Thank you. I have to tell you, if you aren't REALLY into photos, then don't attempt to travel with as much gear as we have to. Both my husband and I are underwater photographers. We generally take 120 lbs worth of equipment each, scuba and photo. The rig I was carrying is a Nikon D100 in a sea and sea housing with a wide angle port and two sea and sea strobes. We take one hard case with the photo gear, one case for clothes and scuba gear and a carry on. We used to shoot film with Nikon F100s but when we went digital, we had to change the whole housing. Underwater it's light. Carrying it from your rinse bucket to your oom..... not so light
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You CAN do a good job with the less expensive cameras if you remember a few simple rules. 1) Get CLOSE. Obviously if you're trying to chase a hammerhead, or a turtle, or an eagle ray, it's just not going to work. Open the lens as wide as you can, turn off the strobe, shoot, and let photoshop sort it out. 2) When you shoot macro critters (if you can do that with your set up) get CLOSE. That strobe should be POWERFUL. Stop down the lens as much as you can so that you get as much of the critter in focus as you can. 3) Don't TOUCH anything to get your shots. Sometimes you have to let that perfect shot go by if it would mean injuring corals, sponges, etc. in order to get it. I still have a few scars from damsel fish attacks when trying to shoot a seahorse. I had to wait until he moved into a good spot (couldn't just shove the soft corals to the side... not good) and whenever he would move to the right place, a damsel fish would BITE me. ARGH! An unscupulous photographer would have beat up said damsel fish. I bet it's still on the reef as we speak.
Shoot manual whenever you can. Check the exposure after you shoot (if using digital of course) and adjust accordingly.
There are some good lightweight digital outfits out there. Check
www.cathychurch.com for some good information on set ups for small digitals. I don't work for her, but I've taken a number of rips with them and had a wonderful time.