Underwater Digital Stills or Video?

If You Could Choose Only One....

Underwater video, in many ways, is easier and more expressive than underwater digital stills photography. Video cameras function in lower light than film cameras and you can expect some decent video on your very first dive. You can check out your video as soon as you leave the water to make sure that you got what you were after. Digital stills will record that perfect image if you get lucky but video is better suited to record marine life. Videos also appeals more to the average person who would probably like watching your video footage more than flipping through photographs.

Which Camcorder to Use?

If you have a camcorder it's very tempting to find a housing for it. This isn't always the best idea since there are some very good match-ups of camcorder and housing, as well as some bad ones. There are so many camcorder models already and the manufacturers are introducing new models every few months. That can make it hard for housing manufacturers to keep up with all of the latest models. It can be very difficult to find a housing for Panasonic, JVC and Canon but the inventor of flexible high grade housings - Ewa-Marine, does an excellent job and can generally fit almost any model to a well-made housing that still performs like one costing over $1K or more.

The Canon XM1 Digital Camcorder that my fishing and snorkeling buddy purchased was used in the Ewa-Marine VXM waterproof camcorder case. It functioned, as promised and did an excellent job of shooting high quality video inside the housing, above and below the water. This was an inexpensive solution for getting his video camera in the water and still left enough cash to actually pay for a lot of extras that would have been impossible to purchase with one of the larger hard cases. It is also very durable and well made for a flexible housing. The video he has shot is excellent in every way and compares favorably when stacked up next to the large "high end" housings. Everyone has been going wild for digital stills cameras over the past 2 years but the video footage he gets with his camcorder/housing combination is much more enjoyable to watch than looking at the digital stills shots taken with his compact digital camera setup - and shot by an amateur too. If you're a casual snorkeler/diver and only shoot underwater video on vacations or a limited basis, then an Ewa-Marine video housing might be worth looking into!