Underwater Photography for our Hobby

[Parallax]

Hi All,
I was wondering if anyone has any tips, or experience they might be able to share in regards to taking photos of our subs underwater. I recently bought an underwater point and click, and have had pretty decent results. However, it is very limited in its range as well as being difficult to frame shots, and while the iamges are clean enough, they don't really convey what I would like. I feel if I had more control over how to take the pictures they would be more interesting.
Here is an example: At the pool we are using, I put the camera under the water and take my best guess at where the shot is going to be, and hopefully I'll be able to crop a nice finished picture. In the ocean I would have a snorkel and mask and shoot using the view finder to take a better framed picture. Going into the pool is not really an option with so many boats in the water.
Light drop off is also another issue, but all of the lighting systems I have seen are prohibitively expensive.
In any case if anyone could offer any thoughts it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike

[eckloss]

I usually cheat. I take underwater video and screen select and crop the best images. I've been telling myself for months now I'm going to build a very simple pool-side hung underwater mount for my GoPro. Just turn it on, submerge it, and let it record the whole time. Then, go back over the video and pick out some single frames.

[scott t]

strap your camera to a periscope so you can frame the picture by viewing through the periscope

[mike dory]

This may take some of us down memory lane. Back in the early 70's Bud Lederer and I took a small empty fish tank put a brick in it and set in on the second step into my swiming pool then we use a 2.5X2.5 box camera with a top view placed in the tank to take the underwater photo's. That is what we used in all the under water shots that were posted in Model Scale Ships magazine. I forgot the year, but one year we had a Subregatta in Canada, Celtic lake I bevieve. Mrs. Sharp put on her scuba diving gear and dove down, as I recall she later said her diving gage read 30 ft. she had taken a folding chair with her and upon reaching the bottom She seated herself on the chair and with her underwater camera. She started taking underwater photo's of all of our subs there. We were all circling her with our navagation lights on. The water there was very clear and that was the deepest I've ever been able to get a signal to.