Rhino the G9 is alot bigger in size than the ixus range. Just bought a ixus110is (12.1mega pixels,28mm wide angle lens. my mobile is bloody bigger in size) with housing havent used it yet so can't comment on performance. heading to coral sea in 2 weeks going to give it a go then.

Yeah, that's why I'm not a fan of the new ones! The Ixus 75 has a 3" screen which is about 76mm!

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Like a farken underwater ninja!

The fish were blinded by overexposure to his pure awesomeness!

the g7, g9 and g10 are more a digital slr than just a point and shoot camera. these models allow apeture and iso manipulation, have raw capacity and allow the user to customise the camera to suit their needs. the megapixel race is overated as a 15 MP photo can be of much poorer quality than a 8 or 10MP. though compact point and shot cameras have come a long way, the size of the senor is important in low light, so the smaller it gets the harder it becomes for a senor to remain a 'good' size. each to their own, i enjoy photography and having apeture and iso priority has been of great benefit.

Thank you for the feedback guys
I think it's paramount to decide what type of photography one wants to get into

As far as I am concerned, especially considering the possibilities I will have, I think my needs would be accommodated by a 8 -10 MPixels ixus type camera with a big digital screen and decent white/red balance option for u/water shots or movies (30fps is good enough). It will allow me to take a good first step in u/water photography from which, in time, I will be able to progress.
Should I outgrow the potential of this first camera (say ... ixus 80 or 90 or 110) I will then look for something more customisable offering manual aperture, iso and exposure settings

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Il mio mare e i miei fondali sono quelli del golfo de La Spezia

One other thing that I have seen mentioned a couple of times with the smaller cameras is battery life. What sort of battery life do you get with the ixus cameras? Whilst it probably doesn't rate much of a mention for general use, changing the battery on a shore dive is pretty much out of the question.

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That's where I saw the leprechaun. He tells me to burn things...