Underwater camera/housing recommendations

[Wes]

Got a friend that is looking for a good setup to shoot underwater with. She hasn't told me her budget, but I think she'll want to keep it under $1k. She says that it needs to go down to 30'. I looked around the B&H site a bit but am not really sure what I'm looking at. One nugget that I picked up is that the Fantasea housings tend to fog and leak.

Let me know what y'all think.

Thanks!

[Detonate]

SLR or Point and Shoot? That would be my first question.

Next, is what kind of results is she looking for? Stuff for memories, or stuff for publication? Wide Angle? Macro?

When I first got into underwater photography I started with a simple setup of an Olympus C5050 and just the housing. No strobe.


It worked very well for macro, but any wide angle shots would be very blue. And if you leave the flash on taking a wide shot, it will blow out any backscatter in the water.

Once I added the single strobe above, I was able to do a lot more.

Here are some shots with that above rig






There are many advantages to this type of rig.
Very Portable
You can go from shooting Wide Angle to Macro on the same dive
Affordable

This biggest disadvantage is shutter lag, and lots of it.

This was my main reason for upgrading to a SLR rig.

I started with just 1 strobe, a housing, and one port for shooting the 18-70. Not a bad combo, but I soon started finding shots I couldn't get. I wanted more wide angle. Better macro. I need some focus assist. I wanted to fill in shadows....

I ended up with this monster.


It's an addiction that is hard to curb. This rig was relatively tame underwater, but traveling with it was very very hard. Managing lens swaps and port swaps above water a pain. If you aren't on a photo friendly boat, you'll find divers that toss their masks in the rinse bucket, or just in general are rough with your gear.

While I did get some very satisfying shots. I don't find them to be that much, if any better than the ones I got with my point and shoot. Not to mention the greater expense and inconvenience I was putting myself through. I started consuming every moment of my diving with photography. Both in the water, and during my SIT, swapping batteries, lenses, ports, memory cards, etc...

And for someone that goes on maybe 2 dive trips a year, I finally put a stop to it.

Here are some shots with the D70 rig.







Eventually I dropped photography and went with Videography. I had a video camera in a very compact housing. No lights. And it had a monitor integrated into the back. Easy to travel with, and almost as small as my point and shoot camera rig. Just dive and point, and then you do all the editing when you get home.

Here is a video I shot.

Anyways. Sorry for the long history and rant. Just some things to think about it.

If she is looking to stay under $1k, I'd say look at Ikelite.

[colinisms]

Originally Posted by Wes

Got a friend that is looking for a good setup to shoot underwater with. She hasn't told me her budget, but I think she'll want to keep it under $1k. She says that it needs to go down to 30'. I looked around the B&H site a bit but am not really sure what I'm looking at. One nugget that I picked up is that the Fantasea housings tend to fog and leak.

Let me know what y'all think.

Thanks!

Wes,

I actually have one for sale for around that much. Its my old Canon Rebel, with a Fantasea casing. I've never taken it under water, so I couldn't tell you whether it fogs or not, but I doubt it leaks. I pitched it into the pool at my scuba class, and it held up just fine.

The guy before me said he used the casing maybe 3 times, I only used it in a pool.

Let me know if you're interested, and I can get some pictures of it.

Colin

[migrider56]

There is one for sale canon 20d , 17-85mm lens, strobe and case on craigs list in austin area search under canon. http://austin.craigslist.org/pho/596482359.html

[Wes]

Thanks, guys. My friend freaked when she saw how much underwater gear costs. She's going to look into renting gear when they take their trip next year.

[dbphotos]

Jim,

What video setup are you using? I'm planning another dive trip later this year to the Carribean and thnking I may want to do video.

[Detonate]

I was using a Sony VX2100 in a Sea and Sea Housing.


Looks big, but it was really pretty tame. This is the low light champion hands down.

However, I decided I wanted to upgrade to HD. So I went with a Sony A1U in a Fisheye Housing.



Super, super, super compact and easy to use. Instead of a monitor, the housing uses a mirror which works extremely well.

Even though the footage I shot was HD, the quality was not as good as the VX2100 because of the low light performance. With that said, I'm shooting for National Geographic, and the compactness of the Seatool housing has me hooked.

I'm actually just about to sell my Sony A1U. I'm now moving away from tapes and towards a solid state HD camera.

[frenchefusa]

you can check on leisure pro web site. U can have a kind a bag for 300 dollars for an slr. The point when you are at 40 feets the bag compressing the camera a little . And camera could shoot by itself. But it s cheap

[jamesw]

I like Jim's original advice: she can go on ebay and get an Olympus or Canon camera and housing for <$500 That would be a great start and she'd have a blast.

Jim: are you shooting for NG? Holy cow! I'd love to hear more about that.

Cheers
James

[Detonate]

LOL. That was a typo. Basically what I was saying is that I'm NOT shooting for National Geographic, which is why the compactness of the housing is more important than the quality of the video. To a point at least.

[mattman]

Hey Jim - how about the under $100 dollar level?

matt

[jamesw]

You may be able to get one of the older Oly cameras and Oly housings for <$100 on Ebay. Think Oly 3040 and the Oly PT010 housing.

Cheers
James