yeah I was looking at possibly upgrading to a D80 or D200 (now they have a new D300 and D3 to lust after) but the cost of housing put me over what I could do with a brow beating wife. actually she is really cool about it. but it was more than I was willing to pay and wait for funds to get a housing, so I went the P5000 route. If you have one or have played with one, you will immediately notice that using the matrix metering to focus greatly slows down the focus time even for a point and shoot. you can customize the way it focuses by making it center focus, and turning matrix off, and it focuses faster. with these settings you can also use the macro focus for crisp images. I am a patient person so it doenst bother me as long as I get a good image. for me it is all about the image not the deadline.
I am still getting acquainted with it above ground using the wide angle converter, which is 170 FOV above water and 100 FOV under according to the fantasea literature. Surprising that I will lose 70 Degrees just by submerging, I guess light bends that much from water to air inside the lens which is lost from the image.
Just for your reference when I do get SUBmersed and take some shots to post (may take me a while to get worthy pics as it is with any camera) , refer to what I prevously listed as my setup and see how close it is to what you are using.
I am also looking foreward to taking some Noiseless_VID with the wide angle lens and the Blue Filter (Red) with my spearfishing buddies to see how it improves the color rendition. (this cam has some negative reviews for recording video in quiet rooms due to the lightly audible hissing (I think it is a cooling fan for the image processor that has to overclock to get 10MP resolution in such a small body: I cant imagine what else the noise could be if not some small fan)) I am mostly concerned with still images and only Vid imagery to put music over so the slight hissing noise for me is trivial if the technology works. if I wanted quality video I would have gotten a video specific unit.
I can say that with stills, as you may know with fine resolution images, that you can crop considerably before the image becomes pixellated, which is nice for getting more useable images, especially with Macro photography.
you will also have to shrink the images more so than with 5MP images as they appear
HUGE when trying to post them with image shack or other comparable web loading engines.
After using the 5600 in the Nikon WP-CP3 housing, and testing this p5000 in the Fantasea FP5000 housing, I finally feel like I am venturing into more serious underwater photography, especially with a submersible wide lens. I am really Looking foreward to seeing images taken from this lens, especially macro, as I want to see how the focus is maintained to the edge of the image. in air this lense is a fisheye and you can see a slight blurring a the edges (Yes - with a completely clean lens)
the center area is quite clear but could be better, but underwater may be completely different as it is designed to have water on both sides of the lens, so this blur may be accounted for underwater with a layer of water. we will see.
anyway I hope to get under this next weekend, I will post pics in a week or more. thanks for your interest. so far after 3 weeks with the camera I am pleased but I only used a 5600 Coolpix for two years prior with only slight film SLR experience and no DSLR experience so I am not technologically jaded from the finer features of modern Digital image equipment....yet!
Prefocus and focus lock on a point and shoot to capture action (typically above water but can apply under) is kind of a skill that comes with the Point and shoot territory, DLSR people dont like that kind of patience and can be quite edgy about it. I dont think it is that bad or hard to get what you want. it just requires pre thought about the image you want and a perception of the focus distance of your subject before the y come into frame... well that and a little jedi mind trick on the subject to pass at the right place in the frame doesnt hurt either = (Luck)
wish me luck on sub photos for this week.
thanks.
