fuzzybabybunny

I had to order this housing from the UK ( DiverVision ) because there are no merchants in the US with this in stock. It was shipped on the 25th... and it got to me on the 28th... Yay for EMS shipping! Anyway, here are the pics: http://fuzzybabybunny.smugmug.com/gallery/2774920#147737393 Total cost was about $350. $100 for the camera ($200 - $100 circuit city gift card from when I bought my Canon 30D) and $250 for the housing. I took it to the diving well today, and, well, it's disappointing. Not because of the housing but because of the stupid camera. RANT I don't know what in God's name Panasonic thinks it's accomplishing with its Venus III engine. Anything over ISO200 it just blurs to hell and back because it tries to remove the noise but instead nukes a lot of the image detail along with it. My 4-year-old 4MP Olympus C-750 has better ISO400 than this thing. I really want someone to just hack Panasonic's firmware and allow people to turn noise reduction off. Picture taking is absolutely pointless with this thing in all but the most well-lit places. The lens on the TZ1 is not wide enough for underwater stuff. Not even close. 35mm is the widest. When held at arm's length, one human head fits the screen, perhaps two if they are cheek to cheek. I just realized today just how important wideangle is for underwater stuff. For the newbies, you want to shoot as close as you can to your subject. The reasons are: 1. As you increase distance from your subject, the murkiness of the water will cut down on sharpness. There is no such thing as telephoto underwater photography for this reason. 2. As you increase distance from your subject, the water cuts down on the amount of light from your subject that reaches your camera, meaning you'll need to shoot at slower shutter speeds to compensate AND/OR your flash will be unable to reach that far. 3. Longer focal lengths magnify camera shake, which is prevalent if you are snorkeling. With a wide, you can get as close to your subject as possible, minimizing 1, 2, and 3, while squeezing in as much into the frame as possible. I can tell right now that I'm going to have some serious trouble shooting things like schools of fish and my friends unless I'm a good 20 feet back, whereas with a wide I might be able to float only 10 feet back or even closer. Shooting underwater is hard! Buoyancy is a serious issue. When you shoot pictures you want to be as steady as possible. Even the slightest upwards float or downwards sink can blur a picture and screw up framing, and this is only magnified by the longer focal length. Filming underwater is also hard! Again, it's buoyancy, but it's also hard to hold the camera steady as you're kicking with your flippers. Image Stabilization really helps here. GRRR I wish there was a camera out there that had a wide lens and could zoom during movie mode! The TZ3, the successor to my TZ1, has a nice 28mm lens, but it doesn't zoom during movie mode

Thanks for the comments guys! Since I've never actually gone snorkeling out in the wild (I have been snorkeling in the pool/diving well) I don't know if I'll actually need wideangle. I DO know that I'll be snorkeling with a lot of friends, and want to take video. VERY good point on some cameras limiting the video size to 1GB. I'll have to watch out for that in the future. As for high ISO, Fuji cameras and their Super CCD sensors are the best by far. Unfortunately, Fuji doesn't make a camera with this sensor that I find worthy of buying. One interesting camera is the Panasonic TZ3: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonictz3/ 7MP, 10x zoom starting at a wide 28mm, image stabilization, and 848 x 480 video at 30fps. Unfortunately, like all Panasonics, their noise performance is pretty bad from ISO400 and above, compared to cameras like the Fuji F30 which is still good at ISO800. If Fuji could make a P&S camera with their awesome sensors, a 10X wide zoom, 30fps video, image stabilization (none to date), and using SD cards instead of retarded xD cards, they'd be king.

Howdy all, I'm almost 100% a DSLR user, using either a 30D or an XT. I'm going snorkeling this summer and want a camera that I can take pictures underwater with, as well as take video with. I do not plan to do any scuba. Since there is a video requirement, a housing for my DSLR is out of the running, not to mention I can't really afford a decent housing for a DSLR anyway. So I have a few questions and conditions. 1. I'm overwhelmed by all the P&S cameras out there. I'm trying to figure out which to get. Ones that seem very popular are the Olympus SP350, Olympus C-5050 (oldie but a goodie), the newer Canon A and S series, and the Fuji F series with their great ISO performance. There's also the Panasonic compacts that are great because they have high resolution, widescreen 30fps video recording, but lackluster ISO performance at ISO400 and up. Which do I pick? I would definitely, definitely like 30fps video, and about 28mm on the wide end. Being able to zoom while taking video would be nice too. 2. Is there like some database of cameras and underwater pictures that have been taken by specific cameras? As in high resolution pictures, high enough to gauge sharpness, etc.? I feel that nothing speaks better than actual sample pictures taken with a specific camera. 3. This is not really for serious U/W photography. If I were to get really serious, I'd be looking for a DSLR housing. This is also not going to be very frequent, as I live in Ohio... 4. I've heard that it's best to use a housing with a dome front glass versus a flat plane glass because a flat plane will introduce chromatic aberration. I've had to struggle with this when shooting through glass in aquariums, so I know how it can ruin a picture. The problem is, I can't seem to find any P&S housings with this dome glass. Or have I not looked hard enough? I've read that a dome is required for <30mm, but wouldn't it be best to have one for >30mm as well? Thanks for any advice given