Mike,
Although I'm partial to the Olympus line of cameras, the Canon A70
looks pretty good.  They make a housing to match.  Have a look.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/a70.html

Larry

hawthorn43@yahoo.com (mike) pounded away at his keyboard resulting in:

Don't worry about the flash on the camera.  Underwater, they all
stink.  You will need an external strobe.

For what it's worth, own a Sea Life Reefmaster.  I have the old 1.3
megapixel version which is pretty decent underwater but a little weak
on land.  Slow lens weak flash.  It's ok in bright sunlight though.

Some of my underwater pix are here:
http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/underwater/index.htm

Anything marked new was taken with the reefmaster.  Most, if not all
of the other captions indicate what camera was used to take the photo.

Dan Bracuk
If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure.
The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/

Hi Mike:

I've been shooting with a Canon S230 (3.2 MP) which has an available housing
for around $150. I bought the camera before even considering underwater
shots and got it for its tiny size. (It fits in a shirt or pants pocket
(without the housing of course).) If you're interested in seeing some of the
pix, let me know and I'll email them to you. (I haven't gotten a web page up
yet.)

The only real drawback with this camera is that the optical zoom is only a
2X. Since the camera isn't current (superceded by newer models, the S400
which is a 4.0 MP version of the same camera might be worth checking into.
It has a 3X optical zoom.

- David

Start by deciding what your needs are and prioritize them, then find a few cameras
that fit, and have housings available. The perfect camera for somebody else may not
be a good choice for you. If you want something primarily for surface use with only
occasional UW use, and cost is an important criteria you might want to concentrate on
cameras that have a housing made by the manufacturer, since those are relatively
inexpensive. Canon and Olympus make several; your choices will be more limited with
other manufacturers. If UW shooting is more important then you might want to
concentrate solely on cameras for which Ikelite or other aftermarket companies market
housings (giving you many more options if you want a Sony or Nikon), and plan on
spending a few hundred bucks more. When you make a decision on a camera, don't put
off getting the housing. Digital cameras are evolving rapidly, and when a model is
dropped the aftermarket companies aren't going to keep churning out housings, and it
would really suck to have the camera and then find out in 3 months that you can't
find a housing in time for a trip.

Steve's Digicams is a good place for info, but at Wetpixel.com you won't find that
you've decided you like a model for which housings aren't available. A Google search
will turn up plenty of other places to find advice, of course.

I am trying out an Olympus digital - 5 million pixels.  Comes with its own
underwater housing.  On land it has a detachable zoom lens.  So far it has
worked great, but, I have only pool tested it in its housing.

I have a decent solution that really works for me.  Get a Kodak 3.2
megapixel CX4300 available at Walmart for $99 (this takes super pics
on land too) and try the universal case from Camerashield
http://www.fuertecases.com/CameraShield.html
for $49.  I don't work for them and have taken thousands of underwater
shots with the case with no leaks!  It even is awesome to use at rainy
sporting events!  Tell them Pat Cook sent you.  I have 2 of their
kits.

Here are some of my sample pics.  Note: they are way smaller sized for
this web page.  The originals look great! I have since done a lot of
retouching in Photoshop but these show what the camera can do right
"out of the camera".  http://spectregunner.freeservers.com/

I can't think of any way to spend only $150 total and have this much
fun and success in underwater photography.

-Pat