Cameras going underwater ?

Craig N · October 21st, 2006, 05:01 PM

Hello All

I'm very interested in what people are currently using to acquire their underwater images, Thought it might be very useful information on what might be turning up at the Stoney Cove Gig.

so are you a

Compact shooter ?, Olympus, Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax ?
DSLR Shooter ? , NIKON, CANON ? FUJI S2 ?

are you looking at maybe purchasing a system soon , but are totally bewilldered at whats on the market ?

Do you have external flash gun/s on your system, are you looking at maybe purchasing an external gun ?

how are you finding you system ?, Good,Bad, ugly ? are you happy with the images you get.

Do you shoot RAW, or simple JPEG's ?

pass on your feedback

Who knows you might get some very useful information coming your way soon.

regards

Craig

Noel Johnson · October 22nd, 2006, 07:21 AM

Hi Craig, and good morning.

I'm not sure I can make it to the Stoney gig but if I can I will. And I will bring the camera with me, of course.

To answer your question(s)

I'm a compact shooter. Fuji F410 with the 40 metre housing.

I use the internal flash. I took my bonica slave strobe to the Red Sea with me last time from my old 35mm but it seemed a bit overkill. A new strobe would be nice but I simply cannot afford one at the moment.

Happy with it? Yes, very. Its small enough to be manageable, I can set it up to 6 mp, I default it to 3mp though as I'm guilty of "chimping" underwater - ooh, ooh, theres a starfish (flash) ooh, ooh, theres a bigger fish (flash) etc. Image wise I'm happy with what I get, using it in the UK is different in terms of image but then maybe I'm just not a very good photographer

It shoots in basic JPEGs only.

Here's one from the Red Sea

And by way of comparison here's one from Stoney

Both taken with OB flash and macro mode engaged.

Hope this helps,

Noel.

Craig N · October 22nd, 2006, 04:22 PM

Hi Noel

Good to hear that your happy with what you have, so many people these days tend to blame the camera for all sorts of things, so often is the case that it's not the camera but the photographer that is at fault.

Digital Compacts are coming on in leaps and bounds, we just need those that produce to give us a little more control at times, like FULL MANUAL modes, which i find can be missing these days with even some expensive cameras.

Below are a couple of snaps of mine which i took a number of years ago here in a UK quarry.

You'd be suprised if i told you what i shot them with.

regards

craig

LauNar · October 22nd, 2006, 06:05 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

DSLR Shooter ? , NIKON, CANON ? FUJI S2 ?

Canon 300D in an Ikelite housing. Just trying to learn at the moment.

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

are you looking at maybe purchasing a system soon , but are totally bewilldered at whats on the market ?

Not in the near future, but if I was a housing manufacturer, I'd take a really close look at the Pentax K10D dslr - 10Mpix ccd (same as Nikon D80), anti-shake in the body (would be great for available light shots here in the Baltic...) and that sweet Pentax 10-17mm FE lens...

The other alternative being Canon 5D with a 2.5 x price tag, of course.

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

Do you have external flash gun/s on your system, are you looking at maybe purchasing an external gun ?

Single Ikelite DS125 with TTL sync. Later I might add another one, and maybe play with slaves carried by models.

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

how are you finding you system ?, Good,Bad, ugly ? are you happy with the images you get.

It's a big improvement over my previous Oly C5060, but sometimes I miss the possibility of shooting video too... AF could be a tad faster, and of course there's no decent diagonal fisheye for crop-sensor Canons yet. If you don't count the 8mm Peleng and Sigma, with which you need to use lens correction software a lot because of the vignetting...

I'm quite happy with the images I'm getting, and I think I'm going to the right direction with some of my ideas about composition, lighting etc.

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

Do you shoot RAW, or simple JPEG's ?

RAW almost exclusively. This summer I did practise run with the peleng shooting JPEG, and got a couple real keepers... But having them in RAW would have been really nice.

Here are a couple examples from a Victory class freighter from the Gulf of Finland (the water is really that green - the stuff you people in the UK got is more like turquoise

). Shot with the 8mm Peleng fisheye, then corrected with PTlens.

//LN

tim · October 22nd, 2006, 06:51 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

I'm very interested in what people are currently using to acquire their underwater images

I've shot with Olympus-housed C60z and C5060, and with a Subal-housed D70.

The C60z belongs to me and I used a Halycon 10W focusable HID as my light for taking close-up shots. This was a good light for photos as it had a very even flood beam, which I've noticed my new Salvo doesn't have (there's a dark spot in the centre). I found a technique with the light in the left hand and camera in the right hand was very natural and worked very well for setting up images. The camera did a fine job focusing on static subjects and seemed to meter well without me having to think about it, viz:

and:

The plus points were small size and easy one-handed operation, the minus points were soft focus under f/5.6, slow focus for dynamic subjects, and miniscule battery life with the built-in flast or continuous focus (as few as fifty shots, as opposed to 150 with single focus). I tried putting a Sea&Sea wide angle lens on with a couple of step-up rings for ambient light photos but was never skilled enough to get decent results with a rather imbalanced setup. I found the front-heavy camera very difficult to hold steady and get sharp shots from; I kept on having to think about the camera, not about the image. I guess that combination would need a lot of experience to get good results from, though I can't see any reason why it wouldn't take great photos in experienced hands.

The C5060 I borrowed for a week in the Red Sea had a very sweet and sharp f/2.8 lens which with an external wide angle was great for big ambient light shots. It was neat and balanced enough to get right out of my way and leave me thinking about the image. The focus was quick and sharp, the metering was fine in auto, and it left me alone to make great black and white images with no experience of operating the camera. This is just what I want cameras to do; get out of the way of the art!

This really was just point and shoot fun photography, only the third time I'd had the camera in my hands, so relying on the camera to Do The Right Thing with little tech input from me:

I found using the external wide angle lens to be MUCH easier as a novice with the slightly larger camera, though conversely I found close up shots to be easier with the small C60z. I also enjoyed using the flood-focus HID as a light as it let me see what the lighting effect looked like in a video-light style as opposed to strobes which I think need a little more experience to visualise the result from my limited experience of using one. That said, the C5060 I borrowed I did turn the flash (a Sea&Sea YS90) on on automatic mode for one shot and it came out fine with point-and-shoot novice skills, so I guess the camera and strobe knew how to work well! I found it a bit unsatisfying compared to the HID though as with no experience of underwater photography it was point and guess rather than actually envisaging the image beforehand.

An additional point I'd make with the Olympus compacts is that I don't find the interface entirely intuitive and it helped vastly towards making the camera get out of the way of the photo to have shot a few thousand overwater images BEFORE taking the camera underwater, learning about how it operated and where its limitations were.

I've also very briefly used a Subal-housed D70 (this being my overwater camera, so I knew how to operate it) to take some split shots, and again the camera was very simple to point in the right direction and Just Took Photos with no experience of using it underwater:

Impressions of it were that it was pretty huge compared to the other cameras and distinct overkill for a novice underwater photographer! That said it was an extremely capable setup which did a great job on auto mode, and the D70 is still my favourite camera for my style of photography.

If I was buying again I'd probably go for the C5060 or modern equivalent as the extra camera size seemed easier to operate and thus more equipment-transparent for the wide angle shots I enjoy taking most. The f/2.8 lens was worth its weight in gold too for ambient light shots without cranking to noisy ISOs. All that said, I've discovered I prefer EITHER diving OR photography and haven't carried the camera on a dive for a while now!

Overall impression was as with diving and photography as separate disciplines, time underwater behind the camera is probably an awful lot more important than what camera you get, though the equipment does make the job easier if it's good enough to get out of your way.

Tim

(Edit: Forgot to say, I shoot everything in JPEG on the basis I like taking photos and having photos on the website/wall and don't enjoy the interim computer stage at all! If it doesn't look good straight out of the camera I'll generally just bin the shot, and will shoot lots so I can get away with that. Raw I'm told is a lot of fun if you like the darkroom-esque side of photography, but I don't! Plus, the Olys don't shoot RAW and I've never seen much difference bar size between the JPEG and TIFF output.)

Craig N · October 22nd, 2006, 07:43 PM

Hi Guys

Just to pickup on a piont.

When i have camera in hand, i forget about diving.

Too get successful with a camera underwater, the diving asepct must become second nature, instinctive almost.

often you will find that once the head is placed behind the camera the users situational awareness sucks, as the head is now in photography mode. causing lapsed diving skill which in turn kills the aquatic life that surrounds the reef.

The DIR system is the best to "bolt on" photography.

Once you have mastered your stable platform and sorted your instinctive skills you can then start to become at one with the imaging tool your carrying be it video or photo.

Number one rule of UW photography, get your diving sorted first !

in my humble opinion the Olympus 5060wz was the best dam compact camera on the market suited to underwater work, "i used to have one as a backup"

in todays day, the SP-350 is good, but still not as suited to UWP as the 5060wz was, DSLR prices are dropping fast, and with cheaper housings coming in all the time they are getting within the reach of fun shooters.

I do miss being able to take a selection of video clips whilst photographing, thats why the good lady gets a SP-350 to carry around !

All good stuff, i was beginning to think that i was the only one with a camera.

thanks

craig

p,s any of you UK chaps coming to stoney cove bash?

GLOC · October 22nd, 2006, 08:06 PM

I use an Oly 5050 which I bought in January 2 days before I went to Tenerife.

I shoot an S2 on land and was looking at getting a housing for it. I soon realised that there is a lot more to underwater photography than on-land especially regarding ports and strobes. I didn't know whether I wanted to spend £2.5k on a system that I had no experience of, so I bought the Oly-5050.

I don't use the strobe on it because of the backscatter so normally shoot f2.8, wide angle adaptor (Epoque 0.56x) and ISO 400.

I normally shoot JPEG but have experimented with RAW. The big issue with RAW on the Oly is that the write time is so long but I maybe going back to it because WB adjustment is so much easier without losing lots of information in the jpeg. However, as most of my work is monochrome, the colour shift isn't too much of a problem!

I also shoot some video on the Oly5050 and this is where I think I will be going - not sure yet. Just ordered a secondhand Top Dawg II with TD lights from the US for £1100 from Ebay

gets delivered on 2 Nov by a mate coming across for a busniess visit.

See you at the gig Craig.

lamont · October 22nd, 2006, 08:06 PM

i've just got a C-5050/PT-015/1GB CF and it cost me about $1,000 about 2 years ago... works great for what i want it to do...

tim · October 22nd, 2006, 08:13 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N)

p,s any of you UK chaps coming to stoney cove bash?

I'll be there, though I doubt my underwater camera will be.

I didn't like macro photography so much as unless diving with one of a couple of particular buddies who share my photograhic tastes and with whom I'd tend to photograph exactly the same things it was a bit of a lonely process and didn't feel terribly safe. Photographing the same bit of coral sometimes had fringe benefits such as my built-in flash firing their strobe to illuminate my shots :-)

Wide-angle diver portraits on the other hand really appealed as that style fitted in perfectly with team diving and if anything made it even more of an interactive and social dive.

Photography in general seemed to help rather than hinder diving skills as it forced technique to improve to get photos right.

Tim

A-M · October 22nd, 2006, 08:26 PM

I switched from my aCanon S50 which a was pretty familiar with to a D70s (Ikelite housing and DS125 and Inon 2000W strobe) a while ago and am still in a learning curve

Next week I will be experimenting with a new wide-angle lens (if it's in the shop finally) and an extra Ikelite 400 strobe mounted on my buddy's D12 in some French caves.... Hopefully with satisfactory results.

October 21st, 2006, 05:01 PM	#1 (permalink)
Craig N(Offline) New Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: UK Posts: 47	Cameras going underwater ? Hello All I'm very interested in what people are currently using to acquire their underwater images, Thought it might be very useful information on what might be turning up at the Stoney Cove Gig. so are you a Compact shooter ?, Olympus, Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax ? DSLR Shooter ? , NIKON, CANON ? FUJI S2 ? are you looking at maybe purchasing a system soon , but are totally bewilldered at whats on the market ? Do you have external flash gun/s on your system, are you looking at maybe purchasing an external gun ? how are you finding you system ?, Good,Bad, ugly ? are you happy with the images you get. Do you shoot RAW, or simple JPEG's ? pass on your feedback Who knows you might get some very useful information coming your way soon. regards Craig __________________ Aquaimaging Photography Proffessional Underwater Imaging Tec - Portraits - Sports - Marinelife by Craig Nelson www.aquaimaging.co.uk Now water can crash or it can flow, be water my friend Last edited by Craig N; October 21st, 2006 at 05:06 PM.

October 22nd, 2006, 07:21 AM	#2 (permalink)
Noel Johnson(Offline) New Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Burton-upon-Trent Posts: 64	Hi Craig, and good morning. I'm not sure I can make it to the Stoney gig but if I can I will. And I will bring the camera with me, of course. To answer your question(s) I'm a compact shooter. Fuji F410 with the 40 metre housing. I use the internal flash. I took my bonica slave strobe to the Red Sea with me last time from my old 35mm but it seemed a bit overkill. A new strobe would be nice but I simply cannot afford one at the moment. Happy with it? Yes, very. Its small enough to be manageable, I can set it up to 6 mp, I default it to 3mp though as I'm guilty of "chimping" underwater - ooh, ooh, theres a starfish (flash) ooh, ooh, theres a bigger fish (flash) etc. Image wise I'm happy with what I get, using it in the UK is different in terms of image but then maybe I'm just not a very good photographer It shoots in basic JPEGs only. Here's one from the Red Sea And by way of comparison here's one from Stoney Both taken with OB flash and macro mode engaged. Hope this helps, Noel. __________________ Team Bunny. Depth before Dishonour.

October 22nd, 2006, 04:22 PM	#3 (permalink)
Craig N(Offline) New Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: UK Posts: 47	Hi Noel Good to hear that your happy with what you have, so many people these days tend to blame the camera for all sorts of things, so often is the case that it's not the camera but the photographer that is at fault. Digital Compacts are coming on in leaps and bounds, we just need those that produce to give us a little more control at times, like FULL MANUAL modes, which i find can be missing these days with even some expensive cameras. Below are a couple of snaps of mine which i took a number of years ago here in a UK quarry. You'd be suprised if i told you what i shot them with. regards craig __________________ Aquaimaging Photography Proffessional Underwater Imaging Tec - Portraits - Sports - Marinelife by Craig Nelson www.aquaimaging.co.uk Now water can crash or it can flow, be water my friend Last edited by Craig N; October 22nd, 2006 at 04:26 PM.

October 22nd, 2006, 06:51 PM	#5 (permalink)
tim (Online) Big Grin Syndrome Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Oxford Posts: 455	Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N) I'm very interested in what people are currently using to acquire their underwater images I've shot with Olympus-housed C60z and C5060, and with a Subal-housed D70. The C60z belongs to me and I used a Halycon 10W focusable HID as my light for taking close-up shots. This was a good light for photos as it had a very even flood beam, which I've noticed my new Salvo doesn't have (there's a dark spot in the centre). I found a technique with the light in the left hand and camera in the right hand was very natural and worked very well for setting up images. The camera did a fine job focusing on static subjects and seemed to meter well without me having to think about it, viz: and: The plus points were small size and easy one-handed operation, the minus points were soft focus under f/5.6, slow focus for dynamic subjects, and miniscule battery life with the built-in flast or continuous focus (as few as fifty shots, as opposed to 150 with single focus). I tried putting a Sea&Sea wide angle lens on with a couple of step-up rings for ambient light photos but was never skilled enough to get decent results with a rather imbalanced setup. I found the front-heavy camera very difficult to hold steady and get sharp shots from; I kept on having to think about the camera, not about the image. I guess that combination would need a lot of experience to get good results from, though I can't see any reason why it wouldn't take great photos in experienced hands. The C5060 I borrowed for a week in the Red Sea had a very sweet and sharp f/2.8 lens which with an external wide angle was great for big ambient light shots. It was neat and balanced enough to get right out of my way and leave me thinking about the image. The focus was quick and sharp, the metering was fine in auto, and it left me alone to make great black and white images with no experience of operating the camera. This is just what I want cameras to do; get out of the way of the art! This really was just point and shoot fun photography, only the third time I'd had the camera in my hands, so relying on the camera to Do The Right Thing with little tech input from me: I found using the external wide angle lens to be MUCH easier as a novice with the slightly larger camera, though conversely I found close up shots to be easier with the small C60z. I also enjoyed using the flood-focus HID as a light as it let me see what the lighting effect looked like in a video-light style as opposed to strobes which I think need a little more experience to visualise the result from my limited experience of using one. That said, the C5060 I borrowed I did turn the flash (a Sea&Sea YS90) on on automatic mode for one shot and it came out fine with point-and-shoot novice skills, so I guess the camera and strobe knew how to work well! I found it a bit unsatisfying compared to the HID though as with no experience of underwater photography it was point and guess rather than actually envisaging the image beforehand. An additional point I'd make with the Olympus compacts is that I don't find the interface entirely intuitive and it helped vastly towards making the camera get out of the way of the photo to have shot a few thousand overwater images BEFORE taking the camera underwater, learning about how it operated and where its limitations were. I've also very briefly used a Subal-housed D70 (this being my overwater camera, so I knew how to operate it) to take some split shots, and again the camera was very simple to point in the right direction and Just Took Photos with no experience of using it underwater: Impressions of it were that it was pretty huge compared to the other cameras and distinct overkill for a novice underwater photographer! That said it was an extremely capable setup which did a great job on auto mode, and the D70 is still my favourite camera for my style of photography. If I was buying again I'd probably go for the C5060 or modern equivalent as the extra camera size seemed easier to operate and thus more equipment-transparent for the wide angle shots I enjoy taking most. The f/2.8 lens was worth its weight in gold too for ambient light shots without cranking to noisy ISOs. All that said, I've discovered I prefer EITHER diving OR photography and haven't carried the camera on a dive for a while now! Overall impression was as with diving and photography as separate disciplines, time underwater behind the camera is probably an awful lot more important than what camera you get, though the equipment does make the job easier if it's good enough to get out of your way. Tim (Edit: Forgot to say, I shoot everything in JPEG on the basis I like taking photos and having photos on the website/wall and don't enjoy the interim computer stage at all! If it doesn't look good straight out of the camera I'll generally just bin the shot, and will shoot lots so I can get away with that. Raw I'm told is a lot of fun if you like the darkroom-esque side of photography, but I don't! Plus, the Olys don't shoot RAW and I've never seen much difference bar size between the JPEG and TIFF output.) Last edited by tim; October 22nd, 2006 at 06:54 PM. Reason: Adding JPEG/RAW comment.

October 22nd, 2006, 07:43 PM	#6 (permalink)
Craig N(Offline) New Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: UK Posts: 47	Hi Guys Just to pickup on a piont. When i have camera in hand, i forget about diving. Too get successful with a camera underwater, the diving asepct must become second nature, instinctive almost. often you will find that once the head is placed behind the camera the users situational awareness sucks, as the head is now in photography mode. causing lapsed diving skill which in turn kills the aquatic life that surrounds the reef. The DIR system is the best to "bolt on" photography. Once you have mastered your stable platform and sorted your instinctive skills you can then start to become at one with the imaging tool your carrying be it video or photo. Number one rule of UW photography, get your diving sorted first ! in my humble opinion the Olympus 5060wz was the best dam compact camera on the market suited to underwater work, "i used to have one as a backup" in todays day, the SP-350 is good, but still not as suited to UWP as the 5060wz was, DSLR prices are dropping fast, and with cheaper housings coming in all the time they are getting within the reach of fun shooters. I do miss being able to take a selection of video clips whilst photographing, thats why the good lady gets a SP-350 to carry around ! All good stuff, i was beginning to think that i was the only one with a camera. thanks craig p,s any of you UK chaps coming to stoney cove bash? __________________ Aquaimaging Photography Proffessional Underwater Imaging Tec - Portraits - Sports - Marinelife by Craig Nelson www.aquaimaging.co.uk Now water can crash or it can flow, be water my friend

October 22nd, 2006, 08:06 PM	#7 (permalink)
GLOC(Offline) Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants Posts: 1,963	I use an Oly 5050 which I bought in January 2 days before I went to Tenerife. I shoot an S2 on land and was looking at getting a housing for it. I soon realised that there is a lot more to underwater photography than on-land especially regarding ports and strobes. I didn't know whether I wanted to spend £2.5k on a system that I had no experience of, so I bought the Oly-5050. I don't use the strobe on it because of the backscatter so normally shoot f2.8, wide angle adaptor (Epoque 0.56x) and ISO 400. I normally shoot JPEG but have experimented with RAW. The big issue with RAW on the Oly is that the write time is so long but I maybe going back to it because WB adjustment is so much easier without losing lots of information in the jpeg. However, as most of my work is monochrome, the colour shift isn't too much of a problem! I also shoot some video on the Oly5050 and this is where I think I will be going - not sure yet. Just ordered a secondhand Top Dawg II with TD lights from the US for £1100 from Ebay gets delivered on 2 Nov by a mate coming across for a busniess visit. See you at the gig Craig. __________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King

October 22nd, 2006, 08:06 PM	#8 (permalink)
lamont(Offline) APLP Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 181	i've just got a C-5050/PT-015/1GB CF and it cost me about $1,000 about 2 years ago... works great for what i want it to do...

October 22nd, 2006, 08:13 PM	#9 (permalink)
tim (Online) Big Grin Syndrome Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Oxford Posts: 455	Quote: (Originally Posted by Craig N) p,s any of you UK chaps coming to stoney cove bash? I'll be there, though I doubt my underwater camera will be. I didn't like macro photography so much as unless diving with one of a couple of particular buddies who share my photograhic tastes and with whom I'd tend to photograph exactly the same things it was a bit of a lonely process and didn't feel terribly safe. Photographing the same bit of coral sometimes had fringe benefits such as my built-in flash firing their strobe to illuminate my shots :-) Wide-angle diver portraits on the other hand really appealed as that style fitted in perfectly with team diving and if anything made it even more of an interactive and social dive. Photography in general seemed to help rather than hinder diving skills as it forced technique to improve to get photos right. Tim

October 22nd, 2006, 08:26 PM	#10 (permalink)
A-M(Offline) Cave addict Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Netherlands Posts: 370	I switched from my aCanon S50 which a was pretty familiar with to a D70s (Ikelite housing and DS125 and Inon 2000W strobe) a while ago and am still in a learning curve Next week I will be experimenting with a new wide-angle lens (if it's in the shop finally) and an extra Ikelite 400 strobe mounted on my buddy's D12 in some French caves.... Hopefully with satisfactory results.