I have been struggling to make a call – Canon or Nikon. I currently own both, a Nikon F90 film camera and a Canon 350D digital. While the results achieved with the Canon 350D have been impressive on land, my results underwater have not been encouraging. This is probably more a function of the lens I am using (EFS 17 – 85mm), and my current inability to manually set the white balance underwater.

While my instincts tell me to go with Canon, my experience of using Rai Landou’s Nikon D100 underwater and the results I have achieved suggest otherwise. When I do upgrade , its a choice between the Nikon D200 and the Canon 5D. I’m learning towards the Canon 5D – its full frame, which I think is the future, but its twice the price. In doing research on the web I came across a great site for camera reviews that I would highly recommend, http://www.dcresource.com. You can download high resolution images of the same subject and print them to compare.

Based on the DCRP reviews I think I am going to go for the Canon 5D, primarily because its full frame – to invest in lenses designed for digital sensors, when I suspect that all DSLR’s will eventually go full frame, does not make sense. The Canon 5D also achieves excellent results on high ISO setting, so I suspect that it will way outperform the Nikon when shooting underwater without strobes.