D3 Underwater

Interested to know the thoughts of any one who has actually had one of these babies underwater.

Very keen to hear what lenses where shot and with what type of success.

Interested to know the thoughts of any one who has actually had one of these babies underwater.

 

Very keen to hear what lenses where shot and with what type of success.

Hey Peter,

I shot Berkley's rig here in Monterey about a month ago. I was shooting macro at the time with the 105VR. Autofocus was so super fast, I didn't even use manual focus at all. I'm used to shooting a D200 or D300 so it was a very noticeable difference in speed. Also the viewfinder is awesome. Again, a big difference over the D200/300

I'm guessing you didn't start this post to ask about macro though!

You probably want to know about the 14-24 results. Berk just got back from the Bahamas shark trip and shot the 14-24 quite a bit. Here's the short story: He was shooting it with the 14-24, Subal housing, Superdome with the conical back, and 65 extension ring. Shooting at F16 had the best results. He also said it was good for splits.

Berk just left for Cocos today with the Superdome and 14-24, so hopefully when he gets back I can chain him to his desk to get him to post some results.

Let me know if there's any other q's and I'll see if I can help out.

Best regards,

Jim

Hey Peter,

 

I shot Berkley's rig here in Monterey about a month ago. I was shooting macro at the time with the 105VR. Autofocus was so super fast, I didn't even use manual focus at all. I'm used to shooting a D200 or D300 so it was a very noticeable difference in speed. Also the viewfinder is awesome. Again, a big difference over the D200/300

I'm interested to know why focusing speed should be faster on a D3 than a D300. I thought they had similar autofocus systems?

They have the same AF module, but different AF motors, so I have heard. The D300/D700 have a less powerful motor to save battery power. Unlike frame rate this doesn't increase with use of vertical grip. Although with an AF-S lens - it should not make a difference.

Alex

Maybe Nikon has put a better faster auto-focus capability into the D3 because it is their flagship pro model vs a D300 or D700. And maybe, because the D3 shoots at a higher frames per second, it need the faster auto-focus capability to track a moving subject in the shorter intervals of time between each frame. And it is a $5K camera vs a $3K for the D700. Maybe you do get something for that extra $2K.

Fred

I shot Berkley's rig here in Monterey about a month ago. I was shooting macro at the time with the 105VR. Autofocus was so super fast, I didn't even use manual focus at all. I'm used to shooting a D200 or D300 so it was a very noticeable difference in speed. Also the viewfinder is awesome. Again, a big difference over the D200/300

I had a fairly different experience shooting the D3 with the 105VR in Lembeh for a few weeks. I ended up using manual focus at least half of the time. Conditions were fairly dark and murky, although not as much as the average Monterey dive. The lens focuses much better and faster than the F100 with the old 105mm lens, but it still hunted quite a bit. It hunted very fast, but still couldn't lock on the subject a lot of the time.

I did notice though, a few times when I thought there should be enough light and contrast for it to be able to focus, that if I switched away from an outer focus point, it would find focus right away. The cross-type sensors definitely make a difference.

The other thing that was certainly not helping was my wimpy focus light. On that trip, I didn't want to deal with the bulk of the Fisheye FIX light and its batteries for the very short burn time you get in return (everything else in my kit can last well over a day without having to swap anything out). I instead brought along a Fisheye FIX mini LED light, which has a very narrow, low-power beam, but that lasts for six hours. It turned out to be pretty useless on anything but the night dives.

After getting back home, I haven't taken the 105VR back down again to experiment with a better focus light and sticking to cross-type sensors (I've been having too much fun with new 15mm Fisheye and 60mm AF-S lenses, which are better suited for the Monterey area). I've only taken the 60mm AF-S out for one day of diving so far, but I don't even own the focusing gears for it and didn't miss them (in spite of still using my little mini LED focusing light).

Test shots and a review will eventually follow. I just need the conditions in Monterey to start sucking (like they're supposed to) so I stop wanting to head down to dive every weekend . I can then convert the garbled notes I've jotted down so far into something readable...

Liz

http://lizhanks.com/

I did notice though, a few times when I thought there should be enough light and contrast for it to be able to focus, that if I switched away from an outer focus point, it would find focus right away. The cross-type sensors definitely make a difference.

 

The other thing that was certainly not helping was my wimpy focus light. On that trip, I didn't want to deal with the bulk of the Fisheye FIX light and its batteries for the very short burn time you get in return (everything else in my kit can last well over a day without having to swap anything out). I instead brought along a Fisheye FIX mini LED light, which has a very narrow, low-power beam, but that lasts for six hours. It turned out to be pretty useless on anything but the night dives.

 

 

Liz

http://lizhanks.com/

Hi Liz,

You made a few good points that I'll make a clarification on how I was shooting.

I only use single area focus and I use the center focus point. This is the strongest focus point. To alter my compositions I focus lock on what I want in focus then re-compose the shot rather than using other focus points.

I was also using the Hartenberger Nano focus light. We were at Amentos under 20 feet of snot before it opened up, so it was pretty dark. The Nano light is comparable in brightness to your HG20DX light. I'm sure the focus light played a major part in our difference of experiences.

In comparison, I have always shot the D200 and D300 with the Nano and using the center focus point.

Jim