Thanks all for the comments....
As a scuba instructor, I get questions like "what camera should I buy" often...........and I answer "do you want to be a picture taker, or a photographer?"
Picture takers leave their camera's in auto mode, maybe use the "underwater" pre-program setting mode, and sometimes can get a fairly decent shot but most often blurry washed out. When you think you're close, get twice as close and reduce the water column between you and your subject.
My biggest gripe, is that people want to take good pictures, while being a crappy-diver.........such as holding onto the reef coral with a gloved gorillia grip, having poor buoyancy skills, banging into the reef with fins, or worse of worse is becoming a combat diver throwing elbows to hog the subject to themselves, while 4-5 other divers behind them patiently try to wait their turn.
Diver photo polite manners = come in slow to your subject, take your 3-5 shots, then peel off and let the next person in line grab some shots. WAYYYYYY too often divers say "man what are you talking about, I never touched the reef, I swam in fast, got out fast"......and in the mean time, poor little sea-horse got hammered by water current from you back paddling with your hands/arms, or the viz got silted out by your fins hammering the reef as you're laying on it...........oh I could go on and on, and am self-admitted guilty as charged of most all above offenses, but many people don't even know they're doing these things, until you point it out to them........sigh.
Underwater Camera work is all in technique. get low and shoot up if you can, shooting straight down makes for a 2 dimensional shot, shooting upward with a slow shutter speed 1/60th-1/100th gives a deep blue background, Fast shutter speed provides black background and more contrast with the subject. I shoot 99% in manual mode, setting shutter speeds / f-stop and sometime manual white balance. Example the post above Shark and Ray photos, a simple $20 Red Filter and manual white balance would have brought out all the true colors instead of being washed out blurred baby blue. YOU DON"T NEED STROBES to fill in wide angle deep depth of field photos!
Couple of suggested readings / products:
WEALTH of good tip info here:
Underwater Photographer Stephen Frink - Underwater Photography Tips and Tricks
Guide to Underwater Photography | Underwater Photography Guide
For Compact Camera's, these filters do truly work magic: (but nothing replaces a good strobe and getting close and closer to your subject.)
M A G I C - F I L T E R S
New point and shoot camera are out in the $200 range that are sealed/water-tight to 15-30 feet, but I'd suggest getting a good land based camera, (Canon G10-G12, Nikon Coolpix, Olympus Tough series, or the PEN line) put in a good U/W housing instead. The OEM factories make "decent" housings, but to grow your photo equipment Ikelite or other aftermarket companies sell much better stronger housings so you can grow and expand as your skills progress.
Learn the camera, become a photographer not picture taker, and there is soooooo much more functions to your cameras than auto-mode and pre-programmed U/W settings. Above All, HAVE FUN, don't destroy the marine life, MAKE good photos don't "take" them,
cheers to all. More photos to come soon. Please post some of your own too! Everyone is always learning. My work is 1/10th of what some people produce, but $10-20,000 full on DSLR's with twin strobes aren't my style for bulk, cost, travel weight, and complexity underwater.....