D100 user wants to house 17-35 lens

You pixes have saved me on many occasions so I now bow at this oracle of UW knowledge to ask about changing from my Ikelite housed Nikon CP5K and housing my Nikon D100.

My housing of choice would be the Ikelite, due to price and visibility.

I would like to use my favorite Nikon 17-35mm F2.8 lens. As you know, this one is a monster. Is it possible to house it on the Ikelite housing? I would also like the option to use the Nikkor 14mm lens if I choose.

Naturally, I would use my 60 and 105 for the macro stuff but I really want to use the 17-35.

What do I need and what should I do?

Question #2- I will use my 2 Ikelite DS-125 strobes on this system. How effective to y'all find the D100 in TTL mode when controlling in the strobes in TTL?

Thanks! :roll:

Hi,

I'll leave it to Ike to tell you if this lens will fit in his ports.

When you switch to the D100 I think you'll find that the 17-35 will not give you the wide angle view that you want. When used on the D100, the field of view will be like shooting a 28-70 lens. Sure, that's a great zoom range if you're a studio photographer but it's not as useful underwater.

I'm speaking from experience because I did some dives with the 18-35 in my Ikelite housing...

In any case, the Nikon 14mm will work and give you a good fixed wideangle lens, however, you may be more happy shooting the 16mm Nikkor fisheye if you have it.

Cheers

James

I don't know about Ikelite, but I use the 17-35mm in my Aquatica housing all the time. It is my favorite lens.

I find it wide enough for most situations, excluding whale sharks. It requires a fairly long extension on the dome port, which may be another problem to house it in an Ikelite. It's also long enough on the 35mm side to get some decent fish portraits.

It's also my most often used top side lens.

Fish Portrait:

I find it wide enough for most situations, excluding whale sharks.

Hey George, perhaps if you'd waited another couple of seconds the whale shark would have swum all the way in to the frame, and it would have been wide enough...

Pulled from Ikelite's webpage:

Maximum lens diameter is limited to 8.4cm (3.3"). The diameter for attachment of zoom or focus clamps is limited to 7.1cm (2.8").

The 17-35 is 3.2 inches wide. So the lens will just fit through the port orifice, but you're not going to be able to put zoom clamps on it.

Almost forgot. There is no TTL with underwater strobes and the D100. At least, not as of yet. There may never be any either as I suspect the people working on the issue will address the D70's iTTL before the D100's dTTL.

I use DS125's in manual mode.

I think the zoom range for the 12-24DX is much better than the 17-35. If you don't already own the 17-35, I'd recommend you get the 12-24 instead.

If you're used to shooting film with the 17-35 then you can expect the same results from the 12-24DX on the D100.

The 12-24DX is a lot smaller, and it works well in the Ikelite port, including the zoom.

Cheers

James

Hi GRT-

In the classified section, I have a L&M Titan D100 listed for sale. It includes the zoom ring for the 17-35, the wide angle dome port and the macro port in case you ever decide to do that too.

Just a thought...

-Mooner

PS: I really liked the 17-35 underwater, but also decided to get a fisheye. I bought the 10.5, but it clips the corners a little in the relatively small L&M 8" dome. 16 fisheye might have been a better choice for super-wide.

17-35mm requires only a special clamp and sleeve that is included with the D70 housing as per following URL: http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/2port_nikon.html

Hey George, perhaps if you'd waited another couple of seconds the whale shark would have swum all the way in to the frame, and it would have been wide enough...

Story of my life

That's as close to a full shot as I got on the trip. I had the 12-24mm, but bent the stop down lever in the camera and that particular lens wouldn't work. It's always something. Next year I'm hoping to get it right.

Hey George, perhaps if you'd waited another couple of seconds the whale shark would have swum all the way in to the frame, and it would have been wide enough...

 

Story of my life

In the interests of fairness... you are right that the 17 was not wide enough. Although the whole fish would have fitted in to the frame a couple of seconds later, it would have been better still if you could have been closer... and that would have needed wider. (As you well know, and I have no desire to teach Grandma anything about sucking eggs )

Next year...