SeaLife DC800 Goes Down 200 Feet

April 30, 2008 By Geoff Duncan

SeaLife's DC800 underwater camera can handle depths up to 200 feet, and offers unique scene modes especially for underwater photography.

SeaLife has rolled out its new DC800 digital camera, offering underwater photographybuffs something better than packing a waterproof case around an everyday point-and-shoot camera. For one thing, the DC800 is good down to depths of 200 feet, enabling experienced divers to captureimages in a wide variety of environments. What’s more, the DC800 offers five unique underwater shooting modes especially designed for underwater use.

“The DC800 gives users the ability to have more control and creativity over their images,” said SeaLife’s sales and marketing director Joe Ifi, in a statement. “With its new features and upgrade in technology geared towards the SCUBA diver and underwater enthusiast, the DC800 is sure to add a new dimension of fun in and out of water.”

The DC800 offers an 8 megapixel resolution, a 2.7-inch LCD display screen, a 4× optical zoom, SD/SDHC image storage (along with 32 MB of internal memory), and USB connectivity. The camera runs off a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and an removable polycarbonate, rubberized shell that’s designed for solid underwater grip. SeaLife says the DC800 offers a shutter response time as fast as 0.1 seconds, and the camera can be used with SeaLife’s Digital Pro Flash designed for underwater use.

The camera’s five underwater scene modes include three with underwater color corrections (Oceans Blue, Oceans Green, Rivers/Lakes), and two modes that accommodate the Digital Pro external flash. An additional “SPY” mode enables the camera to take pictures automatically at fixed time intervals (say, every five seconds or every five minutes until the camera is full), enabling divers to place the camera, start it up, then leave the scene to capture events that would never happen in the presence of divers.

The SeaLife DC800 is available now at a suggested price of $549.95.

Showing 6 comments

Joe Primavera at 7:26pm 10th January 2009 Do you need the external flash in the movie mode?
Joe Kay at 9:43am 31st December 2008 I purchase a sealife DC800 for my trip to Cozumel in December. Typical for December in Cozumel, it was somewhat cloudy but underwater visibility was good. I selected the "underwater blue" automatic exposure mode and was very disappointed. The next day I tried the "underwater blue" cloudy mode. It made a tremendous difference! I was able to get decent color contrast at 40 to 60 feet.

I did take some picts at 20 to 30 feet. The colors were brilliant.

I'm purchasing a strobe for my next trip.
tracie at 9:14pm 26th July 2008 Has anyone actually used and reviewed this camera yet? I am leaning toward purchasing it but haven't read any reviews yet.
Adam Murphy at 10:27am 21st July 2008 SeaLife has had several digital underwater cameras out over the years - 3MB, 5MB, 6MB, and now 8MB. I loved the 3MB. The 5MB (DC500) was one of the 25 products of the year from Time magazine. The DC600 was a great improvement on the DC500 - better buttons, video, etc. Looking forward to the DC800.

As for "not working like they should," without an external flash, no underwater camera takes a good picture if you're under 20' deep. Add the digital strobe (or two), and a lot of practice, and you can take some phenomenal pics with the SeaLife cameras.
Tristan at 1:09am 19th May 2008 Just because you have not head of the brand does not mean a thing, sealife is quite well known in underwater photography,

and for this particular camera, for $550 its a very good price for an entry level camera of this design and spec.
Aaron at 11:04am 1st May 2008 Two things:

1) I have never heard of this brand

2) Most cameras that go underwater do not really work like they should

Why would you rusk spending $500 for this?