Aquatica vs Nauticam for Nikon D7000, please help!

Hello all!

I am getting ready to take the plunge and to upgrade my UW system. I have narrowed it down to D7000 camera in either Nauticam, or Aquatica housing. I have an 8" dome port, macro port and some extension rings for my Aquatica S2 housing. It sounds like these should fit the new model Aquatica housings and can fit Nauticam with appropriate adaptors. I do not want to offend any Aquatica, or Nauticam representatives on this very highly regarded web site, but I would be particularly interested in the things people DO NOT like about their housings, or the problems they had with them. Clearly, both housings are terrific, judging by the reviews on this forum. I, however, need to make the decision somehow. You can e-mail me at egolts@ucsd.edu, if you feel uneasy about posting negative feedback. I will compile the all the answers and will post them here with no names attached.

I am also planning to drive up to Los Angeles for the scuba show there to hopefully hold these housings on June 4th and 5th, but do not see either company on the list of exhibitors.

Any advice is appreciated.

Hello all!

I am getting ready to take the plunge and to upgrade my UW system. I have narrowed it down to D7000 camera in either Nauticam, or Aquatica housing. I have an 8" dome port, macro port and some extension rings for my Aquatica S2 housing. It sounds like these should fit the new model Aquatica housings and can fit Nauticam with appropriate adaptors. I do not want to offend any Aquatica, or Nauticam representatives on this very highly regarded web site, but I would be particularly interested in the things people DO NOT like about their housings, or the problems they had with them. Clearly, both housings are terrific, judging by the reviews on this forum. I, however, need to make the decision somehow. You can e-mail me at egolts@ucsd.edu, if you feel uneasy about posting negative feedback. I will compile the all the answers and will post them here with no names attached.

I am also planning to drive up to Los Angeles for the scuba show there to hopefully hold these housings on June 4th and 5th, but do not see either company on the list of exhibitors.

Any advice is appreciated.

I'm wondering if Wetpixel is getting close to releasing their review on these housings? They were originally targeting March I think but had some supply problems getting all the housings. Any moderators want to comment on a tentative date for this review? Any info on what housings will be included?

thanks,

John

Hello all!

I am getting ready to take the plunge and to upgrade my UW system. I have narrowed it down to D7000 camera in either Nauticam, or Aquatica housing. I have an 8" dome port, macro port and some extension rings for my Aquatica S2 housing. It sounds like these should fit the new model Aquatica housings and can fit Nauticam with appropriate adaptors. I do not want to offend any Aquatica, or Nauticam representatives on this very highly regarded web site, but I would be particularly interested in the things people DO NOT like about their housings, or the problems they had with them. Clearly, both housings are terrific, judging by the reviews on this forum. I, however, need to make the decision somehow. You can e-mail me at egolts@ucsd.edu, if you feel uneasy about posting negative feedback. I will compile the all the answers and will post them here with no names attached.

I am also planning to drive up to Los Angeles for the scuba show there to hopefully hold these housings on June 4th and 5th, but do not see either company on the list of exhibitors.

Any advice is appreciated.

In Long Beach diving exhibition, I see Backscatter & Reef photo in the list & am sure they will bring both housing there.

Sam

I certainly hope no one feels uncomfortable posting negatives or positives about housings on this forum. That's the point of the forum!

What I do suggest you do is check if the adapter affects the usage of lenses you have or will get. I know with the 5D2, the adapter from Aquatica precludes the use of the 15mm fisheye as it vignettes.

If you search the forums, you will find each brand will have problems (no brand is immune to issues). The D7000 is pretty new so I think any major problems have yet to surface.

Hello all!

I am getting ready to take the plunge and to upgrade my UW system. I have narrowed it down to D7000 camera in either Nauticam, or Aquatica housing. I have an 8" dome port, macro port and some extension rings for my Aquatica S2 housing. It sounds like these should fit the new model Aquatica housings and can fit Nauticam with appropriate adaptors. I do not want to offend any Aquatica, or Nauticam representatives on this very highly regarded web site, but I would be particularly interested in the things people DO NOT like about their housings, or the problems they had with them. Clearly, both housings are terrific, judging by the reviews on this forum. I, however, need to make the decision somehow. You can e-mail me at egolts@ucsd.edu, if you feel uneasy about posting negative feedback. I will compile the all the answers and will post them here with no names attached.

I am also planning to drive up to Los Angeles for the scuba show there to hopefully hold these housings on June 4th and 5th, but do not see either company on the list of exhibitors.

Any advice is appreciated.

I will be in Long Beach at the Backscatter's booth, and yes I will have the AD7000 housing on hand.

About the review, at this point we are still waiting for it as well, we have supplied a brand new production Aquatica AD7000 housing for this review quite a while ago, (at the London dive show to be precise) so if there is any supply issues with manufacturers, you can rule us out as the culprit

Akulamd, if you think we are only interested with the pat in the back feedback, you are mistaken, part of the process of improving a products line is hearing what users have to say about it, be it sweet or sour, it's always welcome. as a manufacturer we want to hear everything not only the "wow, it's so good stuff!!!" (I'm not saying we don't appreciate these, au contraire, mon ami! ) but relying on only positive comments and discarding the others does not make for a very productive attitude.

Sea ya in Long Beach, its a fun show, you will enjoy!

Hi all,

I can confirm that we have (and have had for some time) housings from Aquatica, Nauticam and Ikelite, and are actively diving and reviewing them at the moment. The purpose of the review is to test as many of the available housings as possible, and in this no other suppliers have yet supplied housings.

I'm hoping that I should be in a position to start collating results by mid/late June!

What I can definitely say is that the housings that we have tested so far are all much better housings than we have used previously. It seems the D7000 has raised the game not only in terms of camera performance!

Adam

Hello Akulamd,

We will have Nauticam housings at both the Reef Photo and Backscatter booths at the Long Beach Scuba show. I'll be hanging out at both booths - see you there!

There are also some upcoming opportunities to demo/dive the housing:

- Digital Shootout in Bonaire in June (sold out I'm afraid)

- Liveaboard trip on the M/V Spree in August (http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41268)

- Monterey Shootout in September (http://www.montereyshootout.com/)

Cheers,

Chris

Thank you very much everyone.

I am in the same situation... Camera here, housing still to decide...

Asking quotes directly to the producers i think that i will go with a SEALUX housing, as they are considerable cheaper,

have glass ports and excellent viewfinders and are a well known German manufacturer.

http://www.sealux.de/en/

Another solution would be ISOTECNIC, a top quality italian manufacturer, known for his excellent underwater torches and rugged photo/video housings.

http://www.isotecnic.it/cms/category/foto?lang=en

Chris

Chris

It does make sense that EU products are cheaper because there is no import duty etc. The geographical advantage for you is a disadvantage for anyone dealing with the manufacturer directly from another continent. Shipping costs, customs duty, time delay due to distance are issues that are very real, but one other very real issue is local representation. It's much easier to have a local dealer, who happens to be a service center for the product. Having a local presence that requires shipping back to the manufacturer for any issue is neither cheap nor expedient. And it's usually the smaller companies that have these issues.

Besides the logistical issues, one also has to look at ports and extensions, especially if one wants to use rectilinear wide angle lenses, which requires a big dome port. Extension rings are important if one wants to use not so popular lenses.

Drew,

you are right and we Europeans have the same issue especially with Ikelite housings as we (or the dealer) have to ship them back to the US,

and the momentary US$ - Euro exchange rate makes shopping in Europe for Americans not very economic.

This is the main reason that i am not considering a Ikelite housing as i had to pay about 250$ in shipping costs and custom clearance for my

brand new DS-125 strobe with a broken strobe tube and that Ikelite housings and Nikon (at least D90 + D7000) won't allow optical triggered slave strobes.

Sealux, Subal, Hugyfot and Isotecnic are housing manufacturers of a excellent reputation and built keeping "german quality" in mind.

This don't excludes that other housing manufacturers build same "German Quality" housings!

Sealux and Isotecnic offer both enough dome- and flatports, extension rings and zoom gears for more than the most used lenses.

Chris

Actually Chris, Sealux has a very small dome which is fine for small focal lengths but will suffer from the same issues as other small domes, especially for full frame cameras.

As for Sealux design, my experience with their video housings hasn't been impressive. I've used 2 of their housings and there are issues:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28146

Anyhow, with rectilinear wide angle lenses, a 180mm dome is not going to be enough, especially 20mm or less (35mm equivalents), for corners. Even for APS-C, corners require bigger domes {200mm and above}. It's not all that simple unfortunately. However if requirements don't include rectilinear wide angles, then it's a lot easier.

Hello all!

I am getting ready to take the plunge and to upgrade my UW system. I have narrowed it down to D7000 camera in either Nauticam, or Aquatica housing. I have an 8" dome port, macro port and some extension rings for my Aquatica S2 housing. It sounds like these should fit the new model Aquatica housings and can fit Nauticam with appropriate adaptors. I do not want to offend any Aquatica, or Nauticam representatives on this very highly regarded web site, but I would be particularly interested in the things people DO NOT like about their housings, or the problems they had with them. Clearly, both housings are terrific, judging by the reviews on this forum. I, however, need to make the decision somehow. You can e-mail me at egolts@ucsd.edu, if you feel uneasy about posting negative feedback. I will compile the all the answers and will post them here with no names attached.

I am also planning to drive up to Los Angeles for the scuba show there to hopefully hold these housings on June 4th and 5th, but do not see either company on the list of exhibitors.

Any advice is appreciated.

Hi,

I've got the Aquatica D7000 and can say it is an amazing piece of equipment but I'm a bit disappointed considering I was expecting perfection for the price. The liveview button jams once you try to use it below about 5m. If you're down at 30m and you switch the liveview trigger to shoot video it almost always jams and will not free until you come up to shallow water. Once that jams, you can no longer use the camera without cycling the power which will give you one shot.

Another issue I've had is that the water alarm seems to be a bit too sensitive; it's gone off several times while I've been under water causing a bit of panic; only to find out that once I've gotten out of the water, no water was in the housing.

Additionally, the fiberoptic reflectors are not fixed in their location and can easily swivel around so they no longer work; these should have been fixed. I used some electrical tape on the boat to hold them in place, which fixed the problem, but it's something Aquatica should have realized and taken care of themselves.

Maybe I purchased a defective housing but I think for the price and the fact that it's a precision piece of equipment I shouldn't be experiencing these issues; something to think about before purchasing. Do others have the same problems?

cheers,

Chase

I've got the Aquatica D7000 and can say it is an amazing piece of equipment but I'm a bit disappointed considering I was expecting perfection for the price. The liveview button jams once you try to use it below about 5m. If you're down at 30m and you switch the liveview trigger to shoot video it almost always jams and will not free until you come up to shallow water. Once that jams, you can no longer use the camera without cycling the power which will give you one shot.

Read this thread. It's a known issue and there is a fix for it.

Read this thread. It's a known issue and there is a fix for it.

Thanks! I was replied to by Aquatica yesterday and they told me about the fix for the liveview button.

I had the chance to see the 3 housings for the D7000:

- aquatica

- nauticam

- seacam

I would instantly fav Aquatica (because the DO listen to their customers, and find solutions to their problems) and Nauticam (top quality). Preference for Aquatica...

I would avoid Seacam since you will not have access to all camera controls

Damien

Thank you very much everyone for the advice. I'll post some pictures taken with the new setup soon.

All of the housings mentioned for the D7000 are great and well constructed. It is really just a matter of what ports you may already have and how the housing fits your hands and your needs. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to handle the Aquatica, Sea&Sea, Nauticam and Subal housings all together at Backscatter. Each had it's pluses and minuses. All were quality in build and handling. I would suggest that ILO basing your decision on "posts" that you get your hands on each. I chose the Subal with UltraLight handles and am currently diving with it at the Backscatter Digital Shootout.