New and clueless

Brand new to underwater photography (minus the pool stuff with my little PowerShot S1IS in the WP-DC20). I've take the plunge (ha how punny) and purchased an Ikelite housing and strobe for my Canon D20. Which port to get?...of course silly me then thought...which lens to use? After parusing some of the expert opinion on here I'm still not sure what to get. I have several lenses, but they seem to not be the right ones..so before I buy the port (flat or dome?) what lens? Sorry for the silly questions, but I'm new to this UW thing (except diving, I do have a few years under my belt).

thanks!

Welcome to our obsession!

I'll tell ya what I've been told, and then I'll tell ya what I'm doing. I'm basically in the same situation as you are. I just bought the Canon 20D and the Aquatica housing and I have been slowly learning about lenses, ports, extension rings, and diopters (oh my!). Others here have recommended that new dSLR photographers start out with macro photography, since its a lot easier to do than wide angle, and then grow into the wide angle photography.

I'm planning on cutting my teeth on macro stuff on an upcoming dive trip in a month and hopefully by the end of that trip, I'll try out some WA stuff.

For macro, I bought the Sigma 50mm macro lens. It lets you do 1:1 with good quality. Other options are the Canon 50 mm macro (only 1:2) and a brand new Canon EF-S 60mm macro (1:1). The EF-S lens is only usable on the Canon 20D and Digital Rebel since is specifically designed for those cameras. There's also a pretty good Canon 100mm macro lens, but the general opinion seems to be its not a newbie's lens. I'm sure others here can comment more on the Canon lenses.

I'm going to use the Sigma 15mm Fisheye for my wide angle selection. This is just a personal preference. There's a Canon EF-S 10-22 zoom lens that a lot of folks are using. I've also heard there are some other WA zooms recently released by othere manufacturers (Sigma and either Tamron or Tokina, I can't remember). You should get plenty of comments on these options as well.

You'll need to get whatever ports will fit your lens choices; there are *many* Ike fans here, so you should get plenty of help there once you choose your lenses.

You can also search the forums. There are plenty of posts regarding lens choices. And if you have a question about a specific lens, ask.

Hope this helps,

Ken

Hi Tom,

like you I am new to this and have just spent a weekend with my 20D in an ikelite housing with 15mm Sigma FE and Canon 50mm macro. The 50mm works well but you do have to get close! Jury is out on the w/a stuff as being a newbie most of my stuff apart from divers-on-shotline-near-surface, was unusable due to to bad focusing and back scatter (murky UK waters)! One tip I have had is to use auto focus on the w/a which I will be doing in about 2hrs. Let you know how that goes if you're interested.

Cheers,

Simon

Hopefully going out next weekend (unless the kids make states...darn those good athletes!) with the D20 and Canon 24mm WA. Let me know how your shoot went.

First of all, your camera is 20D, not D20. Not real important, but it is nice to know the name of your camera....

Lens selection. Well what do you want to take pictures of? You've been diving so you know whats out there, now you must deside what you want to take pictures of.

Once you deside what your are going to be photographing you can pick out the lens tht will do that best. Also what lenses do you have? They may be more usefull than you think.

Port selection. First you pick out a lens, then you look on Ikelight website and it tells you what port to use.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/2port_canon.html

Yupyup. Helps to know what you want to take pictures of; for example, here in Puget Sound, where the visibility is frequently under 20ft, I don't do much wide-angle.

The Canon 100mm macro is a FANTASTIC lens - but it is not for the meek. It can be hard to aim a lens that long underwater.

I'd recommend getting a general-purpose zoom, like the kit lens (18-55, or the 17-85), and the appropriate port; that should keep you going long enough to figure out what you want to do.

Hi Tom,

I used the Sigma 15mm FE in about 3 metres viz on Tues evening and backscatter and poor light aside I am V impressed with it's performance, razor sharp! If you are doing wide angle stuff and don't need a zoom this novice would certainly recommend it.

Simon