While I was scuba diving in Grand Cayman, I rented a Sea & Sea DX750G attached to a YS-15 strobe. After 12 dives, I managed to squeeze off 350 shots, many of which were blurry and out-of-focus; some of which were adequate; and a few of which were real, genuine keepers. Despite being a relative amateur underwater photographer, however, I believe the ratio of keep-to-toss was highly acceptable, and the blurry photos were not totally the camera's fault, but rather: operator error. Generally, the camera was easy to use, took good pictures, and impressed me.

Why did I choose this camera?

In reality, I did not choose the camera; it chose me. Or rather, it was the only camera that Don Fosters' onsite photo facility, Bone Dry Photo (owned by Mike Nelson, who'll be attending Cayman Digital Madness), had available. The entire package (camera, housing, strobe) set me back $35 per day. I found this price to be eminently reasonable, especially considering that each day Linsey, Bone Dry's very friendly rep:

• re-charged my batteries between dives 2 and 3;
• downloaded the images onto her computer and wiped the memory card clean between dives 2 and 3; and
• created a disc for me at the end of my trip.
• (She also patiently suffered through endless questions about the camera, the coral, and the dive sites. Thanks, Linsey!)

The Specs

Linsey asked me to NOT open the housing, so I never actually handled the camera, itself. However, the 4.9-ounce camera (blurrily featured inside the housing, below) sports:

• a 1/2.5-inch primary-color CCD with effective image quality of 5.19 megapixels;
• a 3x zoom lens, which worked very well for many of the macro shots I took;
• a relatively large 2.0-inch LCD monitor;
• customizable white balance; and,
• a built-in flash. 

The housing:

• allows easy access to power, snapshot/movie/playback features, all located on the top of the unit;
• allows access to many of the camera's features via the rear of the unit, including zoom, macro, flash adjustment, and (most important ) the delete button;
• is waterproof to at least 102 feet;
• is negatively buoyant.

The strobe:

• has two flash settings (low and high), depending on your needs; and,
• has a nice diffuser. 

Generally-speaking, the camera requires about 5 minutes of instruction prior to use. Linsey gave me a quick tour of the mechanics, handed it to me, and I was off. The first dive, we (the camera and I) were still getting acquainted, so the photos were not spectacular. By the week's end, though, I had the bulk of the tricks down pat.

The Good and The Bad

Among the many user-friendly features the set-up provides are:

• The LCD is very easy to see underwater.
• The whole unit was convenient to carry: A-plus for portability.
• I could easily zoom and/or hit the macro button with my right thumb while holding the camera with my right hand.
• The macro worked well, although it was possible to get too close.
• The strobe arm was easily-adjustable.
• The strobe had both a High and Low setting, which made shooting in various lighting conditions fairly easy.
• It was possible to review and delete photos underwater.

Among the things I disliked were:

• The knob that allows you to switch between video, stills, and playback is very delicate, hard to access, and I almost always turned it the wrong way.
• The shutter lag was quite noticeable (forget shooting any nervous little jacknife fish).
• Whenever the camera went into hibernate mode for longer than about 90 seconds, it reset the camera's flash to "off." Consequently, if you woke the camera in order to take a hurried photo, you had to tell it to power on the flash, otherwise you had no light.
• The tray holding the strobe to the camera kept unscrewing from the camera, and I feared I'd lose some component.
• The unit is negatively buoyant.
• The very thin cable attaching the camera to the strobe made me nervous.
• Generally, many of the images turned out much bluer than I'd hoped. Although super-basic color correction is possible in free applications like Picasa, this weekend I felt compelled to purchase Photoshop Elements 4.0 in order to get the most out of my photos. (More on Elements 4.0 later...)

Things I can't speak about:

• I never tied to capture any video, although the camera is capable of it.
• I never tried the manual white balance, because I was told there was none. I didn't discover until I returned home that, in fact, it DOES have white balance. I don't know if Linsey was unaware of this or considered white balance to be "need to know" information.
• The housing will fit a wide-angle lens. I didn't ask to use it since I was pretty sure from reviewing the images in-camera that I wasn't ready to shoot wide-angle.

The Results

As I mentioned, I came home with 350 images, some of which I'm very proud of and demonstrate clearly that virtually anyone can pick up this camera and take good pictures. 

If you'd like to see more of the best photos, I posted them to Flickr. Feel free to browse them and leave any constructive comments (or unabashed praise).

Final Grade

A pretty generous B+.

BEFORE looking at the photos, I was absolutely convinced I would rush out and purchase one of these cameras for myself (the complete kit should run $800-$900). However, after seeing how blue many of the images were, I've decided to wait a while, and see if I can find another camera that might take better pictures. I understand, of course, that:

• many of the images were blue simply because there was a lot of distance between the subject and me.
• this is not a Pro's camera; it's a point-and-shoot.
• the pictures might need a little color-lovin' at home.

Nevertheless, when I see the results from point-and-shoot users like Calvin Tang and Jack Connick, for example, I have to ask if these reasons are the entire story...or if the camera had some part to play in the blue images, as well.

Have you ever used one of these set-ups? What did you think?