F810 & Ikelite Housing. Is a good Choice?

Hi,

I'm thinking in buy a F810, Ikelite housing and Inon 100. What dou you think? Is a good idea? I have been reading in some forums that has some problems: short life battery, problems with the zoom inside the housing....

I would like to see some underwater pictures with this camera before I buy it. Anybody can help me?.

If this camera isn't good idea... wich camera do you recomend?

Thanks in advanced

Best Regards

Jordi Mateo

http://www.hmdiver.com/

Have not heard from anyone using this camera but a look at the specs looks like it will be fine.

The incamera flash in any camera will be pretty much useless underwater so I would highly recommend an external strobe. IMO the strobe is the single most important part of your kit.

Only thing that striks me with that camera/housing is that there is no way to use a wired strobe. If you deside to add a strobe to your kit, it will have to be triggered via an sensor that watches for the internal flash to fire. This type of setup is not the most reliable and can cause backscatter.

Olympus's x0x0 cameras are the standard recomendation here at wetpixel.

William's advice is good - an external strobe is very important for good looking pictures.

However, if you are only working very shallow (<2 m), you might be able to get away with just white balancing later when shooting RAW, but the results will still lack the colour and quality you would get with an external strobe,

The camera has sufficient battery life to fill a 1GB card using the flash on all shots. I'm not sure how many photos you plan to take on a dive, but this gives you around 100 - which isn't too bad. As far as the issue of the lens crashing into the housing - I have only ever used the Fuji OEM housing with this camera and it worked fine. I did use the INON AD105 too which works very well with this camera giving a nice wide view.

Regarding William's concerns with synching with an external flash and backscatter - I wouldn't be too concerned about that, the INON clear photo system works very well at eliminating this problem with their D2000 flash (which is the one I would recommend for the F810).

There are a number of users working with this camera over on digitaldiver.net. Search for blaze, dr bob, jack connick, to name a few and I'm sure they will be able to provide you with further advice.

The AF system on the Olympus Cx0x0 series isn't nearly as nice as the Fuji F810...

Hi,

For the external flash I'll use a YS-120 with Matthias adapter to TTL.

I heard a diferents points of wiev about the F810 and before "lost"my money I would like to see some UW pictures with the F810 camera.

Best Regards

Jordi Mateo

http://www.hmdiver.com/

Hi Jordi,

I had a chance to check out the Fuji F810 and the Ikelite housing this past weekend at Seaspace. I was surprised and happy to see that the Ikelite housing was LESS expensive than the Fuji brand. It looks like a good setup.

The housing looks very tough and easy to use. Some of the first units had problems with the lens hitting the front port glass at depth, but this problem has been corrected. It's nothing new - I've had that problem before with other cameras as it's not something the manufacturer can test in their pressure chamber.

As others have mentioned, you'll need to use a slave strobe - but there are plenty of them out there to choose from and they work. Your YS120 is going to be major overkill, so you'll need to shoot in the lowest ISO setting, the highest f-stop and use a thick diffuser on the flash.

HTH

James

Hey i posted a few pics over at DDN of my first dives with the F810+Ike housing (which were my first ever with with an underwater camera) if you are curious.

Thread 1

Thread 2

Chris

I've been using this camera for almost a year now - Pioneering it so to speak - It rocks.

The results are pretty damn good from this amazing little beast.

Initially condensation problems destroyed a camera in the Fuji housing (They replaced and then some), but in conjunction with Ikelite I tested and proved the 810 housing in Lembeh last April & May. Much better, and no worries or losses.

Quick facts: Battery will last over 110 flashed RAW sessions (inc deletes) -

Covers the 78 RAW files and then some (1 Gb).

Can be used with Ikelite or Inon strobes for exceptional results.

No noticeable shutter lag

Great focus

Sharp Screen

Superb chip dynamics

Images comparable to most DSLR's

150 shots Here

150 shots Here

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Gawd. Totally awesome, excuse my valley-girl speak. Especially liked the warty frogfish portrait.

Chris in Red Stick

Hey Dr Bob!

Thanks for the review - very interesting. I haven't looked at your photos for a while and you've certainly got some amazing macro work on your site.

Do you have any wide angle examples from the F810?

Also, I remember some threads a while back where you were considering adding another battery inside the housing? Did anything come of that?

Cheers...

I'm no Dr. Bob in terms of the F810 but i'd say the Ike housing has no room for an external (inside the housing) battery pack. Also like Bob said i have never really had a problem with the battery life. I'm not especially clicky so i get maybe ~80 pics on a battery which lasts me at least 2 dives.

I've been using this camera for almost a year now - Pioneering it so to speak - It rocks.

 

The results are pretty damn good from this amazing little beast.

 

Initially condensation problems destroyed a camera in the Fuji housing (They replaced and then some), but in conjunction with Ikelite I tested and proved the 810 housing in Lembeh last April & May. Much better, and no worries or losses.

 

Quick facts: Battery will last over 110 flashed RAW sessions (inc deletes) -

Covers the 78 RAW files and then some (1 Gb).

Can be used with Ikelite or Inon strobes for exceptional results.

No noticeable shutter lag

Great focus

Sharp Screen

Superb chip dynamics

Images comparable to most DSLR's

 

150 shots Here

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi, nice to see you here after so long time.

You have there some great macro stuff, very impressive, did you uses an external macro lens?

What strobe you uses?

Hey Arnon,

Nice to hear from you - Hope you and yours are well

To answer your question: I was using one and two (stacked) Inon AD165 macro lenses for the close-ups.

Strobes: Either a single Ikelite DS50 or the usual twin Z220's.

I adapted the housing with a 'Pizza pretector' diffuser to make life easier for clipping on the FO connector.

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Quote:

"This type of setup is not the most reliable and can cause backscatter..."