I might let bring a camera as a diver, but I don't consider them competent to be a dive master in a place with current. Maybe a dive master should have to log at least four or five dives in a new area before being allowed to lead a dive? I don't know how to solve the problem, but it is, I think, too quick and easy a path to dive master, and taking responsibility for other ppls lives underwater.

I'm considering buying a video camera and was thinking about going the 3CCD route. However, I want a very small body, particularly in height (under 4" -- which rules out most of the true mini cams) and weight. So far I have come up with: the Sony DCR-HC1000 the Panasonic series (GS120, GS200, and GS400) the Canon Elura 70 (1CCD, but I do like the feel of the Camera) I'd like any pointers towards housings for these cameras, as well as any feedback about the cameras themselves, particularly for underwater work. Thanks in advance