Canon S70 with the INON D200

After much reading, confusion, burry eyes, thinking, emails to several manufactures for details, and giving up on finding a universal housing for my Contac Digital TVS I am going to jump into the water next time with a camera ;D. So this what I am planning:

Canon S70 and their WP-DC40 Housing

INON D2000 Strobe

INON Base Mount and Cap/Fiber optic for the WP-DC40.

I talked with INON and base and cap should be out later this month just in time for our trip back to Salt Cay in May. He he.

But before getting too excited I would certainly apprecaite people's thoughts since I know many have been hesitant to go the S70 route because of the lack of the INON Base Mount and that there was not a 28mm wet lens available. But now that is not problem. So are there any other reasons I might to look else where?

Just one side note: I am partial to Canon products as I have been shooting with their bodies and lenses for over 20 years.

Cheers,

Allen

While I have no experience with this outfit, I will be following the thread closely as this choice of gear is something I am thinking of. However, I also read the postings of Trevor Rees and looked at his shots using Canon A95 with Inon AD wet fit lenses posted on this forum; possibly this is also a good alternative.

Clearly, with its 28mm wide-end lens the S70 is an excellent choice for topside use, and the rechargeable battery lasts longer than the AA cells A95 uses.

Best of luck,

Robert Z.

I've been reasonably happy with the S500, inon D180, AD Fisheye, and AD macro lenses. All the recent stuff from http://lionfish.us is with that setup (note that the fuzzyness from the 03/09 onna point dives was due to humid air trapped when sealed at the apartment and then condensed when it hit the cold water.) I can get some pretty dramatic chromatic abberation if I try (the lionfish from 03/29 on the front fan is noticeable.) I liked a lot of the first sets of fisheye shots from the kwaj stuff as well.

It's been taking a pretty good thrashing as well (everything since Oct or so has been shore diving, often in less than ideal circumstances) and no leaks.

It is important to remember that in M mode, your camera doesn't fire a preflash, meaning you'll need to install the ACC OFF magnet in the back of the D-2000, and won't be able to use S-TTL.

Instead, external auto and 13 manual power settings are recommended.

S70 has relatively poor AF in low light which may be a problem for you underwater. I have been very happy with the performance of the Fuji F810, but it is in the same boat (as Ryan mentions) of not having a preflash and therefore requiring either external auto mode or manual.

When I compared the Fuji F810 dpreview:

The focus speed - especially at the wide end of the zoom - is excellent, and the shutter lag (S1>S2) superb. Focus is also very reliable, meaning hunting is rare except in low light at the long end of the zoom outside the range of the AF illuminator.

To the Canon S70 dpreview:

That said, the focus speed in good light (especially at the wide end of the zoom) is perfectly acceptable - the problem comes in low light and at the telephoto end of the zoom, when hunting is common, and missed focus not exactly rare.

It sounds as though the Fuji is better at focusing. But how much so it is hard to tell because the wording says about the same just flipped around. That said the Fuji was described as snappy versus sluggish.

It would be interesting to so a shot off between them

Although very late to this thread, I'm very interested to hear how the Inon strobe works with the S70. I posted an extensive note on the s70 on 4/24, but I shot without an external strobe. The next step in my journey is to add the strobe. Please post into the site how it the it all worked.

I did bunch of test shots with the S70 and D2000. It worked great top side doing shots around my house as tests. I did not use it underwater as I switched over the G6 because of the low light focsing concerns (See my follow up post to your eval on the S70).

Since you already have the camera and have dived it I would certainly reccomend the D2000 strobe. I think Inon hit it with this strobe for clear housing cameras. It is a very nice integrated package that will let you change cameras as your needs change. Had the G6 not had the sync bulkhead I would of stayed with this strobe. Actually I could have since the G6 has an internal flash with a preflash. However, if I wanted to use the optional optical cable I would have had to customize it. Using a hard wired sync though is preferable so I went that route. Which also ment switching strobes.

Inon just came out with the base mount and cap set for the WP-DC40 housing though optional, they are highly reccomended for the D2000 strobe since it will block the internal flash and greatly reduce backsatter. I worked through Ken at California Digital Diving and he has been very helpful and accomodating.