Recommendations for underwater camera

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi · Jun 22, 2003

I'm thiniking of buying a digital camera that I can get the best results without breaking the bank.

Currently, I have in mind the Canon S50 and the housing. But I heard from my dive master that the housing with the S50 fogged up easily. I'm not sure if this is the case so I would like to know from you.

Also in mind is the G3 with maybe 10Bar or Ikellite housing.

Any suggestions?

gerry baskin · Jun 22, 2003

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:
I'm thiniking of buying a digital camera that I can get the best
results without breaking the bank.

Currently, I have in mind the Canon S50 and the housing. But I
heard from my dive master that the housing with the S50 fogged up
easily. I'm not sure if this is the case so I would like to know
from you.

Also in mind is the G3 with maybe 10Bar or Ikellite housing.

Any suggestions?

I have the S30 and housing. It takes GREAT photos, even with just the built in flash. It does fog up, but that is easily avoided. Just get silica gel packs and put them in the housing.

You can buy some called moisture munchers from diversdiscount.com.

Also, turn off the display when not shooting UW. It saves battery and also I think the LCD gives off a bit of heat.

You have a great camera and housing, why not at least try it before upgrading?

GB

Bart P. · Jun 23, 2003

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:
Also in mind is the G3 with maybe 10Bar or Ikellite housing.

I have the G2 with Ikelite housing and external strobe. Until now very satisfied, but I only did 5 or 6 dives with it yet. The only issue seems to be strobe synchronisation under certain circumstances. The srobe is synchronised with an external TTL sensor which seems to have problems sometimes with the pre-flash of the G2. I am still looking into this, seems that I might have to send it back to Ikelite for adjustment. The quality of the pictures however is great!

The Ikelite housing itself is very solid, so it is a little bit bulkier above water, but it handles very nicely under water.

I am not sure however that G3 + Ikelite housing + external strobe (you will need/want one some day) is not "breaking the bank" as you mentionned.

About the S50: a friend of mine had the S30 with Canon housing and indeed had fogging problems. He did not have any silica gel packages however. I think this should help. All depends also on the weather where you're diving. If it's hot and humid, you could for example put your camera in the housing in your hotel in your room (supposing for example it has AC), where it's less humid.

The Canon housing is also less solid, so make sure you have an insurance against flooding! (this is valid for any kind of housing).

The Canon housing doesn't let you have an external strobe if I am not mistaken. All depends how far you want to go with UW-photography. If you can, try it out first before buying, that's always usefull.

See also wetpixel.com for some interesting discussions on their forum about UW-photography.

--
Bart P.
(see plan for eqpmt)

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi · Jun 23, 2003

What would be your recommendations for a camera with housing (not breaking the bank) and in the 3 - 4 Mega Pixel range.

josholona · Jun 23, 2003

I own the Canon S40 and housing, use the silica packs and antifog on the lens and I have no problems with fog. I love the camera it takes amazing pictures. The underwater housing is a added bonus to a good camera. Plus this option is a lot more affordable than other options, you can pick the housing up from buy.com for only $170. Most other housing are really expensive.

Josh

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:
What would be your recommendations for a camera with housing (not
breaking the bank) and in the 3 - 4 Mega Pixel range.

--
Josh

NormanAllen · Jun 23, 2003

Has anyone been underwater with their S400 and the housing? I am about to buy one, but I would like to know if the silica packs will fit into the housing for the S400. Also, for those using an external flash, any recommendations?

josholona said:
Josh

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:

What would be your recommendations for a camera with housing (not
breaking the bank) and in the 3 - 4 Mega Pixel range.

Click to expand...

--
Josh

Bart P. · Jun 23, 2003

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:
What would be your recommendations for a camera with housing (not
breaking the bank) and in the 3 - 4 Mega Pixel range.

All depends what you want to do with your UW camera.

If it's just for your holidays two or three times per year, then the S30/S40/S45/S50 is fine. My friends pictures with the S30 were really very nice. I have been looking through Ikelite's website and they do have the possibility to add an external strobe to other (probably cheaper) housings from Canon, Olympus and Sony. However they did not test TTL synchronisation on the S45 and S50 yet, so there is a small risk. Here are the links:
http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/opt10dlx.html
http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/dig_definitions.html

and Ikelite's comments in:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2182&s=7fde3a09c6412632324070c8bedfe428

The strobe is necessary to bring in colours at greater depths. You can use the built-in flash of your camera to start with, but you will probably want to add the external strobe later.

If you are more serious into UW photography, then the G2/G3 with Ikelite housing is a good option. The lens quality of the G2 is better, you have a very nice camera for taking pictures above water and with the Ikelite housing you can add extra UW-lenses to your housing, for example for wide-angle shots. You can find prices on the Ikelite website for their stuff.

By the way, I don't work for Ikelite ;-) They just happen to have a good quality and not too expensive housing for my G2, which I first chose because of it's picture quality and nice features.

The next step (if you get really serious about this) is to move to DSLR's (I found housings for the D60 and Nikon's D100, but not yet for the 10D, it's too recent), but then I guess you're busting the bank! Although you can use the DS125 strobe on those if you want. So you don't loose that investment

I know, it's a difficult choice. But that was part of the fun for me!
--
Bart P.
(see plan for eqpmt)

NormanAllen · Jun 24, 2003

Any people out there with S400 underwater experience?

Bart P. said:
Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:

What would be your recommendations for a camera with housing (not
breaking the bank) and in the 3 - 4 Mega Pixel range.

Click to expand...

All depends what you want to do with your UW camera.

If it's just for your holidays two or three times per year, then
the S30/S40/S45/S50 is fine. My friends pictures with the S30 were
really very nice. I have been looking through Ikelite's website and
they do have the possibility to add an external strobe to other
(probably cheaper) housings from Canon, Olympus and Sony. However
they did not test TTL synchronisation on the S45 and S50 yet, so
there is a small risk. Here are the links:
http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/opt10dlx.html
http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/dig_definitions.html

and Ikelite's comments in:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=2182&s=7fde3a09c6412632324070c8bedfe428

The strobe is necessary to bring in colours at greater depths. You
can use the built-in flash of your camera to start with, but you
will probably want to add the external strobe later.

If you are more serious into UW photography, then the G2/G3 with
Ikelite housing is a good option. The lens quality of the G2 is
better, you have a very nice camera for taking pictures above water
and with the Ikelite housing you can add extra UW-lenses to your
housing, for example for wide-angle shots. You can find prices on
the Ikelite website for their stuff.

By the way, I don't work for Ikelite ;-) They just happen to have a
good quality and not too expensive housing for my G2, which I first
chose because of it's picture quality and nice features.

The next step (if you get really serious about this) is to move to
DSLR's (I found housings for the D60 and Nikon's D100, but not yet
for the 10D, it's too recent), but then I guess you're busting the
bank! Although you can use the DS125 strobe on those if you want.
So you don't loose that investment

I know, it's a difficult choice. But that was part of the fun for me!
--
Bart P.
(see plan for eqpmt)

SwanDiving · Jun 24, 2003

Hello Bart P.

I'm new here and new to UW digital photog. Am looking at the Canon S50 to buy. My purpose is shallow water photography, say to 30 or maybe 40 feet max. depth.

I believe you are correct; Re: no external strobe for housing. Do you know if the lack of an external strobe would be of significant detrement for shallow water, day time, UW photography?

Any insight is greatful, thanks,

Bruce S.

Bart P. said:
Bart P. wrote:

The Canon housing doesn't let you have an external strobe if I am
not mistaken. All depends how far you want to go with
UW-photography.

Thomas Messinger · Jun 24, 2003

Extrernal strobes are essential for underwater photog. Even at 30 ft. your pics will be too blue.

check out http://www.cathychurch.com/phototips.html

and her comments on U/W digital phot part 1.

Tom

SwanDiving said:
I'm new here and new to UW digital photog. Am looking at the Canon
S50 to buy. My purpose is shallow water photography, say to 30 or
maybe 40 feet max. depth.

I believe you are correct; Re: no external strobe for housing. Do
you know if the lack of an external strobe would be of significant
detrement for shallow water, day time, UW photography?

Any insight is greatful, thanks,

Bruce S.

SwanDiving said:

Bart P. wrote:

The Canon housing doesn't let you have an external strobe if I am
not mistaken. All depends how far you want to go with
UW-photography.

Click to expand...

jscher2000 · Jun 24, 2003

Norman L. Allen said:
Has anyone been underwater with their S400 and the housing? I am
about to buy one, but I would like to know if the silica packs will
fit into the housing for the S400. Also, for those using an
external flash, any recommendations?

Try a search:
http://search.dpreview.com/forums/search.asp?query=s400+underwater&forum=1010

Bart P. · Jun 25, 2003

Hello Bruce,

I am also quite new to UW phtography, but have been searching around on the web a lot before buying my housing. My only experience currently is only in the Netherlands in "dark" waters. Going to the Red Sea in September.

What I found however is that without an external strobe, you can probably get good colors until approx. 10 ft and after that all red and yellow colors will start to fade. With the S50 in the Canon housing, you can compensate a little by forcing the internal flash.

The major improvement of the strobe in clear waters is to add colors. This is especially valid for close-up pictures (up to 5-6 ft I think). Subjects further away will not have much advantage of a strobe, so it's not that you can't take the picture, but the colours will be more blue-ish.

Now the Canon housing doesn't foresee the attachment of an external strobe, but if you search a little on the web you will find possibilities for adding external strobes afterwards. I know Ikelite has a possibility ( http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/opt10dlx.html ), but probably others (e.g. Sea & Sea) will have it also I guess. Of course, with an external strobe you will be in another league regarding pricing. Ikelite's tray is 75$ plus the strobe at 650$ or 1050$ depending on the model...

So it's a bit up to you: do you just want to take pictures occasionally and do not want to invest a lot of money, then be conscious that colors fade very rapidly. The option of course is to stay above 10 ft. In general you will find very nice corals and fish at those depths too. You can add a strobe afterwards if you are not satisfied and want to improve your pictures.

If you are more serious about UW photography, then surf around on the web a bit more. There is a lot of information available.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
Bart.

SwanDiving said:
I'm new here and new to UW digital photog. Am looking at the Canon
S50 to buy. My purpose is shallow water photography, say to 30 or
maybe 40 feet max. depth.

I believe you are correct; Re: no external strobe for housing. Do
you know if the lack of an external strobe would be of significant
detrement for shallow water, day time, UW photography?

Any insight is greatful, thanks,

Bruce S.

SwanDiving said:

Bart P. wrote:

The Canon housing doesn't let you have an external strobe if I am
not mistaken. All depends how far you want to go with
UW-photography.

Click to expand...

--
Bart P.
(see plan for eqpmt)

SwanDiving · Jun 25, 2003

Bart,

Thanks for your in depth reply and I do hope you have great dives in the Red Sea. That's a place I would love to dive one day.

I hoped that the internal flash might be satisfactory for gianing color in close up shots, say to about 5 feet (and at greater depth than 10 feet--maybe up to 30-40 feet depth). But you are talking about stobes helping only up to 5-6 feet distance. I'm not sure if that feels practical, for me. If I wanted to take phots of other divers, I would need probably a 10 foot range and a strobe may not even be helpful anyway.

I looked at the Ikelite info you suggested and that price is a bit steep for me.

If you find info that is supportive of my objective I would appreciate if you could share it with me. You can reach me at: [email protected].

Thanks again,
Bruce

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi · Jun 26, 2003

Dear all,

Thank you for your advice and suggestions. Well, here in Thailand there are many beautiful diving sites, especially in Similan. I'll try to send some of the photos for you, provided that I've finally decided which model I want to buy.

Many people here in Thailand, at least some dive masters who also do UW photography, suggested that 2 brands, Sony and Olympus. Well, personally I've been using Canon EOS 30 for my everyday photography and I love it. So I'm thinking of choosing one from Canon (going against the norms?). I like the S50, but also the G3 or even the G5! However, as I've just begun my UW photography, the G3/G5 are a bit steep, well, especially the housing and the strobes! Yes, the S50 and a housing from Canon is a better choice here. However, I'm still concern about the fogging and also, can any of you tell me if the macro feature on the S50 is good? It would help a lot if you can send some pictures that you took too.

My email is [email protected].

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi · Jun 26, 2003

Josh,

How are the pictures when diving deeper down? Are they too dark and do you need extra lights? well, At the max., I won't be going deeper than 40 m.

josholona said:
Josh

Patchrapon Kanjanasiripakdhi said:

What would be your recommendations for a camera with housing (not
breaking the bank) and in the 3 - 4 Mega Pixel range.

Click to expand...

--
Josh

Bart P. · Jun 26, 2003

Guys,

One of my friends (the one with the S30) just came back from the Red Sea and asked me to put his pictures on my website. As soon as I do I will let you know, you can judge yourself for the quality then.

Have fun till then.

Regards,
Bart.

NormanAllen · Jun 26, 2003

Bart P. said:
Guys,

One of my friends (the one with the S30) just came back from the
Red Sea and asked me to put his pictures on my website. As soon as
I do I will let you know, you can judge yourself for the quality
then.

Have fun till then.

Regards,
Bart.

SwanDiving · Jun 26, 2003

And please include the link to your site.

Thanks!
Bruce

Bart P. said:
Guys,

One of my friends (the one with the S30) just came back from the
Red Sea and asked me to put his pictures on my website. As soon as
I do I will let you know, you can judge yourself for the quality
then.

Have fun till then.

Regards,
Bart.

Bart P. · Aug 8, 2003

OK, it took some time because of some unexpected circumstances, but here are the S30 pictures on my website. The URL is http://www.bart-en-veerle.be then select "Foto's" then "Duikclub" then "Ann en Marc op de Brothers" (yes it's in Dutch).

The pictures are just resized, no retouching in any other way. Some (nightpics) are with the in-camera strobe. The camera is an S30 with Canon housing.

Have fun.

SwanDiving said:
Thanks!
Bruce

Bart P. said:

Guys,

One of my friends (the one with the S30) just came back from the
Red Sea and asked me to put his pictures on my website. As soon as
I do I will let you know, you can judge yourself for the quality
then.

Have fun till then.

Regards,
Bart.

Click to expand...

--
Bart P.
[Equipment in profile]

NormanAllen · Aug 8, 2003

Very nice! I like these a lot. I'm mostly impressed because you took these without the strobe (except the night shots as you indicated). I think I shall buy a housing now. (S400)

Bart P. said:
The pictures are just resized, no retouching in any other way. Some
(nightpics) are with the in-camera strobe. The camera is an S30
with Canon housing.

Have fun.

SwanDiving said:

Thanks!
Bruce

Bart P. said:

Guys,

One of my friends (the one with the S30) just came back from the
Red Sea and asked me to put his pictures on my website. As soon as
I do I will let you know, you can judge yourself for the quality
then.

Have fun till then.

Regards,
Bart.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Bart P.
[Equipment in profile]

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