bakpakka:
How much did you folks pay for your DSLR housings? I take it there's a few brands such as:
1. Aquatica
2. Light&Motion Housing
Also, how do you actually look through the viewfinder, since there is no digital display for the DSLRs? Some angles would be pretty hard to maneuver into? Or do you just snap and pray?
dSLR housing generally will cost anywhere from a bit over a thousand dollars up to > $5000 depending on the cameras/brands of housing. This does not yet including ports/zoom gears for various lenses. If you have 3-4 lenses, expect to pay at least another $600-$1000 at least.
Depending on the camera that you use (not all housing manufacturers support every dSLR), Ikelite is a good place to start for relatively cheaper but usually bulkier housing. It is polycarbonate housing, very solid, may not look as impressive as some other aluminium housing but it is well made with incredible customer service to back up its product. Aquatica is a solid, relatively inexpensive aluminium housing.
A bit more expensive is Nexus (for Nikon, very well made housing).
Light and Motion seems to lag behind currently and seem to concentrate more on video housing nowaday.
You will need to pretty much glue your mask to the viewfinder in order to see the entire frame. This is an inconvenience especially with Nikon D70 and Canon Rebel/350D as they have the smallest viewfinders. However you will get use to this very quickly and it is not a big deal unless your eye sight is not so great like some of my aging divebuddies
When you get up to Subal/Seacam housing, you will have the option of adding magnifying viewfinder to the housing which will give you quite a bit bigger viewfinder to look through so you don't have to glue your mask to the view finder. However this comes with a big price. Viewfinder on Seacam alone is more expensive than some other dSLR housing.