New Canon camera

While I was at Hyakuman-Volt I checked out one of Canon's new digital cameras, the PowerShot SD500/IXY600. This thing looks like it's gonna rock! First off, I like to travel light and take pictures and video. I'm often headed off to remote areas around Asia to go SCUBA diving. I've been using an IXY400 with an underwater housing to take decent underwater shots and videos. I had a fantastic experience with my Canon in Thailand last year. In my opinion, there isn't anyother option for a decent camera for amature travel/underwater photographers.

The Canon PowerShots take excellent quality pictures; the video is shot in an (easily) editable .avi format; Canon makes affordable underwater housings for many of their cameras; and they are durable and reliable.

I was really excited about this new camera since it can take VGA video at 30fps. They make a real underwater housing for the SD500 and not just a snorkeling model. (I think Canon uses blue plastic on their SCUBA models and orange plastic on their snorkeling ones.) My underwater videos will be so much better.

I'm not going to rush out to pick one up just yet. I'm waiting for the high speed 2GB SD cards to come out. Lots of cheaper, lower capacity cards don't do anyone any good 30 meters down. I empty my memory cards after each dive right now to make room for later dives. I store them on my iPod using a Belkin Media Reader. Hopefully I won't have to wait for them too long. It would be great to try out a new camera for my trip this summer to Hawaii and Vermont.