Seacam 5D review

My impression of being on the boat with Eric and James - both very satisfied 1D(S) Seacam users - was that initial impressions of the 5D housings were very positive. It was nice and compact and is wonderfully finished. The compactness is much less significant UW, where the strobe arms and particularly the monster Seacam dome (which you have to have for the fisheye?) give it the same frontal area and drag. It is of course lighter for travel, I think that it was agreed that it is less negative UW than the 1D because of the lighter camera batteries.

 

The controls were very nice, although not as perfectly placed  as those on the 1D housing. The only gripe was the poorly placed shutter release, which was really quite awkward. We all agreed this could almost certainly adjusted - but we didn't try too on the boat. The new handles were also nice.

 

Personally, I really didn't like the viewfinder that james had on the housing. I found it really hard to see through it.  But I would add that I would probably get used to it if it was my housing. I also really liked the little seacam bags that everything came in - and I also used the Seacam branded O-ring grease to give my own housing a treat!

 

I thought that the consensus was that the viewfinder was not as nice as the 1D series and that the AF was closer to the 20D than the 1D series. Although shark photography hardly stretches AF performance - so it was hard to be conclusive.

 

My feeling was that the image quality is better from the 5D than the 1D Mk2, but not as good as the 1DS Mk2. But all three are of course very impressive.

 

Anyway, these are my thoughts, guided by their experiences. I am not intending to put words into their mouths. James definietly favoured the Seacam to Aquatica housing, although IMO both were let down somewhat with ergonomic flaws on major controls (the shutter on the seacam and the aperture and shutter speed on the Aquatica). But none of these problems were significant in stopping James getting some great shots. But both housings are very nice and I think that the current Aquatica housings have really improved in many areas.

 

Alex

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James/Alex/All - I have not seen the Seacam 5D housing yet myself. I was out of the country the day it arrived from Austria, and we transhipped to James a few hours later so he could have it for the Wetpixel trip. Therefore, I have never seen the inside of the housing to deduce what adjustment controls are available.

So, I asked Harald Hordosch at Seacam ... how is the shutter release lever adjusted for placement? Apparently there is a small set screw on the inside of the housing (the black-flocked material side). It is adjusted with the smallest allan metric wrench in a normal kit. Loosen slightly with the following warning, his words:

DO NOT REMOVE THIS SCREW. REMOVAL OF THIS SCREW WILL REQUIRE RETURN OF THE HOUSING TO AUSTRIA.

The way we understand it, removal of the screw lets the spring and shaft rotate to a point where it is no longer accessible for installation of the screw again. However, you can loosen the screw a little bit and rotate the shutter lever to a position of personal comfort, and then tighten. James, engineer that he is, should have no problem with this.

Hi Steve,

Thanks very much for looking into this and passing along the advice from Harald. You're right, I'm an engineer. So naturally, as a kid, I often took apart things (like watches and walkmans) and had just what you describe happen - springs and washers shooting out everywhere never to be found! So you can understand why I was reluctant to experiment w/ my brand new housing...:-)

I see what I need to do and will let y'all know how it goes. I'll try to post some pix.

Cheers

James

Tom

 

Your links are interesting BUT the problem as I see it is that no standardisation exists as to where the eyepoint is compared to say, the back of the camera! So its difficult to compare different cameras on paper. I assume that the figures quoted for the dSLRs all relate to the optical eyepoint relative to the prism, but I still don't see how this is directly comparable from one model to another as it depends on the prism and associated optics and its position. I assume that a smaller prism will have a significant effect and although its eyepoint may be the same, it might not be as usable than that from a larger eyepoint!

 

All this is frustrating as it would be useful to have a simple set of figures to compare different cameras with. I'll query an optical engineer friend and see if he can shed some light on the subject too.

 

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The camera back is irrelevant as far as eyepoint is concerned as it is the distance between the eyepiece and eyeball. The eyepiece is the lens at the back of a finder - the lens that you put your eye up to. As an example, I am showing this picture of a Nikon F2 eyelevel prism finder. You can see the eyepiece at the right. The distance measured along its optical axis between it and the surface of your eyeball = eyepoint. The closer your eyeball has to be, the shorter the eyepoint and conversely, the farther your eyeball has to be, the higher the eyepoint.

You can see there is no camera back. Eyepoint is an intrinsic property of the finder. One can change finders on the camera from which I took the prism to ones that have different eyepoints furthering the concept of this independence.

The prism size and other things are other aspects of a viewfinder. One could have the same eyepoint for different prisms and different eyepoints for the same prism size.

Tom

Tom

I totally agree, but it is the relationship between the optics at the rear of the prism and the camera back which dictate where the eye (or sportsfinder come to that) sits in relation to the viewfinder. A smaller prism with viewfinder optics close to it may well have the same eyepoint, but not the same usable eyepoint because the optics are further forward on the camera - this is my suspicion from the looks I've had through the 5D.

My interest here is because I know I am going to be asked about the differences between the EOS1D Series and 5D! And people are aware of what they actually experience, so I'd like to be able to give a good explanation for differences which don't appear to exist on paper.

Talking about D5 housings, do Seacam & Aquatica 5D housings support the 24-70 canon lens? Subal does, Ikelite doesn´t because of its diameter...

Thanks!!

A note about the viewfinders. While I'm sure all the discussion herein applies to something specific with the 5D, I'd like to point out that any time an S180 or S45 Seacam viewfinder is used, it should be dialed in for the user's personal vision. There is a +/- 3 diopter correction inside (accessible by unscrewing the eyecup, on dry land obviously). http://www.seacamusa.com/faq.shtml#viewfinders

While I doubt this affects "eyepoint", I wear reading glasses, and have picked up other people's Seacam housings with S180 viewfinder tuned to their eyes, and had a very blurry view. Gratefully, it does not drift, so once dialed into personal vision it doesn't need to be checked again, except for occasionally lubricating the O-ring on the eyecup.

Good point Steve,

I've had this problem w/ new housings in the past that have screw-adjust diopters - they require initial adjusting. The best thing to do is put the camera in AF one shot and focus on something. Then after the camera "beeps" it's got focus lock, adjust the eyepiece diopter until the viewfinder image is sharp. Then it should be sharp underwater too.

Cheers

James

Thanks for the information James. Great to have this from someone how has actually used both.

@Paul

As Tom has pointed out clearly, eyepoint is a standardized item. It is clear, that cropping an image sensor (and viewfinder accordingly) has major effect on viewfinder image size. I think that is the main reason why it is easier to see the entire 1DMkII viewfinder picture compared to the 5D. Because the 1DMkII finder picture is smaller (cropped). Assuming the same size of this kind of viewfinder “holeâ€, smaller viewfinder images are easier to see entirely, but they are a bit smaller. So it's clear the 1DMkII "hole" is larger in relation to the finder image, but maybe not too much in absolut size. It would be interesting to see 1DsMkII and 5D as only those both cameras have a 35mm format based viewfinder image. I think you can not judge about 1DsMkII vs. 5D from information based on 1DMkII vs. 5D in this respect. In other words: I suspect 1DsMkII viewfinder requires your eye at least as close (or most probably even closer) as with the 1DMkII because it as an uncropped and bigger finder image like the 5D. Which doesn't mean there is no slight difference between 1DsMkII and 5D.

Julian

...You're right, I'm an engineer.  So naturally, as a kid, I often took apart things (like watches and walkmans) and had just what you describe happen - springs and washers shooting out everywhere never to be found! . . .

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Reminds me of a trip to Socorro where an engineer videographer's camcorder wasn't working. He got out a kit of tiny tools and started tearing into it... Several hours later, he was down to the innermost wires, and someone said, "Hey, what does that tiny label say? IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOUR WARRANTY IS VOID!"

P.S. He never did get it running again.

Julian that is probably the reason why the 5D is more difficult to see than the 10D.

But the "hole" on the 1D is much bigger than the "hole" on the 5D in absolute size.

William,

The rectangular openings look the same size to me.

Cheers

James

Really? Is the eye cup different? Granted I did not have my camera to compair it to but the hole looked much bigger to me.

The best thing to do is put the camera in AF one shot and focus on something.  Then after the camera "beeps" it's got focus lock, adjust the eyepiece diopter until the viewfinder image is sharp.  Then it should be sharp underwater too.

Whenever I adjust the diopter on the eyepiece...I do the opposite. That is, I aim the camera at an out-of-focus object, be it a wall, lamp, car, sky, whatever.

The reason is as follows - when you adjust the eyepiece diopter...you do not want to base the setting off the sharpness of the scene, but from how much the focusing screen itself is in focus (the focus points, metering circle, etc), as this is what the eyepiece diopter is allowing you to adjust. When these are tack sharp, then the scene, when properly focused on, will also be in focus (to both your eyes and the camera).

~Matt Segal

Whenever I adjust the diopter on the eyepiece...I do the opposite. That is, I aim the camera at an out-of-focus object, be it a wall, lamp, car, sky, whatever.

 

The reason is as follows - when you adjust the eyepiece diopter...you do not want to base the setting off the sharpness of the scene, but from how much the focusing screen itself is in focus (the focus points, metering circle, etc), as this is what the eyepiece diopter is allowing you to adjust. When these are tack sharp, then the scene, when properly focused on, will also be in focus (to both your eyes and the camera).

 

~Matt Segal

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This is the technique I use as well.

Whenever I adjust the diopter on the eyepiece...I do the opposite. That is, I aim the camera at an out-of-focus object, be it a wall, lamp, car, sky, whatever.

 

The reason is as follows - when you adjust the eyepiece diopter...you do not want to base the setting off the sharpness of the scene, but from how much the focusing screen itself is in focus (the focus points, metering circle, etc), as this is what the eyepiece diopter is allowing you to adjust. When these are tack sharp, then the scene, when properly focused on, will also be in focus (to both your eyes and the camera).

 

~Matt Segal

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This is essentially what is done for photomicroscopy. In the good old film days there were special focusing screens with a double-cross, which looked like a single cross unless the eyepiece (such as the special high-mag ones sold for this purpose) was focused spot on. One was using same concept as you have described while being very careful to ensure the screen was focused on. The big problem is eye accommodation - see if you can have the image in focus and the focus brackets out of focus while adjusting the eyepiece - if so you will think the pic is in focus when it isn't.

Tom

Hi James

"I decided long ago not to get a 1Ds and to go w/ a 1DmkII instead. I used my camera for a lot of different types of photography, and the noise performance of the 1Ds is pretty poor. I wouldn't recommend the 1Ds at ISO's above 400 while I regularly shoot my mkII at 800 and 1600."

I must agree that noise is very significant above ISO400 on the 1DS - I rarely use such ISOs so it doesn't bother me but when I have its pretty rough! Last time I did shot at 1250ISO was on a boat at night in a rough sea and of squid jigger lights over the horizon - all I could get was 0.6s at f/1.4 - result was surprisingly sharp and effective (I must have moved with the horizon) but the shot can't be used at any significant size purely down to noise.

Still thinking about the 5D/1DS/DSMkII viewfinder - could they also have different exit pupil properties (which I assume to be different from eyepoint) in the same way as binoculars have?

I tried to borrow a 5D yesterday to have a really objective (not a pun) view of the difference directly, but my local , ver obliging, dealer has sold out (again!). They are on order.

Oh yes, and Seacam do support the 24~70/2.8 - I've tried it and it works well and is an excellent 'diver' lens, but its close focus is limited. I have just heard good reports of the 24~105 IS too.

Paul says: Oh yes, and Seacam do support the 24~70/2.8 - I've tried it and it works well and is an excellent 'diver' lens, but its close focus is limited. I have just heard good reports of the 24~105 IS too.

Paul - What port extension are you using for 24-70 Canon? I was going to do some pool testing tomorrow with a wide port and a +4. Have you experimented with that yet?

Stephen

I used the equivalent of 70mm Extension (EXR70) and a WidePort (WP) but no diopter. Shots were fine but minimum focus meant that only diver type shots were shootable. That was last July - I haven't used it since. Keep me informed of your set up and results please. The 24~70/2.8 is a lovely lens above water!

Hi Gang,

I followed Harald and Steve's advice and adjusted the shutter release lever on my Seacam 5D housing. Thankfully, nothing flew off the housing during the adjustment, so I don't have to send it back to Austria :-)

The shutter position is much better now, and I like the combo of the ULCS handle and the shutter and * button control. I'll attach a photo showing the new position, and the obligatory (it was omitted from the review) "hairy-hand" photo.

Cheers

James

That looks more handy now. How was it with the Seacam handles? Would you prefer the new adjustment with the original handles as well?

Julian