I think it's time for me to invest!

Hello everyone,

I am a technical diver with a passion for underwater video and photos since I bought my first GoPro some years ago.
Gopro limitations came to light early, also considering the type of diving I do, so I decided that was time to upgrade.

I regularly dive on lakes with cold waters and poor visibility, but when I can, I go to the sea (Italy and Croatia mostly, so let's say decent temperature and visibility).
My favorite dive, and also the one where I will use the camera the most, is wreck diving, with depths ranging from 40m to 75m (130ft to 246ft), variable visibility and little light.
I usually do also DPV dives with the Gopro attached on it...pretty cool results.

With the GoPro I prefer to make videos, also because it is more suitable for this, but when I have to do post production it is a tragedy because of the time and effort it requires. More and more my videos now remain in some SSD and are forgotten.
Out of the water I prefer taking pictures (I had a Sony A6400, with which I took a basic photography courses few years ago, but then I sold it...damn!) and I feel that this is the route I should also take also underwater.
In order not to be mistaken, would be nice to find a camera that allows me to take good pictures, but also decent/ good videos.

I have to start from scratch and buy everything, from the camera body, to the lenses, to the housing and lights. I would like to figure out if makes sense to invest more in certain parts of the equipment at an early stage, or if it's better to spread the costs equally.
Let's say that I can consider a total budget of 4/5K€ to start and I certainly also evaluate used equipments.

My dream would be a Mirrorless Full Frame, but looking at the latest Sony, Canon and Nikon models, 5K€ is the minimum for the camera body plus the housing (if you are lucky and you find a good offer), so definentely out of budget bacause I need also lenses and lights I suppose.

I believe I have to scale back expectations and probably think about an APS-C, maybe Sony A6xxx or Nikon Z50 (I did not check the equivalents from Canon, Panasonic and Olympus).

DSLR and Micro Four Thirds are options in which personally I would not want to invest because I do not consider them future proof and with high resalability(you never know).
In any case I will be more than happy if someone will make me change my mind as I am not an expert.

For the moment I'll stop here.
I haven't studied the housing/ lights part well yet, although I have noticed some good housing brand like ISOTTA which hold up to -100met (329ft).

I hope someone can give me his opinion and maybe some advice.
Many thanks
N

For wrecks you would probably be looking at a rectilinear wide to keep stright lines straight but some of the water contact optics may also be useful.

I would suggest looking at the issue from a total system basis and not necessarily staring with a camera body.

The thing with UW photos is that costs scale with sensor size, for rectilinear wides you would be looking at 180mm domes for m43, 200mm domes at least for APS-C and 230mm domes for full frame.  Lens price also scale this way as well.   Housing price goes up quite steeply with sensor size at least in Aluminium housings you would be looking at for your depth rating.  Then there's the issue of finding ports rated for 100m -  some stop at 60m and your choice is more limited.  A 230mm dome is a big expensive beast and difficult to travel with (by air at any rate).  The other thing that happens is that you need to stop down more to get good corners as sensor size goes up m43 need f8, APS_C f11-13, full frame f13-16 and this claws back the advantage of full frame somewhat.  If you look at the Olympus EM-1 MkII/III that sensor is very close to the Nikon D500 in performance. 

A WWL will get you away from many of these limitations and achieves it using a cheap kit lens and flat port.  To use the WWL you are looking at m43 or Sony A6xxx plus 16-50 or A7xxx using 28-60.  But you are likely tied into Nauticam to get the right ports, though Isotta may be an option for m43.  The port needs to be a good fit with lens front element very close to port chart to work properly and not vignette.   You are looking at the WACP which is very expensive if you want to use APS-C or full frame other the Sony options I mentioned.

The issue with the WWL is the lenses are only tested with Nauticam's port offerings, Other manufacturers you are guessing - they often have more limited range of port lengths which work fine with the len in questions but there's too much space between the front element and the port glass and you need to zoom in to eliminate the vignette and lose angle of view.

I would suggest pricing out a few systems using various to see what you would be up for in new equipment, just go to one of the big retailers websites and price them out.  They have port charts you can use to select which ports and extensions you need.  Add some strobes as well, I'd suggest something like the Z330, which will work for all of these systems and won't make any difference in the comparisons as it's the same for all of them.   include the cameras and lenses, all the ports you want to use and add the numbers up while sitting down.

I wouldn't worry about resale value - UW gear drops to 50% of new price quite quickly and can be hard to move depending if it is in demand.

Thanks a lot for your comment! The first part is clear to me, the second one a bit hard to understand due to my limited knowledge with UW photos.

What is a WWL?

I have some difficulty also to understand the topic of the "ports"

With my budget, can you tell me the first kit (camera+housing+lenses+lights+accessories) that come to your mind? This way I can have a reference to start

Thanks again!

N

WWL is a wet wide lens, a water contact optics they increases the field of view of the lens and allows it to focus closer.  This is the lens:

https://www.nauticam.com/collections/water-contact-optics-for-nav/products/wet-wide-lens-1-wwl-1-130-deg-fov-with-compatible-28mm-lenses

It gives a field of view about equivalent to a 10-30mm lens (full frame equivalent).  Here is a sample shopping cart with a setup to use the wet wide lens with olympus and Nauticam.  It may be possible to do the same with Isotta which will be cheaper but there's not enough info in the port charts to sure of selecting the right port and lens to work with the WWL.  I'm suggesting the WWL as it''s probably more economic than a big flat port and it's rated for 150m.  It does have a little barrel distortion, but certainly not in the fisheye range.  If you wanted a regular rectilinear like the Oly 7-14 lens most of the ports are not 100m rated.

This is just one option, there's probably others you could look at .

Thanks a lot.

Now let me think and deepen some topics, then I will come back with my view 

N