Phil Davison

brilliant! and so true!

Slight correction to the above having looked into the options for wide angle lenses for this housing. the closest you'll come is the fantasea Bigeye lens which restorest the FOV to the same as you'd have on land. But because of the size of the lens and the distance it is from the port on the housing, using any type of wide angle lens will probably end up with some pretty severe vignetting. If wide angle is your thing then this housing is probably not for you. look for something with a shorter native lens and a housing with a round port on it as it will more likely fit or be adaptable to fit a variety of lenses.

A good quality housing with everything where you need it. easy access to all of the cameras functions including setting the white balance, appature and shutter speed. with the additional weight added on it is neutrally bouyant in water up to aruond 10m. (I've not taken it any deeper than this so far). the only issue i would say is that its fairly easy to move the mode dial on the back without noticing (resulting in some completely blown out piictures of seals for me!) so check the settings before taking the shot!

there are some interesting accessories which have recently come out from Fanstasea with a wide angle wet lens (which can be added and removed during the dive) specifically for this housing. there is also an adaptor which clips on to the housing which allows you to add any 64mm wet lens during the dive, e.g. red filters, macro lenses etc. i've not tried any of these out just yet but it seems that they can easily add an extra dimention to your photography.

Overall very easy to use and reliable case

Great point and shoot camera in shallow water. The 12 megapixels can pick up a lot of detail and the quick focus option allows you to capture those pesky skittish fish more easily. i've not used it with strobes or at depth over about 10m yet but it has a very large sensor and i've found it to be very good in low light topside. I wouldnt use the EXR mode underwater since it is constantly focusing and drains the battery very fast. Batteries seem to last a couple of dives, but have had them run out on me on the second dive a couple of times just when i needed them most so its worth buying a second as a reserve! It has a dedicated underwater mode (In SP mode) which has an automatic white balance and has produced some pleasing pictures so far. You can also set the white balance manually. the housing is easy to use apart from accidentally switching the mode of the camera every now and then. It also has some recently released add ons by Fantasea with a wet wide angle lens and a 64mm adaptor which allows additional wet lenses to be fitted and removed during the dive. I've not tried these out yet but intend to get into them soon. Theres the option of setting your appature (f2.8 or f9 when zoomed all the way out) and shutter speed in the manual mode but this is a bit beyond my abilities at the moment so i cant comment. One thing it doesnt do is shoot in RAW format so if you want to do any advanced editing after the dive this may be a consideration. the JPEG format is good enough for most uses at home or online tho i've found.

Overall a very good, easy to use point and shoot camera for the price with some good underwater accessories. 4.5*'s