Subal CD5

The Subal CD5 has arrived.

I'm leaving for Roatan Friday. So, that will give me a few days to try to get familiar with it.

So far I really like it. It's got the same quality and precision as my C10 had. All the buttons and knobs feel great. And they've refined the housing a bit to make it even more user friendly than the C10 housing.

I've only had the two housings so I'll give you a comparison of the CD5 and C10 if anyone's interested.

On the CD5 there's now a small window on top of the mode dial so you can see what mode you're in. The dial is now on the backplate. This certainly caused a great deal of fumbling for me in the past. So, this, I suspect, is going to have the biggest impact for me.

With the C10 housing there is a knob on top of the mode dial and even if you line it up when you put the camera in the housing it often turns a little bit (you have to push it down to and turn it to change the mode on the camera) and then you didn't know what mode you were in.

The "*" button is now controled by a lever on the side of the back plate. Personally I never had a problem with it as a button on the C10 housing, but I have small hands and don't wear gloves. This is clearly a better solution for gloves and bigger fingers and feels pretty good to my small hands, too.

The mechanism inside the CD5 housing that pushes the button to release the lens is smaller and stays tucked closer to the side of the housing more than the one in the C10. On the C10 it sometimes took a little maneuvering to remove the camera with the 16-35 lens on. A couple of times it was easier to take off the front port and remove the 16-35 before taking the camera out. Kind of a pain. So, I'm happy to see this change.

The on/off switch on the CD5 can be pulled back. So, you no longer have to remember to set the switch on the back plate to the same position as the camera in the housing. And it can't be accidentally swithched off as easily. Not as big of a deal with the 5D's pretty much instant on, but it caught me off guard a couple of times with the 10D and the 10D has like a 4 or 5 second startup time.

The dial on the housing that activates the rear camera dial is now off to the right side of the housing rather than directly on top of the camera dial. Inside the rear plate there are three gears that make up the mechanism. It looks tight. Hopefully more gears don't mean more potential problems.

The saddle on the CD5 has a piece on the front that bracese against the front of the camera body. It fits nice and snug. It also means the saddle can't be accidentally mounted backwards, unlike the C10. Of course if you did mount it backwards you realize it pretty soon and it's just a quick fix. I know, I did it a couple of times.

The cable that attaches to the hotshoe is a little bit longer. The cable on the C10 (maybe it was just on my housing) was a bit too short. It made it harder to back the camera out far enough to get your fingers on the strobe plug to unhook it from the hotshoe. This additional length is now pretty much perfect-- not too long so that it's unwiedly or bunches up and not too short.

As for the eyepiece, as much as I wanted to get the GS viewer, I decided for the time being to use the standard one on the housing. Looking through it is different than the C10. I don't have my C10 anymore but it feels like with the CD5 you must look pretty straight on to see the whole frame. I think I saw someone post on here about this same thing with the Aquatica housing too.

Overall, from my initial impression on dryland I think the refinements show a "Relentless pursuit of perfection." I'm very please with the Subal once again. I'll try it out in the pool in the next day or so and see how it handles in the water.

Thanks for your first impressions. I am scheduled to get mine from Ryan at Reef PHoto and Video sometime this month for a May trip to the Solomons.

Please let us know your thoughts when you get back from Roatan. Have fun!!

Mark

Thanks for the info. It would be great if you could attach a couple of shots of your set-up. It sounds very nice.

The on/off switch on the CD5 can be pulled back. So, you no longer have to remember to set the switch on the back plate to the same position as the camera in the housing.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd imagine that with pressure, you couldn't pull this control out when underwater?

Congrats on your new setup - and good luck in the pool.

Alex

Hi,

Thanks for the post. Could you post some pictures of your housing?

I've been checking the Subal 5D through website (www.subal.com) and I think that front and rear dials (both) are not close enough to reach them without removing your right hand from the handle.

They are to far!

Am I right?

Thanks in advance

jordi

I have medium sized hands, and can reach both controls from the handle. At Beneath the Sea, we encountered a customer with very small hands. Replacing the stock Subal handles with ULCS Brackets and Padded Handles allowed us to move the handles in right next to the housing, and allowed her to reach both controls.

That is good to hear. From the photos the controls do look quite a stretch compared with their positions on other subals.

Alex

Good to hear that !!

Anyway, in my opinion subal housing for canon cameras are not so good in ergonomics as subal for Nikons.

I will really apreciate that someone who owns a CD5 housing could post some photos while holding the camera.

thanks

j.

I now have 18 dives with the CD5 housing.

So far I've found the housing to be quite user friendly. (I also liked the Subal C10.) I enjoyed the little improvments from the C10 that I mentioned in my first post.

In practical use, I found reaching my thumb around to rotate the rear dial is significantly easier than it was on the C10 housing. And the lever for the "*" button is much easier to locate (without looking) and handle than the "*" button system of the C10.

I used three lenses:

Canon 16-35 in the FE2 dome with +2 diopter

Sigma 50mm macro

Canon 100mm macro

A couple of my favorite shots were with the 16-35, but personally I found the 16 too wide. It could be that I was just more used to the range of this lens with my 10D and it will take more time adjusting. But that's not what happened out of the water where I quickly liked the wider range. At this point I'm wondering if...suspecting that underwater I'd like the range 24-70 better. Guess I'll have to bring that up on the thread about lensing for the 5D.

I also, for the first time, used the MacroMate Flip lens. That's going to take some more time and practice. The depth of field is very very thin, but I love it. I'm hooked on supermacro.

I had two little problems with my housing.

1) The dial on the housing to change the camera modes isn't quite positioned in far enough. On the surface I was not able to change camera modes. I had to get it down about five feet until the pressure was great enough to use the dial. That was a bit of a bummer because there were times at the surface just before I'd get in when I'd like to take it off Manual and just set it in Program mode and snap a shot or two on the boat without having to meter this cumbersome rig on the boat.

2) Early in my second dive-- at about 25 feet -- I was suddenly unable to review the images in the lcd. The camera wasn't letting me select any of the buttons on the left side of the camera. The "set" button felt like it was halfway depressed. But still that doesn't prevent the camera from accessing the left rear buttons. The group was moving pretty quickly so I shot that dive like it was film.

I finally figured out that it was the "*" button that was being depressed. When I looked inside the housing the lever for the "*" looked fine. The return spring looked to be in the right place and on the surface was doing a good job. I tightened the two screws a tiny bit...they were pretty snug already.

That seemed to help a bit. At times the review button wouldn't work and I'd have to pull back the "*" lever and that would work. Maybe they need a little heavier return spring.

Overall, I really like the housing and the camera and find myself to be the weak link in achieving image quality. (Unlike with the 10D where the autofocus speed and accuracy weren't consistant.)

A few notes on the switch from the 10D camera to the 5D.

Coming from the 10D, the 5D took a bit of getting used to. The AF points are much smaller than they are on the 10D, so they're harder to see. And while the placement of the AF points on the 10D isn't perfect by any means, I find them to be much closer to ideal than the ones on the 5D. However, the 5D focus accuracy blows away the 10D.

I thought that since the lensing transition above water was pretty smooth it would be smooth in the water, too. It wasn't. I missed having that 50mm act like an 80mm. And I somewhat missed the 100mm macro acting like a 160mm macro. Although I really liked having the MacroMate and loved playing with that.

I will have someone take some photos tonight of my hands holding housing and post those.

Here's an uncropped shot from Pinnacles off Roatan.

I used three lenses:

Canon 16-35 in the FE2 dome with +2 diopter

Sigma 50mm macro

Canon 100mm macro

I was wondering what your experience with the 100mm Canon Macro in the Subal housing is? I just acquired a C5 housing myself and I would very much like to start shooting the 100mm with a 2.0 TC. Have you ever tried that combination and is it possible to focus manually?

Cheers

Vincent

I was wondering what your experience with the 100mm Canon Macro in the Subal housing is? I just acquired a C5 housing myself and I would very much like to start shooting the 100mm with a 2.0 TC. Have you ever tried that combination and is it possible to focus manually?

 

Cheers

 

Vincent

My port has a focus adjustment knob on it to allow you to focus manually. Works fine both with and without the TC. I purchased this and the extension rings from Ryan and Reef Photo. On my oder the port and rings are listed as:

Subal FP-FC60 Focusport for the Micro Nikkor 60mm/2.8

Subal Extension Ring 20/3

Subal Extension Ring 50/3

This allows me to use the 100m macro with and without the TC

[quote name='rbibb' date='May 4 2008, 05:37 PM' post='168427']

My port has a focus adjustment knob on it to allow you to focus manually. Works fine both with and without the TC. I purchased this and the extension rings from Ryan and Reef Photo. On my oder the port and rings are listed as:

Subal FP-FC60 Focusport for the Micro Nikkor 60mm/2.8

Subal Extension Ring 20/3

Subal Extension Ring 50/3

This allows me to use the 100m macro with and without the TC

Thank you very much for the information, great help!

Cheers

Vincent