Which camera should I buy for the beginning underwater photography?

nafik · Jan 10, 2017

PHXAZCRAIG said:
I know little about mirrorless, but the common wisdom is that AF speed still lags behind a DSLR by a substantial amount.

The only mirrorless I have tried are my Nikon 1 cameras. I bought the first (V1) with the idea that it would be better than the Canon s95 I was using, but I could never find a housing for it. Then I got a V2, but never used it diving. (Marvelously small though). And then I bought a J4 with a Nikon dive housing, because both were on sale for about $300 combined. I did use that underwater once, but the housing was limited, and (in my opinion) the camera was mostly awful (for underwater).

The biggest problems I've had with my Canon point-n-shoots underwater have been autofocus performance and lack of external flash. AF issues show up constantly underwater, but the gist of it is that the autofocus speed was too slow. I have lots of shots of fish tails, and lots of fish going out of frame.

Other than the sheer size of things (and the expense), I'm very happy with the performance of the D810 underwater. DSLR autofocus has been a long time coming for me, and it sure is useful.

Sharkgal · Jan 10, 2017

I have some suggestions that I'm happy to share with you! First, buy the very best you can afford. If I had done this when I started shooting underwater twelve years ago, I would have saved myself a ton of money. I started out with an inexpensive camera and housing that quickly held me back...moved up, then moved up again and again. I spent quite a bit more than I would have if I had gotten the best to start out with. I'm now using an Olympus OMD 5 (lots of capability) in an Olympus housing and I LOVE it. Micro 4/3 format produces excellent photos and is less bulky than a DSLR/housing. Get TWO good strobes (my Inon 2000s are great). Read reviews on Backscatter and Reef Photo and Video, they are very helpful. Subscribe to Lightroom and Photoshop, they are great for cleaning up your pics. And remember, underwater photography is not for the faint of heart. The learning curve is steep, you'll trash lots more shots than you keep, but those good ones are worth all the frustration! Good luck and enjoy!

:-x

--
Sharkgal

nafik · Jan 10, 2017

Sharkgal said:
I have some suggestions that I'm happy to share with you! First, buy the very best you can afford. If I had done this when I started shooting underwater twelve years ago, I would have saved myself a ton of money. I started out with an inexpensive camera and housing that quickly held me back...moved up, then moved up again and again. I spent quite a bit more than I would have if I had gotten the best to start out with. I'm now using an Olympus OMD 5 (lots of capability) in an Olympus housing and I LOVE it. Micro 4/3 format produces excellent photos and is less bulky than a DSLR/housing. Get TWO good strobes (my Inon 2000s are great). Read reviews on Backscatter and Reef Photo and Video, they are very helpful. Subscribe to Lightroom and Photoshop, they are great for cleaning up your pics. And remember, underwater photography is not for the faint of heart. The learning curve is steep, you'll trash lots more shots than you keep, but those good ones are worth all the frustration! Good luck and enjoy!

:-x

--
Sharkgal

a prudent advice to an intern who is asking in his post about underwater photography while learning freediving and who is not exactly an experienced photographer.

I can see him dragging this $4000 Olympus rig underwater for a 5 minutes dive while holding his breath. Lots of good pictures I am sure.

good luck and enjoy.

--
M.
Nice camera...now show me the pictures.

PHXAZCRAIG · Jan 10, 2017

Note that I said autofocus performance, not autofocus problem.

primozp · Jan 11, 2017

nafik said:
I cannot imagine taking pictures while free diving. It is difficult enough while scuba diving but at least I can sit and wait for the opportunity of a good shot. without worrying about air.

It is not easy, but it is possible, in fact I love doing this (each year at least 20 days, each day at least 50 (free)dives in 2 to 3 (1 to 2 hours long) sessions.

It required an average of 4 to 6, 45 seconds long (free)dives up to 14m deep, to take photos like this:

Camera (compact, underwater) Nikon AW130, fins, mask, snorkel, only natural light and without the use of weights!

Me in action

https://flic.kr/p/JBoipU

https://flic.kr/p/JBocc3

AW130

FT5

D30

My UW cameras:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/albums/72157633756660405

--
My (mostly underwater) photos and videos taken with
Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic, Canon and Nikon compact UW cameras (2004 - 2016):
photos @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/sets/
video footage @ http://www.youtube.com/user/PrimozP/playlists?sort=dd&flow=grid&view=1

nafik · Jan 11, 2017

primozp said:
nafik said:

I cannot imagine taking pictures while free diving. It is difficult enough while scuba diving but at least I can sit and wait for the opportunity of a good shot. without worrying about air.

Click to expand...

It is not easy, but it is possible, in fact I love doing this (each year at least 20 days, each day at least 50 (free)dives in 2 to 3 (1 to 2 hours long) sessions.

It required an average of 4 to 6, 45 seconds long (free)dives up to 14m deep, to take photos like this:

Camera (compact, underwater) Nikon AW130, fins, mask, snorkel, only natural light and without the use of weights!

Me in action

https://flic.kr/p/JBoipU

https://flic.kr/p/JBocc3

AW130

FT5

D30

My UW cameras:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/albums/72157633756660405

--
My (mostly underwater) photos and videos taken with
Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic, Canon and Nikon compact UW cameras (2004 - 2016):
photos @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/primozp/sets/
video footage @ http://www.youtube.com/user/PrimozP/playlists?sort=dd&flow=grid&view=1

OP is learning free diving, has no experience in photography and asking what camera to buy, including D7200.

Not sure if learning photography while learning free diving is such a good idea.

as for your pictures taken while free diving, my hat is off to you.

It takes me quite a lot of time of following the "model" and positioning myself before I actually take a picture. Sometimes I spend the whole dive on scuba doing just that and come back with nothing. I do not do snapshots.

--
M.
Nice camera...now show me the pictures.

dietaryfibre · Jan 11, 2017

Thanks for replying. I will definitely spend some time looking into those sites. I need to search more about sony rx100 series, so many people are recommending those to me

dietaryfibre · Jan 11, 2017

I love the photo and I'm sure I can't hold my breath for 10 mins haha. One of my biggest worries is buying an expensive camera and didn't know where to start. I do feel it's going to be worth it to spend time and money. I'm praying hard that my internship place might have someone who can teach me about those.

dietaryfibre · Jan 11, 2017

Those are cool pictures, and thank you for your advices. I was thinking about some other lens without checking the meikon capacity. I might go with a mirrorless now rather than d7000 or d7200 because of the zise and weight. Let me know if you have any recommendations about mirrorless camera

dietaryfibre · Jan 11, 2017

I will nnoote that, thanks

D810 IS REALLY GOOD CAMERA but it's over my budget :,) but send me more photos, i would like to look at them

if slr sizes can be small, i think d750 might be more budget friendly to me, even it's not as good as d810

dietaryfibre · Jan 11, 2017

I love your photos , and i notice some of them are macro and others are wide angle. Did you use wet lens or anything recommend ?

dietaryfibre · Jan 11, 2017

I was imaging I bought a camera and can't even hold a breath for 5 mins while struggling to take a pic of passing by turtle. it's a pretty funny scenes.

I think I need a lot of improving on freediving and photography in general and really appreciate all suggestions.

$4000 is way over my budget, but one of Olympus OMD 5 is cheap as $500 which now i'm looking into. I wouldn't go for toooo cheap camera as the image quality and things like that, but I can't afford a high end camera too. so it's super hard for people to help me with limited budget and everything I need haha.

Thanks everyone for helping so far, i need more and more advices.

Good thing, the internship orientation starts on this friday. One of the stuff there is a professional underwater photographer, so I hope I can learn some skills from him after getting the camera

nafik · Jan 11, 2017

dietaryfibre said:
I love your photos , and i notice some of them are macro and others are wide angle. Did you use wet lens or anything recommend ?

Thanks.

Nope, just camera in the housing. no additional lenses no strobe or lights. Just camera in the housing. Each compact camera I ever used has macro setting and i always buy the camera that has the widest lens.

I also try to keep things in perspective. The world is not really waiting of another picture of a seascape or marine life no matter how good they are.

UW photography is something I do to keep me interested in scuba diving after almost 30 years.

nafik · Jan 11, 2017

dietaryfibre said:
I was imaging I bought a camera and can't even hold a breath for 5 mins while struggling to take a pic of passing by turtle. it's a pretty funny scenes.

I think I need a lot of improving on freediving and photography in general and really appreciate all suggestions.

$4000 is way over my budget, but one of Olympus OMD 5 is cheap as $500 which now i'm looking into. I wouldn't go for toooo cheap camera as the image quality and things like that, but I can't afford a high end camera too. so it's super hard for people to help me with limited budget and everything I need haha.

Thanks everyone for helping so far, i need more and more advices.

Good thing, the internship orientation starts on this friday. One of the stuff there is a professional underwater photographer, so I hope I can learn some skills from him after getting the camera

learning land photography first is paramount.

James809 · Jan 11, 2017

dietaryfibre said:
Those are cool pictures, and thank you for your advices. I was thinking about some other lens without checking the meikon capacity. I might go with a mirrorless now rather than d7000 or d7200 because of the zise and weight. Let me know if you have any recommendations about mirrorless camera

My other underwater rig in the Nikon J1 and Nikon housing. The housing fits the J1 and J2, and was last $100 on Amazon.

You could do a Nikon 1 J4 and Nikon waterproof case for around $600-700, and again add the $75 underwater light and stil be under your budget. Here's some SOOC shots I've done with my J1, the J4 is bound to be better:

I took these early on in my underwater photo days. One thing I learned in the process was to go shutter-preferred to freeze the action, and let the light and Auto-ISO do their thing to complete the photo. Nikon's algorithm closes the aperture first on P mode, and you get slower shutter speeds and cause more blur than you may like. Not a big deal during the day, but you can see in the second photo it's a little blurry. I used that $75 underwater light for the first time with the middle photo's series. I probably could punch them up a little with PS, but this is all for me and my friends.

PHXAZCRAIG · Jan 11, 2017

dietaryfibre said:
I will nnoote that, thanks D810 IS REALLY GOOD CAMERA but it's over my budget :,) but send me more photos, i would like to look at them if slr sizes can be small, i think d750 might be more budget friendly to me, even it's not as good as d810

Here is a link to my trip to Roatan in September 2016, where all the underwater images were taken with the D810.

http://www.cjcphoto.net/roatan2016/index.html

Don't get fooled about a D750 being 'smaller'. Perhaps the housing will be 5% smaller, but that's not really the pacing item. It's sensor size. The smallest FX sensor camera will still need a big dome for the 16-35 lens - only fisheye lenses will need a smaller dome. (And you can use a smaller dome with a 16-35, but you sacrifice more corner IQ).

If you want to reduce the overall size, go for a DX camera. I think the D500 may be the perfect compromise in size and ability, and the autofocus performance would be even more welcome underwater than above.

If you are really wanting to do this on a budget, I'd suggest looking at used gear, including a D90 with Ikelite housing.

PHXAZCRAIG · Jan 11, 2017

Some nice shots there. Love the eagle ray - looks like exceptionally clear conditions.

Here's a little video of some free divers we ran into at the Calvin's Crack dive site in Roatan. The crack starts as a small, hard-to-find hole at about 30 feet and comes out of the wall about 75 feet. We talked to the free divers before we went in as they had a problem finding the crack. I'm not sure they found it, because it looks like they were still asking the divemaster where it was when we were heading back. This video was taken more than 60 feet down. (Sony RX100 II)

http://www.cjcphoto.net/roatan2015/videos/freedivers.MP4

kelpdiver · Jan 14, 2017

at your budget and experience level, you need to simplify. You're not going to be able to get something for macro, sharks, and wide angle and 4k video in a APS or greater sensor size, nor 4/3rds. The lenses alone blow the budget. A versatile fixed lens model may fit, but likely as jack of all, master of none.

But you're in Hawaii and UW photographers are constantly upgrading. There is plenty of equipment that is deemed unsaleable - 9 years back I got a Canon 20D, Aquatica housing, a 10-22 mm wide angle lens, with an 8" dome port - used - for $2100. Lacking live view, it was 'obsolete' but gave me 4 years of use before I moved to a GH4 system. Go look for something like that - maybe you give up video. You can always carry a GoPro for that.

dietaryfibre · Jan 16, 2017

that's awesome, I wish i can say that after 30 years. I've moving to different places a lot and have to give up some habits now and then. But ocean is always my passion

dietaryfibre · Jan 16, 2017

i tried a few time, but couldnt download it. Might be my storage problem

Which camera should I buy for the beginning underwater photography?

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