I’m a Canon guy, but I’ve gone the full circle from really cheap model P&S, to slightly better, to DSLR, and back to a point & shoot. I’ve recently settled on the Canon S95. It’s a small P&S with a larger than normal sensor for DSLR quality photos with full manual settings. If you want to start simple you can just put it in full auto underwater mode and get great results. And if you get really into it and want to take more composed shots you have the camera for it, and you can learn some manual settings. I would suggest starting off with a Canon or Ikelite housing to start with as they are $250-350 range, and a Recsea housing once you want to go more advanced as the housing alone is $850. I just bought my Recsea housing used for $650. If you strictly plan to keep it simple you can get many package deals on basic 10MP or better Canon & Nikon cameras in the $250 range. Good luck.