DSLR for freediving

Papafly,

Those are some great shots. What size strobes are you using? A small, single, strobe wouldn't be bad, as I've done that before, but when I tried to drag around a couple of larger (Ikelite) strobes it was just too much for freediving past 20'. Of course, this was with a film camera and newer strobes might be smaller.

I've been digging through prices on-line and compared them to what I have in the bank and there's no way I can swing th camera with 8mm and dome port. It does look like I could eek out the camera/housing and a 14-42 lens with standard port.

My question is how well will that even work using only available light? I was also wondering what the big difference was between the 14-42 and the 14-45? There must be some kind of difference for Olympus to come out with two slightly different lenses but I'm not smart enough to figure out what it is.

Given the finances, and the type of diving I find myself doing these days, would a better way to go be something like a Sea&sea DX-1G with a wide angle lens? I know that I could even afford a small strobe with that setup, through some of my connections, for the same price as the E-410 with the 14-42. I've read o here that the DX-1G doesn't have true TTL and the strobe I would be looking at would be their smaller YS27DX model.

I'm torn between starting out with the DSLR and building on it, as opposed to the DX-1G which would be good to go right out of the box with its extra strobe and wide angle lens.

Thanks again for all of the, thoughtful, replies.

Jon

Papafly,

 

Those are some great shots. What size strobes are you using? A small, single, strobe wouldn't be bad, as I've done that before, but when I tried to drag around a couple of larger (Ikelite) strobes it was just too much for freediving past 20'. Of course, this was with a film camera and newer strobes might be smaller.

 

I've been digging through prices on-line and compared them to what I have in the bank and there's no way I can swing th camera with 8mm and dome port. It does look like I could eek out the camera/housing and a 14-42 lens with standard port.

 

My question is how well will that even work using only available light? I was also wondering what the big difference was between the 14-42 and the 14-45? There must be some kind of difference for Olympus to come out with two slightly different lenses but I'm not smart enough to figure out what it is.

 

Given the finances, and the type of diving I find myself doing these days, would a better way to go be something like a Sea&sea DX-1G with a wide angle lens? I know that I could even afford a small strobe with that setup, through some of my connections, for the same price as the E-410 with the 14-42. I've read o here that the DX-1G doesn't have true TTL and the strobe I would be looking at would be their smaller YS27DX model.

 

I'm torn between starting out with the DSLR and building on it, as opposed to the DX-1G which would be good to go right out of the box with its extra strobe and wide angle lens.

 

Thanks again for all of the, thoughtful, replies.

 

Jon

Having worked as a photojournalist in newspaper taught me alot about anticipating the shot when I shot sports - my C3000's have terrible shutter lag and I got use to it and just worked with it.

Probably your biggest challenge is shooting in dark water - if you were in warm tropical water - you could get away with your current setup no problem. I still think you're trying to reinvent the wheel but that's a personal perspective.

The attached images were shot with my previous C2000's back in the 2001 with the same PT-007 and Inon setup with ambient light only when I attended the Performace Freedive Clinic in Long Beach. Having your current setup you aren't really that handicapped - it's just a matter of editing in the camera - but maybe I'm just old school.

Cliff,

I understand the expression that it's the Indian not the arrow, but I feel that my gear is now starting to hold me back for what I want to do.

I sold off the 505 a couple years ago and went as small as I could for freediving- A Casio Z1000. It's a tiny 10 mega pixel camera with decent enough video for posting on You tube, but its main advantage is that it an fit into a back-up mask pocket on my belt or be attached to the side of my spear gun and never get in the way.

The one thing I didn't count on when I bought it was that there are NO third party lenses that will attach onto it. I knew that Sea&sea made a mount that would work on it's predecessor and was hoping they would do the same with this model- since I have a bag of old lenses that would then work with it. that didn't happen and now I can't do some of the things I want to.

I'm not saying it's a horrible camera, here's some shots I took with it, but I want more. I want split level dome action, no shutter lag, low light levels, and wide angle so i can get closer to fish and wrecks.

Here's some shots I took with it:

Cliff,

I understand the expression that it's the Indian not the arrow, but I feel that my gear is now starting to hold me back for what I want to do. I've had a couple dozen photos published that were taken with my old MMII. If you have the right subject you can get published.

I sold off the 5050 a couple years ago and went as small as I could for freediving- A Casio Z1000. It's a tiny 10 mega pixel camera with decent enough video for posting on You tube, but its main advantage is that it an fit into a back-up mask pocket on my belt or be attached to the side of my spear gun and never get in the way.

The one thing I didn't count on when I bought it was that there are NO third party lenses that will attach onto it. I knew that Sea&sea made a mount that would work on it's predecessor and was hoping they would do the same with this model- since I have a bag of old lenses that would then work with it. that didn't happen and now I can't do some of the things I want to.

I'm not saying it's a horrible camera, here's some shots I took with it, but I want more. I want split level dome action, no shutter lag, low light levels, and wide angle so i can get closer to fish and wrecks.

Here's a shot I took with it:

Jon - I understand your frustration.

There has to be a answer for your situation, it just may entail some sort of creative solution that has yet to be found.

I found my short term solution.

My father-in-law is going to let me borrow his new DX-1G system for a while so I can see if that's the route I want to go. It has the wide angle lens and strobe. I might try and throw one of my old slave strobes on with it and see if it works. I'll also play around with it sans strobes and see how it works.

He's too busy playing around with his video system lately and has no time to figure out how to use his new toy. He's video is mounted onto a Gavin scooter and has a set of twin, 50 watt, HID lights powering it. The setup is a monster and he needs to use the crane on the back of his boat to get it in and out of the water- certainly not a system to use while freediving.

I'd still like to hear everyone's input on a 14-42 lens in a standard housing for available light photography- and hear the difference between the 14-42 and the 14-45.

Jon

I found my short term solution.

 

My father-in-law is going to let me borrow his new DX-1G system for a while so I can see if that's the route I want to go. It has the wide angle lens and strobe. I might try and throw one of my old slave strobes on with it and see if it works. I'll also play around with it sans strobes and see how it works.

 

He's too busy playing around with his video system lately and has no time to figure out how to use his new toy. He's video is mounted onto a Gavin scooter and has a set of twin, 50 watt, HID lights powering it. The setup is a monster and he needs to use the crane on the back of his boat to get it in and out of the water- certainly not a system to use while freediving.

 

I'd still like to hear everyone's input on a 14-42 lens in a standard housing for available light photography- and hear the difference between the 14-42 and the 14-45.

 

Jon

Personally I think you're going to find it does more than you realized. It's the same with having shot with my TRV950's which were three chip SD video cameras. I loved those things - and I reluctantly parted with them in Dec 2007 due to loss of some work due to not shooting HDV. I still hadn't fully exploited those cameras. Now I get to start all over with my HC7's. For freediving, I think they are going to be the shiznit for size and features in my Bluefin HC7 housing. In fact, I'm selling off all my bubble blowing gear - the zen like experience of freediving with a small underwater video setup is very peaceful - as you well know..

Take care bro' and keep us updated on what you think of the camera setup for freediving.

sorry, double post, something messed up in the board... keep reading:

I went to the camera store and took a look at the Canons and Nikon's last night. I walked away with some serious gear lust for the Canon D-40 and a lot more questions than answers.

you gotta be thinking system, though, camera and housing. I think you really want a small housing so you can swim: olympus, seatool, hugyfot. Oly is most affordable.

I get both my housings, 3 camera bodies (410, 330, E1), dome port, macro port, ring flash, and a bunch of lenses, all into 1 (heavy) backpack. I regularly take two rigs in the water with me.

iThe Olympus dome port for that 8mm lens is $1,000, but I see that INON makes something similar for about 40% less. Any input on the INON dome ports? I was happy with my previous INON wide angle lens and dome adapter, but not sure how wel their domes will work on someone elses housing.

I think that athena makes the glass for the oly dome, the inon dome, and the athena dome. I'm not 100% certain of the inon... but if it's the same diameter, it's the same glass.

I just got back from another photo store and they had the camera, but not the 8mm lens, in stock. The camera DID have live view. I'll also add that this thing is TINY. I can imagine that even in the housing it would be no bigger than my old 5050 setup.

it's a little bigger than the 5050, but pretty close.

Any pictures of how big your E330 system is in someones hands? I'm assuming the E-410 would be smaller.

not in hands, but:

http://www.rogercarlsonphotography.com/gal..._e410_housings/

be sure the high ISO noise of the Olympus is acceptable for your needs

I never go over 100 asa anyway.

I was also wondering what the big difference was between the 14-42 and the 14-45?

Size. The new one is really small, 190 grams and 65.5 x 61mm, it's like an aspirin bottle. The old one is 285 grams and 71.0 x 86.5 mm

Oly actually makes or made 4 lenses in this range, it's a good working range and deserves some choices. They quit making the old 14-45. There is also the 14-54 f2.8, and the 12-60 f2.8. The 14-54 is the old E1 kit lens, it's their mid grade quality, and it's weather sealed. The 12-60 is also mid grade, sealed, and has a fast swd motor, it's basically the E3 kit lens. Prices jump from around $100 for the basic kit lenses, to around 400-500 for the 14-54 and I think up close to a grand for the 12-60, not sure.

They will also make a top grade 12-35 f2.0, it's not out yet. it should really rock. With f2.0 and image stabilization in body, you won't need to worry about noise, you'll never go to high iso. At least on land. I've hand-held the E510 at up to one second with acceptable results. f2.0 and one second exposures, who needs iso.

http://www.rogercarlsonphotography.com/gal...021985.jpg.html

But the 14-42 in the water? not thrilling to me, honestly. Some use that range, it's nice for fish portraits and faces, but I like going wide or macro.

Oly has announced that they'll make a less expensive ultra wide (weitwinkel) zoom, too. Might be something for you to wait for rather than the 8mm.

http://www.olympus-esystem.com/dea/product.../zuiko_lens_eng

Papafly,

 

Those are some great shots. What size strobes are you using? A small, single, strobe wouldn't be bad, as I've done that before, but when I tried to drag around a couple of larger (Ikelite) strobes it was just too much for freediving past 20'. Of course, this was with a film camera and newer strobes might be smaller.

 

I've been digging through prices on-line and compared them to what I have in the bank and there's no way I can swing th camera with 8mm and dome port. It does look like I could eek out the camera/housing and a 14-42 lens with standard port.

 

My question is how well will that even work using only available light? I was also wondering what the big difference was between the 14-42 and the 14-45? There must be some kind of difference for Olympus to come out with two slightly different lenses but I'm not smart enough to figure out what it is.

 

Given the finances, and the type of diving I find myself doing these days, would a better way to go be something like a Sea&sea DX-1G with a wide angle lens? I know that I could even afford a small strobe with that setup, through some of my connections, for the same price as the E-410 with the 14-42. I've read o here that the DX-1G doesn't have true TTL and the strobe I would be looking at would be their smaller YS27DX model.

 

I'm torn between starting out with the DSLR and building on it, as opposed to the DX-1G which would be good to go right out of the box with its extra strobe and wide angle lens.

 

Thanks again for all of the, thoughtful, replies.

 

Jon

Ahhh, dragging around the D80 with ONE DS125 strobe isn't all that bad, lol. On the plane wreck in my pic i was taking the rig down to 14m, had 1' to 1'30'' bottom time, and cambe back up again. Nifty thing is, if you know that you're after an available light shot, you can ply the strobe arm, so that the strobe is very near to the camera, thus lowering drag. The whole thing is heavy, roughly 7kg in total, but in water it's only very slightly negative, so drag is the only issue. However, I can't imagine adding a second strobe to my system.

The way i see it, light is best between 0 and 15m, so most of my uw photography happens there. When I'm out with the cam, i do photography and that's it. No deep dives or anything that brings me anywhere near my max depths. Of course this is still very challenging, specially when you hover using your fins and try to keep it steady for a burst of shots...or when you lie in the sand, 10-150m down, shooting, recomposing, shooting again, changing settings, shooting again and so on. Heck it's fun when I'm totally immersed in what I'm doing, i totally forget about time or anything else: I'm there, I'm doing my thing, I'm happy. I like working a large area, spending 3-5hours in the water, and I find the shallows to be extremely rewarding, as i do quite a bit of available light stuff.

That DX-1G looks pretty neat, especially if you use the wide-angle lens. BUT 10mp resolution in combination with the small sensor definately calls for noise, a serious issue if you want to do shoot with available light. My guess would be that, even if the system allows deeper dives, you will be limited by light/noise and work in the 0-15m zone. Also, i have no idea how good those lenses are, in general i find compact camera lenses to be worlds apart from the quality of decent slr lenses. A great thing is the RAW format, you should definately use that.

I have no idea about the Olys, but the 10mp E-410 might be a good thing! Also, i see no problem in taking a slow approach, as I tend to spend much time working on the concept, on figuring out what i really want to express in my images. Thus, you could buy the cam+housing and start out 100% focused on available light. No big deal, this way you'll get to know the performance spectrum of your cam+lens, and also have time to dervelop your ideas regarding available light. Indeed i think that - with slrs delivering more and more high iso performance - available light photography becomes more and more interresting uw. Later you can buy a strobe.

If you start out with the dx-1g underwater, post a few pics here, I'm quite curious to see how it works.

The Aquatica D40 housing combined with their new compact dome port would be my choice for a free diving rig.

Thiscombo has proven very popular with the bluewater hunters in my part of the world.

The fact that it is also compatible with the new D60 is a bonus.

If you want to add a strobe either the Inon 220 or Sea & Sea YS110 would be plenty for a bit of fill with out adding to the bulk / weight of the total unit.

My 2 cents

Regarding the E-410/PT-E03 combo, you can read my review on the Wetpixel link or in issue #5 at the underwater Journal link. Both include information about the 14 to 42 mm lens which outperforms the 14 to 45 mm lens. You will also see the cost value of going with fiber optic strobes if you ever want to take that road.

Regarding the Inon dome for the 8 mm fisheye, I just completed testing that dome port and found it to be a value and quite good optically. Keep in mind that it will not work well with the W/A zooms.

I have used the E-330 and E-410 in the Olympus housings extensively and unless live view is your TOP priority to the exclusion of all others the E-410 is by far the better choice.

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/olympus-e-4...rwater-housing/

http://underwaterjournal.com/pdf/archive/UWJ-issue5.pdf

Phil Rudin

Lots of great advice, articles, and photos.

It looks like the e-410 would be my setup. finances would only allow the 14-42 with standard port for now- and I'm not sure how well that would work for available light only? the 8mm and the INON dome port would be the perfect accessories for what I want to do, but just out of my range for the time being.

The article of Phil's was very informative. It gave me a good idea of size, prices, and options.

I agree that the Aquatica system would be a nice setup, but in a whole other price bracket from what I was thinking of.

Dragging as single strobe isn't as bad as two massive ones. I've done it on scuba and freediving. With my old system I could even collapse the strobe and tuck it in next to the camera and then clip the whole thing off to the butt ring on my backplate to keep things streamlined while I scootered.

Anyone know of someplace's to check out prices on a complete package- camera/8mm/Inon dome/housing ? I've pieced it all together from separate vendors, but was wondering if i could get a better deal, in this economy, buying it all from one place?

If anyone had a used system with a dome port and fisheye lens the were looking to upgrade from I would consider those option as well. I've peeked at the goods for sale section and didn't seem to find anything that stuck out to me.

In the mean time I'm going out diving this weekend and, hopefully, going to give the DX-1G system a shot.

Jon

how well does the 14-42 work at 14 with the flat port? seems awfully wide for a flat port

Stever,

Keep in mind that the 14 to 42 zoom is a 28 to 85 mm in 35 mm terms with a max angle of view of 75 degrees.

This is on the wide end for a flat port but the images are quite good for such an inexpensive lens.

The Olympus port runs around $350.00 if you want to get full use of the angle of view, Athena makes a dome port for this lens which has the same dome radius as their outstanding 170 mm dome. It cost more at around $450.00 and can also be used with the 50 mm macro lens. I will soon be testing this port with the higher end Olympus 12 to 60 mm zoom.

Also note the ability to use a C/U diopter in front of this port which in stock at Reefphoto a site sponser.

Phil Rudin

yes, i understand the angle of view and would expect some extra distortion, softness, and fringing at the edges - so presumably the Athena dome is preferable?

as i understand your post, the flip diopter works with the Athena dome and 14-42, 14-60 - or 50 macro?

does the macro require a diopter with the dome? or lose any sharpness?

Stever,

The flip up C/U lens/diopter should work with all three lenses, the zooms at the long end.

The 50 macro does not require a diopter on the lens to work with a dome if that is what you asking.

The 50 mm macro should be as sharp or sharper with the dome as with the flat port for the same reasons the 14 mm end would be. However the lens will also be wider for the same reason the 14 end of a zoom would be wider as a result of being behind a dome rather than a flat port.

Phil Rudin