D200 with standard 18-55 lens

Hello

I want to use my new D200 with a standard 18-55 lens for underwater photography and will buy a Subal housing. I will start using one Nikon SB800 flash also in a Subal housing. Before I used a canon Ixus so I'm thrilled to try the DSLR now!

What about this 18-55 lens, will it do the job ? I feel it has a nice range altough I will not be able to get really close for macro (min 28cm).

Will a need other lenses (like the 12-24 wide angle or the 60 close up who seem very popular ?

For the Subal housing, which dome port should I buy to be able to work with my 18-55 lens and to allow for other lenses if I need and want to buy them later on ?

Thanks for your advice.

www.flickr.com/photos/svenalgerie

Hi Sven,

There have been lots of discussions on this topic on this forum; my take on it is that your choice of lenses, in order, would be: 12-24mm, 60mm, 10.5mm Fisheye, 105mm macro

Hi Sven,

My view is that the 18-55 is a poor choice to combine with a D200 either underwater or topside. The lens is very cheap and suffers from inferior optical quality when compared to either the 18-70 or more particularly the 17-55. The 18-55 is a budget, plastic lens designed to be used with the D50 and is not the sort of lens I would bother shooting anything with on my D200.

In terms of the range which is useful underwater, lotfus is on the money suggesting the 12-24, fisheye and macro lenses - you will likely find these much more valuable.

I find the 17-55mm is very useful u/w for a general purpose lens unless you know in advance that you will be doing an all wide angle or macro dive. Not sure how to set it up in a Subal thou. In my Nexus I'm using the 12-24 port, 60mm ext ring & +4 diopter. Works great.

One option you should check out for a general purpose lens is the recently released Sigma 17-70 macro lens. There's some information from my first couple of dives with it on a Canon 20D here:

http://www.digitaldiver.net/yabbse/index.p...;threadid=19103

Thank you all for your advise.

I will get a 17-55 to start with

I think it is versatile (also for land use) so I do not have to choose to make a 'macro' or 'wide-angle' dive but can take the stuff as it comes ...

+ good quality and fully compatible with the D200

I'll post some pictures when I have my underwater housing in a month or two.

Hi Sven,

 

My view is that the 18-55 is a poor choice to combine with a D200 either underwater or topside. The lens is very cheap and suffers from inferior optical quality when compared to either the 18-70 or more particularly the 17-55. The 18-55 is a budget, plastic lens designed to be used with the D50 and is not the sort of lens I would bother shooting anything with on my D200.

 

In terms of the range which is useful underwater, lotfus is on the money suggesting the 12-24, fisheye and macro lenses - you will likely find these much more valuable.

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Totally agree.

Good work Sven - look forward to seeing your pictures.

Hey Sven

You asked too about the right Subal port. I suggest you go with the DP-FE2. This will handle the 18mm end of the lens - you will need the correct extension ring and possibly diopter (check out the Subal website for details). The DP-FE2 will also handle the 12-24mm lens and the 10.5. I also use it with 18-70. Its expensive but works for all the wide angles.

Totally agree.

so do I !