Thoughts on SeaLife

I work for a dive shop, who's owner seems very ingrained with Sea Life. My impression of the products are not that great. I don't see a lot of them on boats by people who look like they care that much about the hobby.

I'm trying to fill a void in this dive shop by wanting to market and teach photography. But I don't want to sell customers junk. My only 2 experiences with dive housings are an un-named company that was a complete nightmare of a camera and housing and Ikelite. I LOVE and trust Ikelite customer service, and for the price, it seems a great housing (only having the first nightmare to compare). My shop also carries ike, but pushes everyone to Sea Life.

The only thing I can think of is either everyone is missing out how good Sea life is or Ikelite doesn't let him mark the products up a great deal.

He's basically said that if I want to teach photography there, I have to use Sea life. My current feelings towards that is to not teach photography there. But I would like to get the advice from the community on this product as see if maybe I'm overlooking something.

I'm specifically looking at opinions on the strobes and lights.

Thanks

The profit margin on SeaLife is probably higher, but that is for another discussion.

How about teaching multiple levels of classes?

Have an 'intro to underwater photography' course which would be appropriate for the purchasers of SeaLife type products who just want/need a simple camera for taking average photos. There is a market for folks who just wanna push a button and don't care about artistic value of the image (what backscatter?). Look at all the point and shoot cameras for sale in electronics stores (and topside DSLR users who never take their camera out of 'Auto' mode). Maybe the shop owner could loan students SeaLife cameras for the class in anticipation of driving sales?

Then offer more 'advanced' type classes that appeals to the DSLR/advanced camera crowd who want better images. That'll help direct sales to the Ikelite products you prefer. You could branch into other areas such as lighting techniques and digital workflow.

Yeah, I agree with mcgowman. You could get yourself into a tricky situation if you deliberately go against the store policy - and, believe me, the dive business is a very small world! And, as mcgowman says, generally, the market for P/S type photography is much bigger than for the DSLR.

So why not teach, say, the PADI Digital Photog Specialty - or some such - using the SeaLife (on which I share your view) and also offer something a bit more technical - perhaps decent P/Ss (in Lembeh I found the Canon Gxx/Ikelite series very popular).

Unless you have loads of cash, I'd hold back on the DSLR teaching for the time being until you are established. It's expensive to set up and a much smaller market although, potentially, more lucrative.

I agree with both of you. That tiered teaching plan is the goal. My issue is he's forcing me into buying the sea life strobes. I get the mind set of people buying what they see the instructors see.

I currently shoot a Canon S100 in an Ike with a Sola 800. So all my day shots are natural light, because I traveled to great spots where the vis is limitless and the sun is so strong. And it taught me more about exposure, because I had to shoot manual and constantly WB.

I'm not saying I would recommend the sea life to someone who was in my shoes 5 years ago and only thought about buying his first camera after diving. It seems idiot proof.

But I feel like I would be given odd looks and lose credibility if I put sea life strobes on my rig. I'd have to build a custom mount plate for sure. The only thing is that they have a 20m GN and are tiny. They only get 150 shots per charge and the shots I see, the light looks harsh, but that might be their absolutely horrible camera.

Hmmmm, if you are going to teach and the store would "prefer" you to use SeaLife, would they give you a hefty discount on a complete SeaLife stepup? Or loan you one? Because, as you rightly say, students often buy the same as instructors use? There is an incentive for the shop. You could teach store customers with all SeaLife gear and offer them the option of private lessons with you on other types of gear.

You can tell your students that you are using the gear that the shop has readily available; but that if they'd like to discuss other options for buying gear, you have ideas.... (discretely done of course).

Unless the discount was spectacular, I'm not sure I'd want to buy gear (in this case the SeaLife strobes) that you really don't want. It seems a little unreasonable of the store to expect you to do that. It's not as though you buy strobes every few months - you buy them and they last years so you want exactly what you think is right. I'd want to buy them even less if I also had to have a custom mounting plate made!

He's selling to me at cost. So I could get 2 strobes or strobe and 2k lumen light for 1/2 of a D160.

As you point out, you don't see a lot of SeaLife cameras on dive trips, especially those trips that cater to photographers. That being said, you can get some nice photos using SeaLife gear, you just need to know where their strengths and weaknesses are. For beginners, teaching SeaLife is a good way for you to stretch yourself to use a system that is "less capable" than housed DSLR/micro 4/3 systems and you might find that great fun. As president of LAUPS, we often get asked to help beginners learn to shoot and I have taught several folks who bought SeaLife how to get the most from their systems with pretty nice results. Camera agnosticism is a good thing for a teacher; if you get a really good student then you can offer them a way to upgrade their skills with housed IKE systems. Whatever you do become an EXPERT on the system you will be teaching; otherwise you might come off as not a real teacher.

Bill