I thought I would try to write a little review of the Ikelite housing for the Nikon CP 8400.
First the camera. This camera is an 8 mp camera with a lens that is the equivalent of a film slr lens of 24 to 85 mm. An optional Nikon wide angle lens increases this range to the equivalent of a 18 mm lens. This lens is I believe the widest zoom lens on a digicam available today. The camera has a macro mode that enables you to focus down to about 2 cm. Both of these attributes are very significant for UW photography.
For those of you who cut your digital teeth on the Cp 5000; this camera is in most respects a much superior camera. At ISO 50 it gives a cleaner image than the 5000 with much better color reproduction. I have on several occasions had people like images taken with this camera as superior to the same shot taken with several of the current consumer level dSLRs. I don't claim the image is as good as a consumer level dSLR but it is hard to tell them apart at times. Image wise.
The shutter lag is much improved. When you have good light it is very fast. As others have noted the LCD momentarily freezes up when you autofocus on macro subjects in poor light. More on this when I discuss the Ikelite housing. This is the first digicam I have shot in which the shutter lag problem is manageable. Though not on the level of a dSLR the shutter lag is a minor problem. Not a deal breaker like on other digicams. I have read many suggestions on how to work with shutter lag. I never thought any of them worked very well until I started using the 8400.
The camera writes slowly to it's CF card. I always shoot Jpeg fine.
The battery is much improve over that of the cp5000. It will last 2 and 1/2 long dives. I have always have had it last two full dives. Even when I shot 402 images in 3 dives during the Monterey beach photo contest.
This is the first camera I have used with an EVF. Though others seem to dislike them I like this one. I use it when I am in a bright environment. It seems to work fine.
The Ikelite housing follows the model used with the CP5000 and similar cameras. It is compact. and very strongly made. The controls seem very easy to use and access to them is very good. It seems much easier to use this housing and camera than it was with the cp5000 and it's Ike housing. Not sure if Ike has improved it's housing or the camera controls have been improved making it easier to access them through the housing. Probably some of each.
As far as I can tell all the controls are accessible. The one control that really stands out is the lever for the autofocus/autofocus lock/exposure lock. This is controlled by a lever that is parallel to the shutter release lever. You can access both of these levers with the fingers of your right hand. This becomes vital to shooting of this camera UW. As noted above when focusing on a subject (macro) in poor lighting the LCD freezes up for a fraction of a second. You can use this lever to focus on a macro subject. It will autofocus the camera on the subject. The LCD freeze then occurs and then the LCD resumes live display. You can now fire the camera and strobe with NO shutterlag. While still holding the lever you can slightly reposition your shot and fire again for as many shots as you want to take. If you subject doesn't move too much you can use this method to virtually eliminate the shutter lag problems for macro and close up subjects.
I don't find the shutter lag to be a problem for wide angle subjects with decent lighting. The camera shoots very fast. However you can use the above method to set your approximate focusing distance very quickly and then rely on depth of field to keep you subject in focus.
The Nikon wide angle add on lens; like the similar one for the cp5000 is very sharp and fairly inexpensive (~250$). When combined with the Ikelite optional wide angle dome port it gives you a wide field of view and a very sharp image.
The one area where this camera lacks in comparison to the CP5000 is in it's macro mode. As previously mentioned it can focus down to under 2 cm. You can focus almost on the front of the housings flat port. The problem is that the camera will only function in it's macro mode for the widest 1/3 of it's focal range. This means that even though it will focus extremely close you cannot get a very small subject to fill the frame. Meaning no 1 to 1 macro. I would estimate the about 1:2 macro is about the max. When getting to these very small subject you will be very close to the housings port surface. This makes it hard to get good lighting as the subject is so close to the camera and housing. The size of a subject you can shoot is even more limited when you put the camera in macro mode when the wide angle lens is attached. This is because of the very wide angle of coverage of this lens. You can focus on the front of the dome. But once again you can only focus on the widest 1/3 of the camera's focal length.
I have found it best to use two manual slave controllers for lighting. One of them set in slave mode and the second attached to the housing by a synch cord. The ike web site says you cannot use the housing with a slave only strobe. I however rigged one up using Ike's dttL slave sensor and was able to shoot it no problem. In any case you have to elevate the camera's on camera strobe in order to file an external strobe. Even though you turn off the internal strobe in the camera's menu system.
I am still experimenting with the best way to rig up the strobes. The camera works best with the two handle tray that comes standard. However for Kayak diving, rough conditions, beach dives, and free diving I really like using a one handle only tray. I have rigged up several nikons trays to use in this mode but they are all very inferior to using Ike's one handle tray.
The Ike extended mount handle is excellent. It is the easiest way to mount the manual strobe controller to the housing. But it does get your strobe far away from your subject when you are shooting those problematic very close macro subjects. I have used the much shorter but similar UL handle mount. It doesn't allow you to mount the manual strobe controller. With it I use with Ikes clamp with stud mounting. This is a very good clamp and you can mount either of Ike's strobe controllers or some external lights. I also use the the saddle clamp made TLC. It attaches anywhere on the TLC square arms and allows any ball joint to attach to it's other side. I have a light saddle and both TLC and UL ball joint saddles. These attach to the manual and slave strobe controllers. I find I change the mounting method depending upon what type of subject I anticipate shooting. I would start with the Ike extended mount handle and stud clamp if I was limited in what equipment I had access to.
I prefer the dttl slave sensor when I shoot wide angle shots.
I recently sold my D100 dSLR housing. I have been shooting this CP8400 rig for several months and in general have been surprised that I haven't missed my D100 more. I have had some frustration with shooting small macro subject as discussed above. The dSLR is clearly superior for that kind of shot. But otherwise the CP8400 and housing hold up very good in comparison. This at a much lighter rig to transport and and much less expensive package to purchase.
Here is the housing with the optional wide angle dome port and lens. Note the Ike extended handle mount with a manual ttL controller.
Images taken with this rig are at:
http://homepage.mac.com/daveburroughs/PhotoAlbum29.html
