My Aquatica D70 review
Just wanted to give a quick review of my initial impressions of my new housing from Aquatica.
First of all, i would like to say how outstanding the service has been from Blake and Norma at Aquatica. They have answered all my questions through the phone, email, at DEMA and Norma even phoned me personally to see if i had any questions about the housing. Great stuff.
Now on to the good stuff: the housing.
Like the pictures on wetpixel show, it is a great looking gold design. One of the first things i noticed was how small and light the housing is. The handles are a reinforced plastic that do not add unnecessary weight to the design. My last housing, from a different manufacturer, was a tank in the surface weight department. The camera fits in as snug as a bug with lens or without. The housing even has a nifty little lever which allows the user to depress the lens release mechanism and change lenses without removing the camera or having to stick pencils into the front port opening.
All of the knobs and buttons are easily reached and handled from either hand. Each was also very obvious for what functions they operated. THe only thing that sort of confused me at first was the two pins at the top right for focus selection and +/-. These are screwed in as opposed to pushed, once i figured that out i found them easy to use. However, the smaller one on the right (+/-) may be difficult to use if wearing heavy gloves. (I am a tropical wimp diver so this won't be a problem for me and i prefer manual bracketing anyway)
The viewfinder on the housing is large in my opinion, larger than my last housing, although older eyes may see this differently. I have heard some people wondering about this feature. The camera itself has a rather small view for some reason, it seems smaller than either my N90 or N55 for some reason. Nikon never designs these things with underwater in mind.
The gear rings for the lenses are a rugged aluminum and very wide. This was a great bonus in my opinion, I don't foresee ever having a problem with these gears, whereas my old ones (different manufacturer) were narrow and tended to crack after a time.
Big plus for Aquatica here.
The push buttons on the back are well labelled.
The 8" dome comes with a rugged protector that someone like me needs ( I have a tendency to venture into the surge zone)
My only real complaint is the window on the back left. It is difficult to see exactly which setting the camera is set to from the angle in which this window looks down onto the selector knob. I can forsee this as a problem for those people who like to change between A, S, and M settings whilst diving.
On 95% of my underwater work i use M, however, on occassion with natural light/silhouettes i sometimes mess around with A and S. This is one problem i have with the D70 itself, on the N90 and other hi end film cameras, the setting was displayed in the top right window, not so with the D70. Therefore, i think it way be hard for users to discern exactly what setting they are on when in dark conditions.
All in all i am extremely pleased with the housing. I will be heading overseas in a few weeks to give it a real trial and will post my thoughts about it. In the meantime, i will try to get into a pool next week to give it a shot.
Mike
