For underwater shooting, I’ve just done a switch from the Nikon N90x in a Sea & Sea housing to the D2x with the Subal ND2 housing. I’ve been using the D2x for a couple of months and previously the D100 for more than two years, so I have a pretty good handle on the camera itself.
I’ve about 20 hours dive use with the new setup and think the combination is absolutely fantastic, though have had a few problems and a few unexpected considerations.
From a control perspective, the housing was built for the D2H, and I don’t know whether the control layout between it and the D2x is different. Suffice to say, I feel like it gives me control over everything I can imagine fiddling with underwater. The controls and buttons work quite well, except as noted below. One reviewer lamented that the shutter release was not like that on the Sea & Sea housings, but I’ve used Sea & Sea for years, and think the Subal shutter release is fine.
My first problem was with the ND2 main command dial interface to the D2x main command dial. It started out by slipping a great deal, and quickly got to the point where it was totally ineffective. I learned from Cathy Church that others have experienced the same problem. Her solution is a modification whereby a small piece of notched tubing is glued to the smooth Subal wheel. This worked fine shallower than 40 ft. At that point, the extra thickness of the part and the additional pressure on the housing back would slightly cant it, and all controls would lock. We shaved this down, and this now works to 90 ft. I’ve not gone deeper than that yet, but assume any additional pressure on the housing beyond that point would be negligible.
The shafts on the control buttons seem to be a bit delicate. I say that because one of them broke the first week. A broken shaft leaves the camera vulnerable to flooding, but thankfully that did not happen. I was able to saw off part of the damaged section, put it all back together, and everything sealed properly. This disabled one button, but there are so many and this was one I could do without until I get a replacement.
The housing handles are some sort of plastic, and do not have the solid feel of aluminum ones. Since the arm mounts are on the housing itself, this may be of little consequence to most. I, however, use a stabilizing chest brace, and my mount point is the top of the handle itself. The mount plate seems solid enough screwed into the handle, but only use will prove it out.
Subal literature talks about the housing being almost neutrally buoyant, but this seems to mean without that heavy D2x inside. I’m still trying to achieve proper balance with the different ports, but have gotten to where it is fairly manageable now. Using my old Ultralight arms and YS-120 strobes, the camera not only felt quite heavy in the water but always wanted to pivot so that the port would be pointing straight up. That meant using extra wrist torque to compensate, which was not only tiresome, but the handle top kept digging into my hand. I used four different port combinations, and they all seemed to behave this way.
The YS-120s are about five oz. positive each, which actually helped compensate, but not enough. My solution was to use five Ultralight buoyancy arms, two 12s, and three 8s, keeping the tubes somewhat behind the camera to compensate for its inclination to go belly up. Why five? The third is for a shoulder or chest stabilizer brace. It handles much better now with good balance, but I want to work on it more. I’m guessing that the complete rig is now less that two pounds negative. On land, however, it’s about 28 pounds. Not quite heavy enough to need wheels.
I’ve been advised that the standard Nikon protector plate on the back screen needs to be removed prior to assembly. Apparently, there is too little clearance to allow [but why would you want to use it anyway?] and it causes the housing to exert pressure on the camera at depth.
The adapter gear for one lens, the 12-24 mm, is too loose to work properly, and the fix is to first put a rubber band on the lens. That works quite well. The same gears for the 60 mm and 105 mm feel like the cannot possibly fit, and the solution is to first expand them by depositing in very hot water or incinerating them with a hair dryer. Even then, you need strong fingers and patience.
For both of these micro lenses, the AM/MF gear rings are held in place by a pair of nylon set screws on opposite sides. The 60 mm has given me no trouble, but it seems to keep slipping off the 105. In comparison, the Sea & Sea gear rings always seemed to have a better fit, with the exception of the aperture gear used with the N90.
There’s some disagreement as to whether the 12-24 mm lens needs a + 2.0 diopter corrector, as it does with the D70. Subal documentation says not, but the shop says it does. Right now, I’m using one, and have noticed no adverse effects, but is it necessary?
The magnifying eyepiece is an $1,100 option installed at the factory. I was told that it’s a great addition, and I could get one if I was willing to wait a bit longer for it, sometime early next year. However, compared to my experiences using the N90, I consider the standard eyepiece to be fantastic. I can actually read all that display information without peering around before it becomes visible.
I’ve written a few Emails to Subal over the past two weeks, but have received no response yet. Of course, it is summer, Subal is in Austria and my impression is that everyone goes on holiday.
The rest of my notes are not that specific to the D2x and the Subal housing, but rather to transitioning from digital to film.
In the past, I used TTL underwater almost exclusively underwater, and knew I had to give that up. Thankfully, all of my work on land was manual mode. I didn’t want to spend even more money on new strobes, and was concerned how this was going to work out. After all, the only settings on the YS-120 are full power, half power, and diffuser. From a technical perspective, this relatively tight range seemed to be quite workable. However, I learned that there are a few considerations that also need to be factored in.
First, everything I’ve read indicated that low strobe power with its shorter duration yields sharper images than those taken on full power. The issue is the strobe duration, rather effects of bigger apertures used with shorter strobe durations. I’ve never tried to validate this, however.
Another matter is the impact on the number of flashes per battery set. YS-120s are perhaps good for 280 full power flashes, depending on batteries used, and the 60 and 90 series are half that. Of course, without knowing the recycle time curve, that may be overly optimistic for digital shooting, and I don’t know the impact of using half power on the numbers either. [Does anyone have info like this?] I’ve never dealt with capacity problems shooting film, as I always replaced the battery set after two rolls of film. I did happen to shoot about 200 photos in one dive sequence using a mix of full and half power, though I had enough to do without paying attention to how long the cycle times were.
So, I’m shooting NEF, compressed, with a 4 GB primary CFC card. That’s close to about 400 images. Now, it seems that my current strobes become the limiting factor on the number of photos taken during a single dive. I’ve though of using the YS90 digital strobes because of their power range, but that’s another $1,000, and with only 4 batteries the gain may not amount to much.
If you’re a film person, you may wonder why on earth anyone might shoot so many photos. Well, one of the great things about digital photography is that the camera is giving you continuous realtime feedback on your results. This is especially nice with the D2x’s large display screen. For anything that stays put in the water, you can take a photo, analyse it for composition and lighting, make corrective changes, then shoot it again, and again, and again. Where I might take one photo with film, and hope for the best, I can now take a dozen, and strive for the best composition. I actually photographed one lowly Christmastree worm 38 times to get what I wanted.
The only problem I’ve had doing this is trying to properly correlation the relationship between the image display and the histogram. The D2x back display is quite bright, and I typically set the output level to -2, even on land. Even so, images that seem correct on the display, frequently come out much darker when processed. When viewing on the display, the histogram for the image will seem overly biased to the left, implying that it is a more accurate representation of the final results. I’m still sorting out what takes precedence. I’ve only used this system for a week.
As an aside, I’ve found that a great way to gain familiarity with this rig is to take it into a pool, and practice photographing scantily clad models under water. Not as good as nudibranch, but an acceptable substitute as eye catching material. Using strobes, the results are absolutely fantastic. Besides, where else can you shoot 300 photos using 500 lbs of air?
I hope you find this information to be of use, and look forward to responses that will improve my understanding of using this great system [and it’s “only†$15,000].
Ken
, by putting a piece of folded paper behind the spring in the housing's wheel (between the wheel and the housing). I shot to a depth of 110ft with no further problems.
rather than the Subal/Ikelite setup ) 
