Nikonos? Other? Recommendations will be appreciated.

answer is somewhat dependent on how deep you plan to dive and whether you want a completely waterproof camera or whether you want a waterproof housing for a regular camera.

Sorry. Good questions. Advanced open water, which is 130 feet maximum.

Looking for a high quality, truly waterproof camera.

I've been using a Nikonos V with a 15mm UW Nikkor lens since 1986 and it takes very good photographs when I do my part. We're talking film here, not digital. I use a Subatec strobe (Switzerland). In my opinion the only thing better is a Nikonos RS with a 13mm lens.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/ht.../htmls/nikonosrs.htm

I don't have any experience with digital underwater but I would guess it's a heck of alot simpler. A high end underwater housing for any of the Nikon digital SLR's would most probably yield great results with a 15mm or shorter focal length. A good strobe is as important, if not more important, than the camera.

http://www.10bar.com/new_product.htm

http://www.aquatica.ca/subpages/catalog/housings/housings.html

Wink, many thanks for the advice and those helpful links.

MR, back when I only had a couple hundred dives under my belt I went on a live-aboard dive cruise on an Aggressor Fleet yacht in the Cayman Islands. I had a great time and I took an underwater photography course from a well known underwater photographer who stayed on board for the whole trip. I think they now have standard courses and lend the photo equipment. This would be a good way to combine a nice dive vacation with some instruction in UW photography and to try out some photo equipment.

http://www.aggressor.com/subpage.php?d=12

Do a google search on under water housings for the camera you decide to use.

If you do not mind bulk, then an SLR of your choice and an underwater housing is the best way to go.

Idf bulk is an issue, then I suggest you look at something like the Canon G9 or one of the Olympus 4/3rds - E420 and E520 cameras and their underwater housing.

I would stay away from the smaller camera.

Thanks, Saeed. I am looking for housings for our SLRs.

Wink, I am also looking into a course. Thanks.

i would definitely stay away from the Nikonos type camera and go with a digital SLR with housing. also i took one of those live aboard dive/photo cruises years ago and can't say enough good things about what you can learn.

If you go with the digital SLR/underwater housing route, remember that under water objects appear to be about 1/3 larger than on land. Also depth of field is all important in underwater photography (although macro photography doesn't require this to the same extent). This is the reason the standard lens of the professional underwater photographer for so many years was the 15mm UW Nikkor. It had tremendous field of view (FOV) and great depth of field. your underwater strobe won't be worth much beyond 5 feet so you will be right on top of the subjects. It is hard to find the same optical advantages with most digital SLR cameras since the photocaptors are smaller than the 35mm negative format. You would need a 10mm lens for alot of them, and there aren't too many of those.

Thanks, jdollar and Wink.

I am a bit of a dinosaur in that I love our old F100 and still use it a lot.

Digital is obviously the way to go, however.

Underwater is a different world. Wide angles, housings, strobes, etc. I am definitely taking a course!

Saeed, I am starting to like the looks of that G9 set up.

Digital cameras give you the ability to review your efforts real-time and make corrections or improvements. That is a vast advantage over developed film.

You can also find housings for many of today's camcorders.

I spent about 20 days in Tahiti a few years ago, brought a full kit of DSLR equipment for everything but the underwater stuff.
There I used a Canon Digital Elph in a Canon brand underwater housing made specially for my specific model of camera.
It performed flawlessly.
Also the Elph features manual override for exposure and flash control (came in handy a few times), as well as a very very nice zoom lens -- and it shoots video!

Something to note about this kind of combination is that you get real-time view of your subject and instant feedback on exposure and the affect/effect of flash.
The housing features an easily installed/removed diffuser for the flash (stays on a little leash), and I brought along a set of colored gels that I could slip in the flash diffuser slot -- didn't need them after all, and the camera also takes raw files of the images anyway.

Before I left on the trip I spent quite a bit of time getting familiar with the ergonomic of the housing. I also got ahold of fifteen or twenty tiny desiccant packs (about 1/2 the size of a pack of sugar) and kept them in sealed ziplock bags until I needed them. Any time I'd go under I'd make sure to put a fresh desiccant pack in the housing with the camera. This ensured that the inevitable tiny droplet of water from handling the gear on a dive boat or on the beach wouldn't vaporize and get into the works or lenses of my camera.
(The housing has never failed or leaked, the seals are still perfectly intact and functional after years of use)
I'd 'clear' them at the end of the day or whenever I could by wrapping them in paper towels and microwaving them, enough times to get dry paper after a little microwave blast, then they'd go back into a clean and dry ziplock bag, no air included in the bag.
That helps protect your gear in ultra humid climate too.

The Canon case has protected that little digital Elph camera in severe desert dust storms and heavy northwestern rainstorms, also I've used it on the motorcycle as armor for the camera and an 'enhancement' of the camera's controls through motorcycle gloves.

The combination of camera and case isn't expensive at all, and you're set up to go into messy conditions without having to worry about either missing the shot or having a lot of money tied up in your equipment.
The little cameras get incredibly high quality images, mine lost no image quality to the housing.



--Tinker

I wanted to upgrade from the Canon G9 to an SLR, and have tentatively decided on the Olympus E520.

This camera has Life View, an optical image stabilizer, and relatively small in size.

One of the shortcomings of the G9 - and other small cameras - is the lag in time to focus on moving subjacts such as fish or rays.

I am hoping the SLR would lessen this to a great degree.

I would really love to use the Nikon D300 underwater, but, the only housings I can find for it are very bulky.

I took some photos of a pair of swans and their little baby a couple of days ago with the D300 and the Nikon 70-300mm VR lense.

The photos turned out absolutely stunning!

I will post some when I get back to Dubai later this month.

Saeed-

The technique for overcoming the 'shutter lag' of the small cameras is to 'half-press' the shutter release button (which gets the autofocus and metering system going) while tracking the animal in the water.
When 'the shot' presents itself you are ready -that instant- to get the shot by completing the shutter button's travel to full press with your finger.
With that technique you have effectively zero shutter lag and can view the scene through the lcd until the ideal moment.

Another key to underwater success is to take lots of images.
Run big memory cards and keep shooting.


--Tinker

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I would really love to use the Nikon D300 underwater, but, the only housings I can find for it are very bulky.

That is the problem with the DSLR housings, I am finding. They, plus the strobe, make the camera huge and bulky.

That's why I was following up on your suggestion of the G9. Much more compact. But now I will look at the Olympus too.

And thanks for all the great tips, Tinker.

The problem I found with the G9 was if I wanted to take several photos in quick succession - as when a manta ray was coming straight towards me. The camera would take the first photo, then sort of hunt while it autofocuses.

My underwater photos are taken while snorkling, so there is no need for a strobe

Saeed-

I don't know much about the G9
If you can get it set to manual focus and manual exposure, you can get it dialed in for a range of focal distance -- I suggest you give this a try with your cats.

See if your camera will do this, then set it for a somewhat fast film speed -- like 400 or faster, underwater photography won't need ultra grain clarity anyway. How many megapixels?
How big of prints have you printed off that camera's image files?

Get the camera set up to capture a deep field of focus at an exposure that works well with your ambient light, then sit with your cats and track them with the camera.
I have used the flash feature for this kind of shooting on a 'fill' or very low power setting so that I get the little beam of white light from the face of my camera to 'point' my subject as I half-press the shutter button.
That way you don't have to view through the viewfinder, just keep the beam on the subject.
You'll quickly get a sense of where the beam needs to be, and how much of your subject it'll illuminate at whatever range you're shooting at.
Shooting this way keeps you personally engaged with the subject, and their attention off the camera too.
This method will only fire as rapidly as your flash will regenerate it's charge, so it'll likely be better for you at getting a 'good hand' at point-shooting with your camera than anything.
Once you've gotten the hang of it, reset your exposures for no flash and get back to shooting moving subjects.

Give it a try and see if you get results that make you happy.
There might be something there for you.


--Tinker

I now have my eye on a digital point and shoot.

It's the Sea and Sea DX-1G. A 10 MP cameral with a lot of features for about US$1,000.

Sea & Sea DX-1G

Seems pretty impressive. Lots of accessories and very small in size. Good shutter response time, too.

What do you guys think?

Sea and Sea offers good gear.

That looks like quite the system, the price doesn't seem so bad either.
I'd be web searching for critiques of the system, looking for good reasons not to get it.

I like the optional strobe packages and fiber optic cabling.
It's also nice that the camera is usable out of the water.
The CCD eyeball is a plus too.
I still shoot with and prefer my Eos1D over Cmos based cameras. The CCD has a different feel, which I feel is better than the Cmos and much more 'film-like'

Go web hunting for a good reason to not get it.


--Tinker

Well, I sprang for the Sea and Sea DX-1G with strobe and will be testing it next week on a couple of dives among the outer islands of Boston Harbor.

I will try to post some pics.

Since I suggested it as an option, here is what you get when you take a very nice transparency and have it scanned by your local camera store. Originals taken in the Cayman Islands about 20 years ago with my Nikonos V. Diver is my brother Patrick. Transparencies were Ektachrome.















I'm actually a little disappointed with the quality of the scan, the original slides are sharper with more "pop". However, I think it got the colors right and didn't "digitize" them into some sort Nikon version of true colors.

If any of you are thinking about diving the Cayman Islands then I encourage to act on it. It's a great place to dive. Here's a couple more:


The mother of all sponges, about 120 feet down the Little Cayman wall.




Underwater arch, Grand Cayman, my brother is swimming in a school of tarpon.

Beautiful images, Wink. Film has its virtues.

Got rained and fogged out this weekend in Boston. Such are the drawbacks of New England.

Photos will have to wait until Zanzibar, the Good Lord willing.

If you haven't yet taken your new underwater camera under water, I have a few pointers that most people will never tell you about, but they are crucial to the long life of your equipment:

Rule #1: Never, Never, Never (did I say Never?) let your camera/flash/housing dry out after being in salt water. It should only dry out after having been subjected to several soak and rinse periods in fresh water. So, if you get back on the boat and there is no fresh water, put it in a bucket of salt water until you get home, or back to the dock, or wherever there is fresh water. Salt water won't hurt it, but letting it dry out will allow salt crystals to form in places you will never be able to clean and eventually you'll have a flooding, believe me.

Rule #2: When the camera is being stored, either take out any removable O-Rings or leave the camera open so that there is no pressure on whatever seal mechanisms it has. They will eventually become deformed and flooding will occur, believe me. With my Nikonos I used one set of o-rings for diving, another set for when it was in storage or being used on land. When diving I used only the "diving" set of o-rings, which I removed, cleaned and regreased (with o-ring grease) for each dive.

Rule #3: Remove all batteries when the camera/flash is not being used. Even if it's just for a day or two. If even a trace of salt water has somehow seeped in any area with electronics the results will make you cry, believe me.

I have seen all of the above happen, more than once.

Wink, thanks very much for the helpful and instructive advice.

I will definitely follow it.