D80 and hugyfot

Hi all,

I've decided to move into stills photography, i've done a lot of video work but now want to compliment it with stills.

I'm looking at buying a Nikon D80, nikon 10.5 fisheye and hugyfot housing.

anyone any experience of this set up?

on strobe/flash front, either sb800 or seacam.

i intend to use this on deep wrecks, not so many fish pictures.

regards

steve

I've had a Nikon D200 for sometime now and I just dove yesterday with my new Hugyfot housing. I can't comment how it compares with others in the water since I've never dove with other housings. But I found my Hugyfot very easy to operate and manuever. Everything worked as advertised. All the controls that I am familiar with on my Nikon are accessable in the water. I wanted the Hugyfot because my research indicated the Hugyfot had the deepest depth rating I could find. I primarily dive caves and since I like deep technical diving it seemed the best choice. I have a Tokina 10-17 mm fisheye lense and the Hugyfot domed fisheye port. All seemed to work well and produced better than I expected photos for a first time underwater photograher. The Hugyfot is very robust yet compact. As a technical diver I appreciate the fact that the housing bolts together eliminating the possiblity of an accidental opening. My first time in the water with this housing and I carried two stages with my back mount doubles. I found the camera/strobe setup to be very slightly negative and it seemed to be well trimmed fore and aft.

I have been diving with Hugys since 2002, doing both wreck and reef photography. I started with an Atlan 81 for Nikon F80, currently I have a FDN-70 for D70 and my new FDN-D300 will arrive any day now.

The Hugys are fine, rugged housings (and I certainly do not pamper them unnecessarily). Not probably the absolutely best in all regards, but not terrible in any regard either. Ergonomics is the strong area, while some of the (dome) ports leave a bit to be desired. Especially diving with stages you tend to run out of hands doing gas switches and the like and the the ports tend to bump into all sorts of equipment and the acrylic tends to scratch easily.

I deal directly with the factory and I have always been getting good service. Overall, I have been happy, as witnessed by my repeat business with them.

Some examples at http://www.ahomaki.net

timo

I have a Hugy D200 and it has always served me well except a couple of not important things that got solved. My only recommendation is that if you are going to use seacam strobes maybe is better to use a seacam housing in order to use all of their features.