Canon EF-S 17-55mm lens

Does anyone have experience using this lens for UW photography? Pros, cons?  My 18-55mm kit lens recently died and I'm looking to upgrade.

There's normally a reason lenses are not listed in port charts and I note the lens is not included in the Nauticam port chart.   Looking at the specs one thing I saw was the min focus distance was 35cm, 10cm less than the 18-55 lens - this could be a problem with a dome port.

What port are using the the 18-55mm with - that can make a difference - assuming you don't want to buy a new port as well.  Also what are you hoping to improve upon by upgrading?

Thanks, Chris--this is exactly the kind of info I needed. I am actually looking to upgrade my whole system as I have been using an ancient Canon T1i in a Watershot housing. I flooded it in July, and while the camera and housing appear to be OK, the lens is ruined. I have a Watershot port for the lens.

I have a 7DMk ii that I was thinking to  get a housing for. Since I don't get to dive very often (and especially now in the midst of the quarantine), I have been undecided about what to do. I do a lot of wildlife and landscape photography, and thought the 17-55mm lens might be good for that, too, but if it won't work with an UW system, I'd be less inclined to buy it. But would like to have some sort of middle range lens. Currently I have a Tokina 11-17mm, a Canon 60mm and 100mm. Any suggestions would be most welcome. Thanks again for your reply!

what do you like to shoot and where do you dive?  that will influence what you choose to shoot with.  The 7D II is getting a little long in the tooth, but you cold keep your eye out for a second hand housing.  I'm not familiar with watershot housings - I googled them and they only seem to sell phone housings now.  I would guess going down that route apart from maybe  buying a second hand 18-55 for a stop gap would be a dead end.

Watershot hasn't made housing for more than 10 years--they made this one for the first of the Canon Rebel series, but of course that changed so frequently that they decided not to try and keep up. I like to shoot everything, but macro is probably my favorite. Dive mostly in the Caribbean, Bonaire and Mexico. Yes, I might get an 18-55mm as a backup, but want to get a better system going for UW photography.

There's any number of options for taking a crop sensor Canon UW.   They range from a Nauticam housing - you can get a new one for $3600 to an Ikelite for $1600 or so, then you need to buy ports, focus gears etc.  If you found a second hand Nauticam 7DII housing you would be looking at about the $1600 mark probably.   In aluminium housings the price scales with sensor size.  I found that for the price of a Nauticam housing for a Canon DSLR I could buy a housing, the camera and a macro port for an Olympus EM-1 MkII - so I went that way

I don't know what you budget you have, the sky is the limit for what you could spend UW and the range is quite wide.  For example for the price of the housing alone in Nauticam for the 7DII you could probably buy a Nauticam housing for a G7XIII, a tray and two strobes and add a couple of wet lenses for around the cost of any dome port.  The prices come closer together in Poly-carbonate housing - but the range and quality of ports is less.  Ikelite for example uses the 8" dome for everything they don't seem to have a 100-140mm fisheye dome option for CFWA work.

Do you have or plan to buy strobes?  If you were doing mostly macro you could start with one strobe.

I'd also suggest looking at the sizes of some of these kits - packing the bigger hosuings for travel can be a challenge.  Are you near any of the big UW camera retailers in the US?

Unfortunately, I am not near any of the big retailers. I am land locked in South Dakota.

Have been thinking about getting a full-frame camera or maybe one of the new mirrorless Canons, so the 7Dii would be my UW camera if I can find a reasonably priced housing. Have looked at Nauticam, it comes highly recommended. And I do have three strobes--2 Inon Z-240s and an S2000. It might make more sense to buy the housing,etc. for a mirrorless, since that would keep the weight down. Am just somewhat undecided on all of this, because it is all a major expense. I can spend some, but not go to the sky!

Thanks for your input. And I really enjoyed looking at your website--your bird photos are amazing!

Depends on what lens you want to attach - macro and fisheye no problem - but if you are keen on a rectilnear wide like a 16-35mm you are looking at a 230mm dome on full frame.  You could probably use the 8" dome on APS-C and a m43 system a 180mm dome would do the trick for the equivalent lens (something like the 8-18mm)

I would suggest going to one of the big retailers websites and filling your basket with ports/housings for the lenses/cameras you want to use to see the total damage to your bank account.  You could do that for a Canon full frame DSLR or mirrorless/your 7D-II/a m43 system (incl cameras and lenses) and a compact system.  So you would want housing/macro port/wide port/possibly the lenses depending on which system you are on/zoom gears as needed/optionally the focus gear for macro.  The big retailers all have links to the port charts where you can pick the required ports and extensions.

I would suggest picking the recommended combo first up for all options so you are comparing on a similar basis - on the Nauticam charts they show this with *1.  You can then ask about alternatives to the most optimised port once you start to narrow it down.  If you do this for a macro and wide option you have a good indication of the total cost of ownership for each class of camera.  The EM-1 MkII is very similar to the Canon APS-C sensors especially the 7D-II and the images will be very close in quality.

I shoot Canon on land and went Olympus underwater because it was significantly cheaper even when I had to buy the body and lenses.

Glad you liked the website - it is due for an overhaul, the pics go back at least 20 years when I was shooting film.

Great idea, doing some shopping online. Will definitely look into that. Thanks for your help!

What do you use for your Canon setup for land photography?

I've been shooting Canon on Land since I got an AE-1P over 30 years ago, mostly wildlife - birds, macro, landscapes.  Everything on website except the UW stuff is on Canon, except for some very recent stuff using the Olympus gear.