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Your first question was what camera to get, and my reply would have been a used Olympus C-5050. I don't think there is a better choice overall than this for several reasons. First of all, it has an f1.8 lens. Since this forum is about diving in water which is often low vis and dark, that can be a huge help. Although depth of field is lower with a wide open aperture, because of its relatively small sensor, the depth of field at f1.8 is the same as a digital SLR with 1.5 crop at f5.4 or a full sensor camera at f9.0. Also important is the fact that the lens fully extends when the camera turns on, whether at telephoto or wide angle. This allows you to get full use of add-on wide angle lenses. I use an Inon wet mount wide angle lens which works fabulously. My modes lets you change lots of settings easily. I like being able to change from wide angle to macro on the same dive. The supermacro mode works well overall, although autofocus in this mode can be a bit frustrating. It doesn't always pick what you want to focus on. If I find a macro subject I really like, I usually take a bunch of pictures to improve my odds of one focused the way I want. I've used mine for 4 years and it's still going strong. I use a 2Gig CF card. I also have 2 DS-125 strobes which help light things up when not shooting available light. (Mine is in an Ikelite housing with TTL strobe control) Good luck!
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