10-17mm DX FE vs. 17-35mm FX

I'm in the process of upgrading myself to a DSLR underwater setup and my current front runners are systems built around a Nikon D700 or a D200.

I currently own a D700 and the 17-35mm and could get a D200 for a song from a friend with too many cameras. I've seen some stuff shot on Nikon FX bodies with the 17-35mm in Alex's reviews and some of Jeff's work, but not nearly as much as I've seen shot with the 10-17 FE.

Does anyone care to comment on the differences between shooting with a 10-17 FE on a cropped sensor body vs. a 17-35mm rectilinear on a full frame body?

Thanks!

Very different Jeremy; the closest you will get to the 10-17 on the D700 is the 16mm Fisheye (or Sigma 15mm). Much wider FOV on the 10-17 (or 16) than the 17-35 and much closer focusing. Underwater with the D700 you will need the 16 or 15mm in addition to the 17-35. (We can only hope Tokina makes a 15-24 FX fisheye) Topside, the 10-17 is of limited value. For CFWA the fisheye has greater utility underwater. I think there is consensus that the biggest thing one has to give up switching from DX to FX, is the utility of the 10-17 underwater. There have been a bunch of threads on this if you do a search.

At its widest the 17-35mm on FX is only 104 degrees. The 10-17mm on DX at its narrowest is about 100 degrees. So they hardly overlap at all.

This was taken with 17-35mm yesterday:

Pentax used to have a FF fisheye zoom 17-28mm I think. The current 10-17mm by Tokina comes from the 10-17mm Pentax lens. So we need pentax to go full frame digital to drive a FX fisheye zoom project.

Alex

Gotcha - thanks guys! Very helpful.

I'm really thinking hard about going the D200 route. Reef has a nice deal (who knows how long it will last) on a S&S DX 200 housing ... tempted, but don't want to rush the decision as I doubt I'll go diving again before June ...

This was taken with 17-35mm yesterday:

Alex ... When you shoot portrait like that do you try and move both strobes out to the side or do you leave one on top and bring the other to the side ... or something else?

Thanks!

This is taken without strobes!

Alex

This is taken without strobes!

 

Alex

Haha! ... no wonder the light is so even!

That's the thing that keeps pulling me back to the idea of housing the D700 ...

I know you say you haven't found much use for anything over ISO 800 underwater, but I'd very much like to explore high ISO, ambient light and HDR photography underwater in places like Iron Shores Garden on Cayman.

I shot some backgrounds for double exposures at ISO 1600 a couple of days ago (deep inside caves). But generally no.

Alex

Maybe, with the proliferation of full-frame digital cameras from Sony and now Nikon, IF enough of us wrote to Tokina or the other independent lens makers, one of them would design and manufacture a fisheye zoom for the full-frame dSLR cameras. I would certainly buy one.

I own the full frame fisheye lens for my Nikons, but find using it so limiting, 180 degrees only, that I rarely use it.

A fisheye zoom that covers the range from full frame fisheye to the wide end of the 17-35mm rectilinear lens would be tremendously more versatile.

I will be going to the big US PMA photo equipment show in early March and mentioning this to Tokina was already on my list of "must do's".

If enough other people wrote or emailed them, MAYBE!!

Fred