D300 Which Housing?

Greetings from the Emerald Isle

I have had a D70 with ikelite housingfor about 3 years now. It's time to upgrade. I what I hear about the D300 and its within budget, so thats the camera decided.

I would love to get the Subal housing and may do so, but it is alot of cash. Was also looking at the Aquatica and Sea And Sea. Like the look of the Aquatica, especially the Aquaview view finder, however I have heard from people that invested in Aquatica housings when they upgraded from film to digital and now say they would never buy anything other than Subal again.

The Sea and Sea looks good but not sure about the viewfinder.

Just wonder how people with these housings have got on with them. What do you like / not like about the housing?

any advice appreciated

Darragh :

Greetings from the Emerald Isle

I have had a D70 with ikelite housingfor about 3 years now. It's time to upgrade. I what I hear about the D300 and its within budget, so thats the camera decided.

I would love to get the Subal housing and may do so, but it is alot of cash. Was also looking at the Aquatica and Sea And Sea. Like the look of the Aquatica, especially the Aquaview view finder, however I have heard from people that invested in Aquatica housings when they upgraded from film to digital and now say they would never buy anything other than Subal again.

The Sea and Sea looks good but not sure about the viewfinder.

Just wonder how people with these housings have got on with them. What do you like / not like about the housing?

 

any advice appreciated

 

 

Darragh :

I don't own any of the two housings mentioned ... but what I really like about Aquatica is that they offered a D200 to D300 conversion-kit for their D200 customers. I think that shows good spirit. If we see a D400, perhaps there will also be a D300-D400 conversion, if possible.

cheers

I have owned Subal and currently own Aquatica. I used digital and film versions of Aquatica and Ikelite. Here's my short form/no detail answer.

1) If all you can afford is Ikelite, then buy it be happy, since there isn't an alternative.

2) If you can afford an Aquatica, Sea & Sea, or Nexus housing, then don't buy an Ikelite. Get one of those three.

3) If you can afford a Subal or Seacam, then consider buying one. There is much good to say about those housings in terms of fit and finish and design. What is difficult to say is that they are worth the extra price over the units listed in 2). This is value judgment. One of the values is that these two are in Europe, as are you, so maybe the price difference isn't as great as here in the U.S. I don't know.

I went from Aquatica film to the first Aquatica housing for the D100. It wasn't a good housing. It had many flaws. Today's Aquatica housings are of a much higher quality.

Keep in mind that you aren't just choosing a housing, you are choosing a port system as well. There are significant differences in ports. I don't think any manufacturer makes an ideal product but many make fine ones.

I'm in the process of housing a D300 as well and I've chosen Seatool. Their housing provides support for popup flash and they offer port adapters for Nexus, Sea & Sea, Subal, Inon and maybe others. This allows me to use my favorite macro ports from one manufacturer (Nexus) and wide angle ports from another. Using popup flash allows me to eliminate sync cords and still get TTL. The SeaTool is also the smallest housing available and is made to be used without handles. I'm not sure how I will like that but it will certainly travel well. I haven't gotten the housing wet yet but it looks well made and I'm impressed with support for virtually all camera functions.

I think you are right to consider viewfinders. I've never had a problem with conventional finders, but when I switched to Seacam I bought their S45 and S180 finders. I disliked both because they were too big and heavy and trim was terrible. The S45 totally destroyed the sight line for me. I switched back to the Seacam sport finder which was very good. When I bought Subal, I tried their 180 magnified finder because it was much more compact and light. In use it was pretty good but I wasn't totally convinced it was better for me and it was not interchangable. With Seatool I'm trying the Inon 45. Because it's more compact, I don't have nearly the sightline issues I had with the Seacam. Time will tell whether I prefer it or not. The Inon finders are changable in the field with the right tool.

I looked at the Sea & Sea and thought it was appealing. It also has a Nexus port adapter available which is good for me. Price is similar to Seatool. It doesn't support popup flash and is somewhat larger but offers nice grips. Had I not chosen Seatool I was considering Sea & Sea. I may also have used Subal and pursued a custom Nexus port adapter for it.

I own a D 300 and chose a Nexus housing. This housing supports both electric and fibre optic strobe links. I use the fibre optic link

which permits the use of the D 300's TTL system with Inon Z-240 strobes and I have been very happy with the results. The fibre

optic link eliminates the most common failure point with housed cameras- strobe cords; and elimintates the requirement to purchase

a third party TTL adapter, it that is your choice. The Nexus housing is a quality housing, it is allmost as small as the Seatool, comes

with intregrated handles, quality ports and accepts a user installable Inon 45degree viewfinder if desired.

I'm in the process of housing a D300 as well and I've chosen Seatool. Their housing provides support for popup flash and they offer port adapters for Nexus, Sea & Sea, Subal, Inon and maybe others. This allows me to use my favorite macro ports from one manufacturer (Nexus) and wide angle ports from another. Using popup flash allows me to eliminate sync cords and still get TTL.

Thanks for this great explanation of factors/features, Craig!

Would you mind explaining how the popup flash option give you TTL? I'm sure you're planning to use it with external strobes, but how/which? I have the D200, and soon after I got it I had a great time using the Commander mode to control 2 remote SB-600s bouncing off the ceiling, with the on-camera flash used only for a little fill, at -3.0. (I have a lot of Christmas Day family shots without any of that deer-in-the-headlights flattened-face effect.) As soon as I thought about taking it UW, I wondered if there was a way to use the Nikon flash capabilities -- but went the cheap route with an Ikelite box.

Would commander mode work with housed SB-800/900? Is there another way?

Aquatica- has made a lot of improvements over the last few years and should be considered (for example the use of a saddle to better align the camera). In my opinion you get a nice product that works very well at a reasonable cost (well reasonable for uw photography)

Sea & Sea- In the last year they have begun to produce some very nice housings.

Subal- has consistently put out a very good product over the years and has supported most cameras. As Craig said you are purchasing a port system as well as a housing, so you want to pick a manufacturer that has a history of consistently supporting new cameras as they come out. The only downside is that the system would be twice as much as aquatica and 50% more than sea & sea.

I think you will be happy with any of these three housings so try them out and buy the one you like most and is within you budget

Mike

I own a D 300 and chose a Nexus housing. This housing supports both electric and fibre optic strobe links. I use the fibre optic link

which permits the use of the D 300's TTL system with Inon Z-240 strobes and I have been very happy with the results.

When you say it supports fiber optic strobe links, how does it do the communication from camera to flash?

Put another way, if I had the right housing, could I use fiber optic links to get TTL with my D200 and S&S YS90DX's?

Guess I'll go read the pinned threads in the strobe forum...

The popup flash will provide TTL two different ways. The first is with strobes that are compatible with Nikon preflashes. Inon can do that and I believe Sea & Sea may as well. I will be using Z-240s and perhaps S-2000s. The housing has a fiber connection that's compatible with Inon. The second way is through CLS just like your D200. With a housed SB800, the Seatool housing will allow CLS to work though fiber or without. Zillion also makes housings for R200's which I think would make a nice macro strobe. The Zillion housing looks like it will take a Sea & Sea style fiber cord.

I believe Nexus can do all the same fiber things that Seatool can with the exception that Seatool allows you to use the popup strobe directly if you wish. Both manufacturers also provide bulkheads for conventional strobe wiring. Since Seatool allows the popup strobe to pass though the housing, it can be used as a CLS commander without fiber whereas the Nexus cannot. You can always turn the popup flash off in commander mode so it doesn't cause backscatter.

Heinrich is now offering CLS converters for a number of popular strobes. That means that Inons, YS-250s, and some of the newer Ike strobes can all be used as CLS strobes. The product is new and I haven't heard how well it works yet. That product is intended to be used without fiber though it appears easy to add that option.

For users of housings other than Nexus and Seatool, Zillion has a SU800 commander housing for CLS.

P.S. I also like the Nexus housings. The Seatool supports the back focus control that Nexus is slow to adopt and Nexus doesn't emphasize wide angle optics as much as I'd like. Their quality is as good as any and their macro port system is great. They also have wonderful grips. I considered Nexus but wanted that back focus control.

Both Nexus and Seatool emphasize compactness. A side effect of that is they tend to be heavy underwater. Some bouyant strobe arms are a good idea with them.

Greetings from the Emerald Isle

I have had a D70 with ikelite housingfor about 3 years now. It's time to upgrade. I what I hear about the D300 and its within budget, so thats the camera decided.

I would love to get the Subal housing and may do so, but it is alot of cash. Was also looking at the Aquatica and Sea And Sea. Like the look of the Aquatica, especially the Aquaview view finder, however I have heard from people that invested in Aquatica housings when they upgraded from film to digital and now say they would never buy anything other than Subal again.

The Sea and Sea looks good but not sure about the viewfinder.

Just wonder how people with these housings have got on with them. What do you like / not like about the housing?

 

any advice appreciated

 

 

Darragh :

Do you dislike your D70 Ikelite housing? If not I would suggest buying their D300 housing. All your ports & sync cables will work, and the housing will be very familar. The TTL controls on the D300 housing are vastly improved over the D70 housing.

With the money you save vs the alternatives you can buy an extra lens & port or even a backup D300 body. (Probably all of the above if you opt for Subal or SeaCam.)

I have the Subal. It's a very good housing. Definitely worth it to get a housing with a magnifier viewer. I use it with the Ikelite iTTL adaptor. So I have iTTL if I need it.

I have an Ikelite housing for my D300 and I am very happy with it except for two issues. one minor and one a real pain.

The minor issue is the proximity of the shutter release lever to the dial for the sub-command dial. I frequently take pictures while I'm trying to adjust aperture. It is only a minor nit as taking pictures costs very little (other than battery power from the strobes).

The major pain is the viewfinder port. I have a Ikelite D70 housing (which I had for 2 years before the D300) and it appears that Ikelite have used the same viewfinder port on the D300. I had some problems with the D70 being able to see the whole frame through the port and this is worse with the D300 and the viewfinder is slightly larger. I guess it is something I will get used to (as I did with the D70) but I do have trouble framing accurately and frequently have to crop my photos. There's a French company that makes a 45º angle viewfinder than can fit over the port on the Ikelite housing which I believe magnifies the viewfinder enough as well as allows the full frame to be seen. I am considering buy one of those.

The good thing about the Ikelite housing was I was able to reuse all my sync cords, ports and strobes that I had used on the D70. Although, one drawback is the Ikelite sync cords are not very robust. My first dual sync cord only lasted through around 80 dives because bends in the cable cause the wires to break. They now come with grommets on the cables so they should last a bit longer.

You should consider how much you want to spend on your housing especially if you think you may replace your camera body frequently. At least some of the more expensive housings can often be modified to take a new body which may result in less spend overall.

By the way, this is the viewfinder you can get: http://www.dyron.fr/page_article.php?id_ar...&language=2

Thanks for the replies so far.

Do I like the D70 ikelite housing? It is ok. All the controls I need are there, it has TTL for the 2 x DS125s I use, I have captured some great pictures with it. However the viewfinder is poor, U/W photography has enough challenges - especially in the poor viz/ low light we can get here in Ireland, not being able to see the full viewfinder is a pain. I had a look through the Aquaview viewfinder for the Aquatica when it was attached to a D200 housing - WOW what a difference.

OK if I was to stay with Ikelite I would have TTL with the housing. I only use the TTL for macro, and don't see shooting macro in manual as a major inconvience.

Basically I want to upgrade to D300 for its ability to deal with highlights far better than the D70, the much larger LCD than the D70 and less importantly to me the extra MPs.

I would be happy to purchase the Aquatica housing and save myself some $$$, but would just like to know has anyone experienced problems with this housing. Does it have any improvements over the D200 Aquatica housing?

As regards the price of Subal housings here in Europe the closest dealer to me is in England, the funny thing is it is more expensive to buy a Subal housing (which are manufactured in Europe) frum the UK than it is to buy it from the US!!!

The Seatool housing looks good, great for travel. However not sure if I would like a housing without handles, especially when 2 strobes are attached.

keep it coming

cheers

Darragh

Thanks for the replies so far.

 

Do I like the D70 ikelite housing? It is ok. All the controls I need are there, it has TTL for the 2 x DS125s I use, I have captured some great pictures with it. However the viewfinder is poor, U/W photography has enough challenges - especially in the poor viz/ low light we can get here in Ireland, not being able to see the full viewfinder is a pain. I had a look through the Aquaview viewfinder for the Aquatica when it was attached to a D200 housing - WOW what a difference.

OK if I was to stay with Ikelite I would have TTL with the housing. I only use the TTL for macro, and don't see shooting macro in manual as a major inconvience.

Basically I want to upgrade to D300 for its ability to deal with highlights far better than the D70, the much larger LCD than the D70 and less importantly to me the extra MPs.

I would be happy to purchase the Aquatica housing and save myself some $$$, but would just like to know has anyone experienced problems with this housing. Does it have any improvements over the D200 Aquatica housing?

 

As regards the price of Subal housings here in Europe the closest dealer to me is in England, the funny thing is it is more expensive to buy a Subal housing (which are manufactured in Europe) frum the UK than it is to buy it from the US!!!

The Seatool housing looks good, great for travel. However not sure if I would like a housing without handles, especially when 2 strobes are attached.

 

keep it coming

 

cheers

 

Darragh

Comparing the D70 viewfinder to the D200 or D300 is going to be a vastly different experience even without a housing. One of the best improvements of the D200 (imho) was the bigger & brighter viewfinder, and the D300 is even better. By comparison the D70 is shrunken and dim.

I'd check out the D300 in an Ikelite housing as well before drawing any firm conclusions. With the D300 / Ikelite combo I don't have any complaints.

I use an Aquatica housing, only regrets are the weight of the system and bulk. With today's air travel baggage restrictions it is a problem. The is common to all the housings with a possible exception for the seatool. It looks like it is more compact than the rest, don't know about the weight. Plan on stix arms for your flashes as they will neutralize the weight in the water and save your arms.

The Seatool housing looks good, great for travel. However not sure if I would like a housing without handles, especially when 2 strobes are attached.

 

keep it coming

 

cheers

 

Darragh

You can always add a tray and handles to the Seatool housing. That's what I did (ULCS tray and handles). However, I only use them to carry it around. When I'm actually shooting, I just grab the side of the housing with my right hand -- I added a hand strap to keep my hand on the housing. I still use the left handle to stabilize things further. I also adjusted the left handle to be close enough to the housing so that I can easily reach the zoom/focus knob while using that handle. The controls are placed such that the ergonomics are fine doing everything this way. I tried taking pictures from the right handle and gripping the housing is much better.

Mike

If compact is what you want, you might want to have a look at Hugyfot from Belgium as well. Actually even more compact than the Seatool, slightly heavier on land though. But it doesn't support TTL with the cameras flash popped up. Instead they have the Heinrich Weikamp converter factory installed. Priced in the same range as Sea&Sea in Europe and can take ports from various makes.

Seatool D300

207x173x125

1.8 kg (housing only)

200g in water with camera

Hugyfot D300

208x160x125

2.6 kg (housing only)

neutral in water with camera

How can a housing that is physically smaller have 1kg more bouyancy when in the water? Sorry but I don't believe those numbers. If the Hugy has 1kg more bouyancy then it is substantially larger than the Seatool housing. Hugyfots look like terrific housings but physics can't be suspended.

The D300 is a heavy camera for its size. Any housing that is designed to be as small as possible will be heavy underwater. It's nothing that strobe arm floats can't handle.

Yes, attaching a left grip to the Seatool is something you will want to do. If you use a right grip then you will lose access to the back focus control. With a left grip you can have three strobe attachment points that are pretty well positioned across the top of the housing. One is a hotshoe mount, one must be a ball, and the third can be whatever your grip allows.

I am planning to use a ULCS tray and an Inon grip for mine. The ULCS grip is OK and has a ball on the top. The Inon is form-fitted to the hand and takes strobe adapters. I will have to buy extended M6 bolts and spacers to make it work but that's easy enough.

Greetings from the Emerald Isle

I have had a D70 with ikelite housingfor about 3 years now. It's time to upgrade. I what I hear about the D300 and its within budget, so thats the camera decided.

I would love to get the Subal housing and may do so, but it is alot of cash. Was also looking at the Aquatica and Sea And Sea. Like the look of the Aquatica, especially the Aquaview view finder, however I have heard from people that invested in Aquatica housings when they upgraded from film to digital and now say they would never buy anything other than Subal again.

The Sea and Sea looks good but not sure about the viewfinder.

Just wonder how people with these housings have got on with them. What do you like / not like about the housing?

 

any advice appreciated

 

 

Darragh :

I own and use two Aquatica housings - one for the D200 and one for the D3. Both have served me well and love them both. I have formerly owned an Ikelite housing for a D70. The Ike housings are great for the price, but there were a few quirks that I disliked about the Ike housings. Now that I've moved to Aquatica, I haven't looked back. I cannot comment on Subal since I've never actually held nor used one.

A few months ago, I got to try out a Sea&Sea D3 housing. I was quite impressed with the build quality, but I did have some issues with the seating of the camera in the housing. Granted, this was probably an early production unit I got, and Sea&Sea did issue a recall on some of these units for saddle mounting problems, which may explain some of the control difficulties I experienced with the Sea&Sea housing. That aside, ergonomically, it was very nice and intuitive.

One of the things I love about the Aquatica housings is how solid the camera mounts in the housing (with the rail system) and how responsive and crisp the controls feel. Turning the command dials (both primary and secondary) results in instant and accurate response. One of the other benefits of the Aquatica housing for me was the depth rating to 300 ft. This, of course, may or may not matter to you, but since I do dive beyond 200 ft on occasion, this was a consideration.

One of the things I disliked about the two Aquatica housings is the window to the top LCD screen is just a bit too small to allow me to see the whole thing. It was a bit of a pain with the D200 since I would have to look hard to see which mode the camera was set to. With the D3, it's not really an issue since the D3 allows me to show all that information on the rear LCD screen at the press of a button.

And I cannot say enough good things about the customer service at Aquatica. As you can see, Jean is here all the time fielding questions and giving us information on upcoming product releases. If I've ever needed anything, often times it's at my door the next day.