prefered camera

Hi,

I'm pretty new to underwater digital photography. I've been looking around on the net for a while for an affordable combination of underwater housing and digital camera with versatile underwater and above water functions. That's how I finally ended up with three suitable camera's.

The first is the four megapixel sony dsc-p9 with housing from sony itself.

The second is the olympus c-4000 (four megapixel) with housing from olympus or ikelite, and the third is the olympus c-730uz (three megapixel) witch has the disadvantage of supporting only three megapixel, but the advantage of 10x zoom (very usefull above water) with housing from ikelite. Has anyone got experience with any of these camera's? Which is the best suitable (+versatile) considering underwater en normal photography? Or can anyone recommend another (better) camera within this price range?

Coolpix 5000

Same price range

28mm lens. (Zoom is useless underwater)

Optional Nikon 19mm lens.

Extremely good macro that WORKS with an external strobe.

RAW shooting capability. Accepts CF cards and Microdrive.

Hot shoe to hook up an external strobe later if you get one.

Good accessories for topsides shooting.

HTH

James Wiseman

Olympus C4000 ~ $450

PT-010 housing ~ $250

I think a CP5000 + Ikelite housing is at least twice that much.

One of the best digital cameras for the money is the Fuji finepix coming in with the octopixels at 6mpix.

A good friend of mine accompanied me to Asia in september sporting one of these in a Japanese housing.

The results: Especially macro & Close-up were unbelievably good. Down side is the lack of external strobe capability on his model but the small internal flash worked remarkably well.

Enclosed is one of his pictures.

Copyright Mark Shuttleworth

Hi James,

Would you mind explaining what you mean by “ 28 mm Lens. Zoom is useless underwater “.

Personally I’ve found it most useful, specially in macro mode.

Marc

I find zoom pretty handy, too.

Thanks,

I'd really appreciated all of your advice on this topic. I've checked out the nkon coolpix 5000, but price is 1000$ in belgium wich is twice as much as olympus c-4000, and the same goes for the ikelite housing.

As for the fuji I think your talking about s602 model, though I can't find any housing for this model.

Doesn't anyone has experience with the sony model?

I'll find out about the S602 housing from Mark and email you later on.

First, just to be clear, my camera is a FinePix F601, not an S602. But assuming that's still relevant, I got it from a company called Zillion. They have a web site but it's all in Japanese! Pictures of the FPLude housing for the F601 are available at http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~zillion/FinePixF601/index.html.

Tech spec is:

FpLude Housing for FUJIFILM FinePix F601 Zoom Digital Camera

Precision injection molded polycarbonate housing. Full access to camera controls. Wide range of accessories.

Includes: housing, spare o-ring, grease, user's manual.

Price: JPY 52,800 FOB Japan

Specifications:

Materials: Polycarbonate body, Acrylic LCD viewing window & lens port window, stainless steel latches.

Size: W95 x D80 x H120mm

Weight: 400g

Maximum Depth Rating: 60m (195 feet)

Features: Strobe diffuser, 1/4-20" threaded tripod mount hole, strap eyelet.

Color: clear

Controls: Power ON/OFF, Shutter Button, Multi-function Button, Mode Switch, Cancel Button, Flash Open Button, DISP Button, Strobe control lever

Please advise if you have further interest; or, contact Marine Camera Distributors since they will probably be handling the U.S. distribution. www.marinecamera.com

The above info was supplied by a chap called Mark Rupert who is a useful English-speaking contact with Zillion. He's got e-mails at mrupert@rseco.com and a "mobile" e-mail address at rse@gol.com. I got an invoice from Mark R and then actually ordered the housing through a chap called Nami Sakamoto on nami@rseco.com by mailingcredit card details (in two parts for security). The housing arrived about 5 days later!

The Y53K price equated to £265 at the time (about £270 at today's rates), though I don't know if the Yen price has stayed the same. By the time shipping, VAT, import duty and duty handling charges had been added, the total cost to me in the UK was around £365.

A few words of caution to prospective buyers. As you know I was delighted with the housing on the whole for the sort of "snapshot" photography I do. But it's not perfect, and probably not even very good if you're a "serious" underwater photography. The main drawback is that once the springs on the control buttons bed in, the water pressure soon starts to depress them. That makes something of an art form to jog the rocker button correctly below about 15m or so. As you need to do several jogs to switch to macro, this can be tedious. And once the springs lose their edge, deeper than about 25-30m the shutter button doesn't release fully and you can't take more than one photo until you come shallower. Also, while fairly close-up macro is very good with excellent depth of field, the lens tunnel tends to obstruct the flash path to the subject casting a slight shadow, and you get a noticeable darkening towards the bottom of the frame.

But having said all that, for most of the photography I do, it worked well and gives 100% control of all camera functions. It's compact, rugged, and easy to carry. I have no regrets about buying it at all.

Cheers,

Mark.

I should have said 10x Zoom - sorry about that. A 35-350 zoom lens isn't going to be much good above about 100mm or so.

That's why I think the coolpix 28-85 lens is just about perfect.

Cheers

James

The quality of a 10x zoom isn't good then?

The I should go foor the olympus c-4000 which has an equivalent of 32-96 mm, and is less expensive than the coolpix 5000?

I have not used it myself, but according to Laz, the flash will not fire in "Super macro" on the C-4000 - so that makes it pretty much useless for underwater shooting.

HTH

James