Did anyone upgrade camera and change from Nauticam to Isotta housing? positive and/or negative experience?

For most modern cameras, the viewfinder draws as much or more power as the screen. So unless you turn your screen off, using the viewfinder will use more battery and if you turn it off, it will probably be about the same. 

I think it's well established that modern EVF and screen are similar for power consumption.  More to the point some housing offerings only allow use of the screen. This is a problem in a number of ways including no diopter adjustment on the screen which can be important if your closeup vision is not great, and the impact of ambient light on the image - not as bad if you are deep of course.  Even if the small standard finders are not that great I think they are a significant improvement over just using the screen.

The battery life is certainly a variable, When I was diving the EM-5 II I could do two dives easily and this was using the mini flash to trigger in manual.    A third dive was possible but not guaranteed.  TTL will certainly draw more power as in manual flash you set the mini flash to 1/64 power which is more than enough to trigger your strobes..  The EM-1 MkII has a 40% bigger battery and I can do three dives easily and four at a stretch. 

On the topic of Nauticam vs Isotta, I use Nauticam and know others who do and also people diving Isotta housing and everyone is generally happy with them.  They each have their pluses and minuses. 

The Nauticam tends to be a bit of Rolls-Royce solution but it's very nice to use.  The Isotta is it bit more basic but perfectly usable. 

The Nauticam housing come with vacuum electronics and moisture sensor as standard while the Isotta includes only moisture alarm, leaving you to purchase a third party system for vaccuum. 

The EM-5 housings have no handles included on either option while the EM-1 housing are complete with handles. which adds to the cost of the housings. 

The Nauticam N85 ports for mirrorless is a bit small and requires fitting some lenses from the front .  The Isotta is a larger port opening.

I would recommend You go through the following steps when comparing these housings to come up with the best solution for you:

• Work out what lenses you will want to use and what ports are available - particularly relevant if you may want to use water contact optics
• Compare features and add up costs to get both housings at the same spec - I would suggest with as minimum a two handle tray setup with two ball mounts for attaching strobes and a vacuum system.
• compare sizes and weights and control layouts
• Comapre accesories you might want to add like an accessory viewfinder.

I say this because both Nauticam and Isotta produce very good products that people are mostly happy with and each have their own quirks.  You probably won't go wrong with either which is why I suggest a systematic approach to evaluating the housings as certain features may be more important to you than to others.

12 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

The EM-1 MkII has a 40% bigger battery and I can do three dives easily and four at a stretch. 

This is some really valuable info! Especially this part about 40% bigger battery for EM1 series ......

12 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

The Nauticam N85 ports for mirrorless is a bit small and requires fitting some lenses from the front

....because of this it must be pain in the but to have to dismantle the whole EM5 kit just to change the battery if combined with one of the bigger lenses!

35 minutes ago, andi_db said:

This is some really valuable info! Especially this part about 40% bigger battery for EM1 series ......

....because of this it must be pain in the but to have to dismantle the whole EM5 kit just to change the battery if combined with one of the bigger lenses!

Only applies to a couple of lenses , the oly 7-14 is one, the Pany 8-16 is another, other lenses like the 12-40 squeeze through.  No problem at all with fisheye and macro lenses.  I have the Pany 7-14 and rarely if ever use it UW, I think it's been UW about 2-3 times maybe.  Unless you are a very keen wreck diver there's better options these days in water contact optics

That's why you work out your lenses first so you come up with issues like that before investing. 

11 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

That's why you work out your lenses first so you come up with issues like that before investing. 

What would be your lenses suggestion for OMD? I am not looking for anything particular...just a standard macro and wide. Even with flat port option with some wet lens like WWL-C to try to reduce number of ports for carrying around and max shooting flexibility underwater. 

10 hours ago, andi_db said:

What would be your lenses suggestion for OMD? I am not looking for anything particular...just a standard macro and wide. Even with flat port option with some wet lens like WWL-C to try to reduce number of ports for carrying around and max shooting flexibility underwater. 

Macro you'd want the 60mm macro lens, wide angle it depends on what you want to shoot, tropical reef scenes - the 8mm fisheye, general purpose temperate water diving wide lens I use the 12-40mm some would argue it's not wide enough but it does Ok in the murky waters around Sydney.  Otherwise perhaps one of the 14-42 lenses with a WWL.  WWL is straight forward for Nauticam and may require investigation to get onto Isotta.   Or you could buy the Nauticam port and adapt it with this item: https://www.backscatter.com/Nauticam-Sea-and-Sea-3-Lug-Bayonet-Ring-Converts-N  Edit:  this won't work as the ports are different diameters for micro43 housings - it only works for 120mm ports

What wide angle lenses did you use on your old system - did they do the job or was there room for improvement?  What is your main type of diving - temperate - tropical?

5 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

Macro you'd want the 60mm macro lens, wide angle it depends on what you want to shoot, tropical reef scenes - the 8mm fisheye, general purpose temperate water diving wide lens I use the 12-40mm some would argue it's not wide enough but it does Ok in the murky waters around Sydney.  Otherwise perhaps one of the 14-42 lenses with a WWL.  WWL is straight forward for Nauticam and may require investigation to get onto Isotta.  Or you could buy the Nauticam port and adapt it with this item: https://www.backscatter.com/Nauticam-Sea-and-Sea-3-Lug-Bayonet-Ring-Converts-N

What wide angle lenses did you use on your old system - did they do the job or was there room for improvement?  What is your main type of diving - temperate - tropical?

 

 

 

 

I don't think you can as easily convert Nauticam N85 ports to Isotta B-102 ports.

4 hours ago, hyp said:

I don't think you can as easily convert Nauticam N85 ports to Isotta B-102 ports.

yes you are right _ i keep forgetting that - it only applies to the 120mm ports.

On 2/3/2022 at 3:03 PM, ChrisRoss said:

What wide angle lenses did you use on your old system - did they do the job or was there room for improvement?  What is your main type of diving - temperate - tropical?

 

Thanks for your advice. I used Nikon d7100 and macro Nikon60mm lens, for wide Sigma 10-20 with Aquatica housing and 8' dome port. There is always room for improvement. Mostly I do tropical water diving on dive trips. Here in Croatia we usually have clear but cold water diving which I try to avoid cause it's too cold for me.  

8 hours ago, andi_db said:

Thanks for your advice. I used Nikon d7100 and macro Nikon60mm lens, for wide Sigma 10-20 with Aquatica housing and 8' dome port. There is always room for improvement. Mostly I do tropical water diving on dive trips. Here in Croatia we usually have clear but cold water diving which I try to avoid cause it's too cold for me.  

You could replicate the field of view of your 10-20 with a Panasonic 8-18 lens the 10-20 is 15-30 equivalent, while the 8-18 is 16-36 equivalent.  If you shoot mostly reef scenes and maybe a little close focus wide angle a good compact package would be the 8mm fisheye lens and a small dome.  If you want more flexibility you could look into a WWL setup - it doesn't go as wide for reef scenics, but the zoom capability would allow you fill your frame better with smaller critters in CFWA shots and also work for larger animals lime where the fisheye is a bit too wide.

On 2/6/2022 at 2:10 AM, ChrisRoss said:

You could replicate the field of view of your 10-20 with a Panasonic 8-18 lens the 10-20 is 15-30 equivalent, while the 8-18 is 16-36 equivalent.  If you shoot mostly reef scenes and maybe a little close focus wide angle a good compact package would be the 8mm fisheye lens and a small dome.  If you want more flexibility you could look into a WWL setup - it doesn't go as wide for reef scenics, but the zoom capability would allow you fill your frame better with smaller critters in CFWA shots and also work for larger animals lime where the fisheye is a bit too wide.

Thanks for your advice!

On 10/1/2021 at 11:31 PM, Kraken de Mabini said:

Dear Wolfgang:

 Most of my housings have been Subal, but I also had a Nauticam D500 which I sold.  I now use the Isotta D500 and it is a fine housing.  I use a Nauticam 45 degree viewfinder with it, with an adapter.  

Thus far everything has worked on the Isotta housing; out of curiosity I have taken apart the controls and they are simple to remove, repair and restore, something I was not able to do on the Nauticam. 

Isotta is a fine housing, I recommend it. 

Elias 

Our of interest, why did you switch? Is it smaller and lighter than the Nauticam? 

...

The Isotta housing for my Nikon D7200 was light weight, high quality, easiy to use and very well designed.
Isotta has adapters for several makes of lens ports, so that one need not buy new ports.
The price is excellent, particularly now that Nauticam prices were raised.  If I were to buy a new housing Isotta would be my first choice.  

@Kraken de Mabini this is my thinking as well provided there is no optical quality degradation of switching by using existing ports etc.

I travel for scuba, and any space and weight savings I can get means I can take more with me in my carry on.

What vacuum system do you use for Isotta? Most of the ones I've seen really stick out and I'd be concerned about that when traveling (I usually have the housing upright in my carryon roller/backpack)

 I have no experience with Nauticam. However - I can describe my experience with Isotta housing: Very comfortable, Relatively light and easy to maintain . 

My reply to Sinetwo's question, above:
Diving with a vacuum leak detector on one's camera housing is a really good idea as one never knows when a housing leak might occur.  A few years ago in Lembeh I had just started a dive when I saw my housing's leak detector flashing red.  I immediately aimed the housing down to collect the water in the lens port, surfaced and found I had not closed my housing properly. No doubt the Vivid Leak Sentinel saved my camera and lens. I have contiunued to use the Vivid Leak Sentinel for the past 5 years as it is compact, tough, simple, and reliable. 

As several leak detectors are now available, it is possible to do some comparison shopping. For example, Backscatter offers a comprehensive collection of leak detectors, some which appear to be rather bulky and improvised, others quite professional. See https://www.backscatter.com/group/underwater-camera-leak-detector-alarm-vacuum  

15 hours ago, sinetwo said:

@Kraken de Mabini this is my thinking as well provided there is no optical quality degradation of switching by using existing ports etc.

I travel for scuba, and any space and weight savings I can get means I can take more with me in my carry on.

What vacuum system do you use for Isotta? Most of the ones I've seen really stick out and I'd be concerned about that when traveling (I usually have the housing upright in my carryon roller/backpack)

I'm not a fan of the right angle ones that are offered by several companies.  The Vivid ones are very neat and only need an M16 or M14 port to install.

28 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

I'm not a fan of the right angle ones that are offered by several companies.  The Vivid ones are very neat and only need an M16 or M14 port to install.

These are the leak sentinels right? Not too badly priced at 200, but seems to be out of stock (at least on vivids website) 

"seem to be out of stock (at least on the vivids website"

Good point, it may be Vivid Housings is having problems or has gone out of business.

DiverVision carries the Leak Detector and they are a reliable dealer:
https://www.divervision.com/vivid-leak-sentinel-v3-for-seaandsea-mdx-housings-LS3-SS.html