That was just a quick grab of photos off my computer hard-drive............Honestly I've probally shot close to 20000 photos in the last 5-6 years.
Each dive is easily worth 100-150 photos. Throw out 3/4's of them after brutal hard editing, and out of 100 I'll keep 10ish, then show off 2-3 out of the 100.
yes underwater photography is hard.
Note I said "photography", not picture taking.
you have to answer that yourself, "am I a picture taker, or photographer"
A photographer is constantly changing shutter speeds and f-stops, shooting with fish eye and wide angle lenses (I just bought a DREAM of a 165 degree field of view fish eye lens)
For the basic noobie photo taker, stay AWAY from "dedicated" dive cameras, such as the Sea Life or Sea-n-Sea brands. Crap equipment, nice crap, but still crap.
Instead buy a digital point-n-shoot and the manufactures housing, or step up to an Ikelite which is Pro-sumer level.
Nikon, Canon, Olympus, nothing else is really supported for the undersea world for housings.
I've seen people shoot with $8K - $10,000 rigs underwater and turn out turd worthy photos. I've also seen $300-500-1000 rigs shot stellar shots in the right hands.
I'll post more pictures off a different laptop later, I just went CAVE diving south of Cancun in Akumal in Centoes which are flooded ancient cave systems. Jaw dropping stellar awesome. Surreal diving in fresh water in a cave. Yeah it's hard core, but no more so than Autocrossing your 911 and going into Turn 1 hot and fast braking late at 85-100 mph........ GRINS.
for photo tips/equipment
Go to
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underwater-photography/
or
wetpixels.com
or for equipment
Reef Photo & Video!, The Underwater Photo Pros
they all know my credit card well.
PAT S, CONGRATS on taking your Advanced course. Now the real step, is going forward to Resuce diver. That is one of the HARDEST, but most rewarding courses you can ever take. I seriously encourage you to go for it if you're serious about diving. At least buy the book and DVD, you'll still get the skill set whether you get the cert card or not.