Hey y'all!

Greetings from Alabama!

Been diving for several years, love underwater photography, & am in the process of upgrading from my P&S Olympus TG-4 to my Nikon D7000. Definitely an amateur photographer, but love to take macro pics & working on getting better. Going the Ikelite route with my Nikon, so any advice as far as lenses, strobes (hope to have two DS-161s in hand soon), etc would be fantastic!

Hi

I have a D7000 in an ikelite housing, so happy to share my thoughts and experience.

Ikelite strobes are quality and make sense when going with an ikelite housing as TTL functionality is built in. The 161s are great. I have one paired with an older 125 (purely for financial reasons).

As far as lenses go, the accepted "go to" lenses are the tokina 10-17 fisheye for wide angle, and either a nikkor 60 mm 2.8 macro (d or g version), or 105 mm. I have the 60 mm, which I find great. You need to get a little closer for macro shots, but I think provides an easier working distance to also shoot fish portraits.

With those lenses you can't go wrong. You'll need to get a flat port for the macro lens and a dome for the fisheye. You can either go with the large ikelite dome, or a smaller dome that will allow you to get closer to things for "close focus wide angle" (CFWA) shots.

I've recently invested in a vivid housing leak sentinel for my set up. Also really worth looking into to give you peace of mind with all that expensive gear!

Hope that helps. Happy to answer any further questions.

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Wow, thanks for the advice! I will definitely be chatting with you as I slowly start to put together the pieces for my Nikon. I really don't know what all hooks up to what & what kind of cables to get once I do get strobes. I'm *hoping* to have the Nikon ready to go when I go to Australia for three weeks later this year.

As terrible as this is to admit, I have the housing for the Nikon, but for the life of me can't figure out how to get the darn thing to open! Those are some tight clamps holding that housing together. Youtube to the rescue....

How does the vivid housing leak sentinel work? Definitely worth the investment. How does it fit into the housing?

Appreciate your advice!

No worries. Happy to help.

That's strange with the clamps. They hold things together tight, but shouldn't be hard to release. You need to push the flat piece of metal that's on the hinge before it will release. It's the small metal strip that's perpendicular to the rest of the hinge.

You'll need an ikelite to ikelite sync cord. As you mention that you'll be getting two strobes, you'll want the dual version.

The leak sentinel screws into a control port via an adapter. You'll need to sacrifice a control. You'll probably find that there's several that you'll never use underwater. It works by you making a negative pressure on the inside of the housing via a pump. An LED light tells you if you're losing vacuum, hopefully pre-dive. Leak sentinel from vivid housings is a good quality unit for a great price. Excellent customer service too.

Where in Australia are you headed? I'm originally from Tasmania.

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Finally managed to get the clamps to release. They were stiff from unuse, is my best guess.

Will be heading to Cairns to go out with Reef Encounters for about two weeks, then headed back to Syndey for a couple days. Going to try to go looking for leafy & weedy seadragons, as long as I'm in the area. I'm really looking forward to this trip, it's probably at the top of my bucket list.

Glad you worked it out.

Sounds like a great trip. The Yongala wreck is one of my diving highlights. Hopefully reef encounters will take you there.

Plenty of weedys around the Sydney area. They're super photogenic! Leafys are trickier to find.

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New Member. Diving 25 Plus years. Started with a Nikonos 5. Now shooting an a6500 in a Nauticam housing.

As far as lenses go, the accepted "go to" lenses are the tokina 10-17 fisheye for wide angle, and either a nikkor 60 mm 2.8 macro (d or g version), or 105 mm. I have the 60 mm, which I find great. You need to get a little closer for macro shots, but I think provides an easier working distance to also shoot fish portraits.usd

The Nikon 10-24 altough work great