housing my Canon D60

It seems the two options are the pricey-but-nice housing from UK-Germany, and the cheaper-but-functional housing from Ikelite.

I'd really rather not send my camera to Ikelite for a few weeks, for a variety of reasons not the least being I need to use it, and there are some shortcomings of that housing such as lack of full view of the LCD and what appears to be a more cumbersome control layout. However it seems very difficult to get any information from UK-Germany or the place in Canada that sells them in North America.

Are there any other housing options for this camera? Anyone planning to send their D60 to Ikelite to get one of their housings?

Thanks for any info!

Sean

I think you should send your D60 to Ike; then when I finally break down and get mine, he'll already have the specs to build a housing for me without me having to send him a camera! . Seriously, though -- you've listed the two I know of. Eric Cheng, the moderator of this little circus, has a housing from UK-Germany and really likes it. From what he's told us, he's gotten decent responses from the UK-Germany folks. Not sure if language is an issue, but that could be slowing things down. yes, Ike's housing aren't as fancy as the aluminum ones, but they always seem to work and the price is right. I must admit, though, that not being able to see the LCD would bother me a bit (though you don't use it to frame the picture like you do with a P&S digicam). Since i'm a Canon guy, I've always been a bit irked that more folks don't build housings for Canon SLRs. I have a bad feeling that when the Nikon D-100 comes out, there will be more housings for it than the D60. However, the D-100 can't use my Canon L lenses . . .

Mike Oelrich

Actually I was hoping I could get someone else to be the first to bite at Ikelite! Yeah the lack of seeing the whole LCD is an issue for me, mostly for reviewing shots.

I just got an email back from the folks at eurodivetech, who sell the UK housing in NA. $2464 for the housing, $150-$500 for ports depending on what they are, and $400 to house my Canon 550EX flash -- I assume this is US$ and not Canadian$, but I did fire back an email to make sure. Seems to me the advantage of housing my canon flash would be it would work properly with my camera, and I could always get a second for more light. Hmmm. The 550EX will also fire several times a second for a short burst, which I don't think the Ike strobes will do.

I saw Eric's housing at the last Bay Area canon user group thing, it's a big heavy but nicely built thing. I also saw the shots he got with it, nice! I have an S40 with the canon housing, and it just can't do the same thing.

I once read an explanation of the dearth of Canon u/w gear, and it seems to all lead back to the Nikonos and working with strobes. Since the u/w strobes are designed to work with Nikon cameras, people tend to use Nikon cameras. Makes sense I suppose. I know of at least one D100 housing already announced!

Just to blather on about this a bit more, I plan to use my 16-35L wide angle and my 100mm macro lenses with this getup. The 16-35L at 35MM is actually halfway decent as a macro lens for less small subjects, at least on the D60 with its focal crop factor, as it focuses much closer than the 17-35L can. I've heard that the 100mm macro may be overkill; any opinions on this?

Re: the 100mm

I currently use a Tamron 90mm on my Canon A2. It'll get you pretty close to most little critters. I also have one of "Woody's diopters" to add a bit more magnification. I've thought a couple times about adding a teleconverter to it, but so far I haven't followed through. The Canon 100 will give you 160mm with the multiplier -- that's alot of magnification. It'll take a lot of practice to frame (remember, digital SLRs don't let you frame with the LCD). You'll also need to use manual focus, I bet -- it's hard to get the lenses to focus reliably in this application (at least that's been my experience). The Tamron 90mm is a very good lens also, BTW, if you're set on going long.

Mike

Yeah, I've gotten some practice with the 100mm topside, I actually bought it when I got a D30 late 2000. With a flat port and the added magnification of the water it's going to be interesting!

Has anyone tried the D30/D60 with the 28-135mm? I'd think you could get some decent range from middle of the road (44.8 equiv) to fairly decent magnification (216 equiv). Would this even fit in an Ikelite housing / port? I seem to recall the dimensions were fairly large.

Tom

I have a 28-135 but I nearly never use it. I find I shoot at the extremes, 16mm or 400mm most of the time, but that's a matter of taste I suppose. Underwater I plan to shoot very wide angle most of the time.

The other problem with this lens is sharpness; the D60 has high enough resolution to reveal the difference between L glass and consumer glass. At least, this seems to be a widely help opinion, I haven't done a comparison myself.

One thing that works in your favor with digicams with a focal length multiplier is that you are looking through the center of your lens (the information from the edges of the lens is, essentially, cropped from your picture by the camera). Since most lenses are at their sharpest at the center, your pictures look better with the digicam. The 28-135IS is a very popular lens with the D30 crowd because it is a low-cost lens with the stabilizer built in . . .

mike

How did you guys get your D60's so fast????

Cheers

James

I'm not really sure; I called on April 3, got my D60 on the 13th. Some people called the same place and are still waiting. My last name starts with 'A', perhaps that has something to do with it?

Unless things have changed with the ports or the lens, the 28-135is will not work in an ikelite housing.

The lens is too wide with that IS knob. At least it was for my old Elan housing