Powershot verses DSLR for underwater use??

Hello:

I am currently using a Canon G5 in a Subal housing with Inon Z-220 strobe. I am happy with the set up, although notice that some of my shoots appear soft in focus. The G-5 also finds it difficult to focus from time to time. It is almost impossible to shot wide angle or fish shots as the G5 is too slow.

MY question: Is a DSLR such as Nikon D70 or above better than the Canon G-5? Will the DSLR produce sharper images and focus quicker?

I realise this is a really opened ended question. Problem is I know no one locally with DSLR so have nothing really to compare images with.

Thanks.....Iain

The answer is absolutely yes. Any of the dSLRs will be much better with the proper lens and dome port selection.

Some of the new consumer cameras have much better shutter lag times and could do very well. You would still need a properly designed dome port to get good wide angle. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the Subal G5 housing just have a flat port? If so that is probably why your wide angle photos are unsharp in the corners. As far as I know all the consumer camera housings that have dome ports designed for them have those domes only designed for wide angle add on lenses. Not the cameras standard lenses. With some cameras now having lenses of 28 or 24 mm equivalent a dome port would be best for quality images with the standard lens at it's wide end.

Another solution is the removable external wide angle lenses. To work best though they should be specifically designed for each camera and that camera's housing.

As you mentioned the poor auto-focus of the consumer cameras is a third problem. Some of the new cameras are better. If you have problems with the camera you have now you can use a focusing assist light or a set manual focus and use the depth of field. As these cameras have very wide lenses (in their actual focal lengths). You can use the hyperfocal distance to preset the focus.

Shutter lag, write speed, sensor quality, and choice of focal length/field of view ... those are what motivated me to cough up the DSLR bucks ... more or less in that order. How much has it helped me? Check back in 6 months...

Me, I wanna be able to bang off shots faster than the CP5000 lets me (shutter lag + RAW write speed sucks).

I really saw the importance of this in dynamic situations, like swimming with dolphins on the WetPixel Bahamas trip last summer, where the SLR (and Nikonos) tribe crushed and stomped my results even though I could free-dive deeper-longer-mas-macho than all but a couple of them (no false humility here! -- I had a superior swim, even if my inferior photographs bear no proof! and Kim was mas macho!).

In more static situations (e.g., sharks and turtles), they only stomped my results. When they stomped me there, it was because they were better photographers, not because they had better kit. I can fix the being crushed by inferior kit easily ... just spend money. Learning to be a better photographer will take time and love as well as money, a process I look forward to very much.

All this, just the perspective of a prosumer (Nikonos retread) shooter that has YET to shoot EVEN ONE subaqua DSLR frame.

Actually the shutter lag of the latest sonys blow any DSLR away.

And the autofocus is very darn good.

To me, the perfect underwater cam will be a digicam, because there is no getting around the lag from raising the mirror in an SLR, and the composing on the LCD, when it is big and bright and fast enough, works better underwater, than an optical hookup, through a tiny viewfinder. And the bucks to buy and house a sport finder equiped DSLR, when they finally come out, will be astronomical!

We need a canon pro2, with a 24mm wide end, and the sony AF capabilities. The raw cycle times in the canon G and pro1 digis are fine already.

Don