Before you start considering taking photographs underwater, you should first consider your current experience in diving. You need to have good buoyancy skills with well practised abilities. This is necessary for your own protection and the safety of the environment. You need to have excellent buoyancy skills with intuitive, well-practiced, abilities as a diver to get into dive photography. Not having this experience can result in damaging a reef, or more dangerously, an unsafe situation for you. You should feel that diving is intuitive to you and not have to think about it too much. This will enable you to put more concentration into the technical aspects of photography eg focus, composition, light conditions etc.

A hidden danger to a dive photographer, particularly in cold-water, is task loading beyond your experience level, or what the diving conditions can dictate. If in doubt, leave the camera topside, explore and shoot another time. Dive safety and protection of the underwater environment must come first!

Diver-photographers are faced with a bewildering assortment of cameras and options when it comes to buying a camera. Digital camera technology seems to change every day. Rather than just buying something that looks cool, or that a salesman recommends. Use this methodical approach.

• What do you want to do with your photos?
  Use them on a website or in emails? Print snapshots, or large wall-prints? Maybe see your work published?
  
• How much do you want to grow your system? Are you starting out with a digicam and thinking about growing into a DSLR system later, or is your use more casual, capturing a few shots from a dive trip for fun?
  
• Where are you going to be shooting? Tropical or cold water? Working controls with gloves on, strong strobes and having durable equipment is important here in the Pacific Northwest. In tropical waters a lighter, smaller system may work fine for you and be easier to pack and carry.
  
• What do you like to shoot?Macro? Fish-portraits, maybe a close up of your buddy? Or do you want to “shoot up the reef” and do wide-angle shots?
  
• Do you want a camera for above-water, as well as underwater, use? How well supported is it, can it take good top-side photos as well?
  
• How much are you planning on upgrading in the near future?What strobes will it connect to? External lenses and other add-ons? Can they be used with other cameras and systems?
  Finally, How much do you want to spend?
  

Theideal set up is a camera and housing as opposed to a waterproof digital camera, or dedicated camera/housing solution. Canon, Olympus, Fuji and Nikon build an amazing amount of cameras and many can be used very successfully underwater in a housing. The competition between these companies means that their feature-sets and technical advances are changing much faster than dedicated underwater cameras. Plus, there are more housings, external equipment and third-party solutions available, that can be moved to an upgraded system later. Simply put, they are a better value and can be used well above water too.

There are some very good, dedicated amphibious cameras; some have good controls and a sharp lens. They are smaller to carry and simpler to use, but you'll be at the higher price range to get the control and quality you want. I think housed systems offer more quality for less money.
Make sure whatever camera you buy, that you have as much manual control as possible. Why? Because most automatic camera features are not designed for the low light conditions you find underwater. Also with an external strobe, you’ll need to use manual or aperture/shutter priority modes to adjust your strobe exposure.

Whatever camera you have, practice makes perfect. Get out there and shoot.