Good Little Digital Cameras

[Jon]

Not sure about the battery life, but he seems happy with it. I know it lasted him all day during our ice dives this past winter and we were also in the water shooting fish shots for over an hour in February. The nice part is that it can use the full range of Sea&Sea lenses and strobes without any adaptors.

I've always considered Sea&sea to be much more affordable than other camera companies out there- Nikonos, amphibico, Nexus, Light and Motion, ect. Only the Ikelite housings seem to be cheaper- for scuba stuff.

I've used the sea&sea and the S80 and the sea & sea housing is a LOT more robust and can handle deeper depths- but for freediving that it kind of a mute point. The cannon housing feels like much more of a toy than the others mentioned, but then again, so does my PT-015 housing for my Olympus.

When it comes to depth I've found that you can push them all if your carefull with the O-rings. My last film camera was rated to 165' but I had it down to 220' plenty of times without a leak. The PT-015 is rated to 132' but I've heard of guys taking them to 250' without a problem. For freediving any of these would work.

I have RAW mode on my 5050 but never use it as it takes 8-9 seconds to write a single image to disk. With a DSLR I could do 4-5 frames a second- but my wife won't let me take out a second mortage to buy one.

The one thing that RAW would be good for is just shooting what you see and then going back later to fix it up since all of the information has already been recorded. I'm just not willing to put up with the lag time on my 5050 to take advantage of that.

The initial shot on the Casio was fine, but the recharge time for additional shots seemed WAY too long for my liking. I know it has low shurrter lag initially, but when your trying to do multiple shots on a freedive it becomes a pain.

The enhanced video modes look a lot more interesting to me and the higher resolution still settings, without going to RAW, seem to have worked just fine. If your just using your shots to post on the net, or make smaller prints from, the Motion JPEG format is pretty nice because you can just shoot video and use any frame for a still- which at 30 per second is a lot of choice!

I had thought about the S-80 with an Ikelite housing because they use a standard 67mmm thread port on the front- which means I could still use my INON wide angle lens and Dome port. It's a bulkier system than the Cannon housing, but much more robust and I could use my expensive lens on it. Even with the larger nature of the housing I understand it to be smaller than my PT-015 housing.

Ted has mentioned that there are certain features of his camera that he cannot access with his Cannon housing for the S-80. Since he's in Cayman this week he can't comment on it right now- bastard.

I've never used the Epoque lens, but I would swear by my Inon. I know that Cliff has been using an Inon wide angle, without the dome, for a pretty long time- and, thus, convinced me to buy one as well a few years ago.

jon

[Fondueset]

Tylerz - per your question - all the buttons are accessible through the housing - the wheel on the back cannot be rotated however - and the functions I mentioned were accessed through it - turns out there is a way to access them with the buttons. The wheel on the side is great - and not so easy to turn that it could be done accidentally. I looked at the ikelite housing - but I like the ergonomics of this one better ( also the price!) Battery life has been fine - though I don't use the flash much. For sure not like the casios - which run practically forever on a charge, but not a problem in any case. The trick with getting access to shutter speed an aperture - manually - these are on the wheel - but there is a secret button combo that lets you get to them without having to rotate the wheel on the back. You hold down the print button - then use the right and left buttons on the wheel.

Now that I worked out the rather basic function of centering the focus I am getting much better quality. More of the pictures are coming out and the quality is much better than the casio. The Sea and Sea housing I looked at did seem more solid - but I thought it was mainly all the rubber on it - the basic construction seemed pretty much the same. The dx8000 does uncompressed .tif - not quite raw - and apparently it is slow to write also.

I missed a few shots waiting for the casio to cycle too. Also had the shutter button get stuck down (algae!) and an sd memory card go bad (contacts on my computer scratched the contacts on the card) - that was ugly as the card would click in and out of action.

I expect my research was not as informed as yours but I came to the same conclusion. I didn't see any concerns about quality in the reviews I read - though I was shopping after it had been out awhile.

[tylerz]

Originally Posted by Jon

I've never used the Epoque lens, but I would swear by my Inon. I know that Cliff has been using an Inon wide angle, without the dome, for a pretty long time- and, thus, convinced me to buy one as well a few years ago.

Ah, yes I am leaning towards the Inon lens as well. Which one do you guys have? I there is the UW-100 achromats and the UW-100 28ad (the one I think I would get). The lenses are around $330 plus the dome attachment is about the same. That is around $660 for the setup. Is that what you paid? I would love to go to that, but it is steep. Duty on top of that may not be nice. Maybe somebody coming for the BC Vancouver Island trip can bring me the setup to avoid taxes and duty.

Is the dome attachment worth it?

[tylerz]

Originally Posted by Fondueset

the wheel on the back cannot be rotated however - and the functions I mentioned were accessed through it - turns out there is a way to access them with the buttons. ... You hold down the print button - then use the right and left buttons on the wheel.

Ah, I didn't know that combo myself... great, keep us posted on any such findings.

The wheel on the side is great - and not so easy to turn that it could be done accidentally.

Yeah, I was referring to the wheel on the back of the camera, which you are saying can not be turned in the canon housing. On the Ikelite housing you can.

I looked at the ikelite housing - but I like the ergonomics of this one better ( also the price!)

I went with the Ikelite for the extra depth, and because I thought it would have more diversity in lens attachments. It sounds like this may or may not be the case.

The dx8000 does uncompressed .tif - not quite raw - and apparently it is slow to write also.

uncompressed, or lossless compressed, .tif and raw are identical in terms of pixel data. Just .tif is a file format with many options and objectives.

I expect my research was not as informed as yours but I came to the same conclusion. I didn't see any concerns about quality in the reviews I read - though I was shopping after it had been out awhile.

There was some reviews that mentioned edge vignetting at the widest angles and dpreview.com does color and image quality comparisons between cameras.

[tylerz]

Oh, anybody able to fill a 4GB memory card on a single battery for the S80?

[Jon]

Oh, anybody able to fill a 4GB memory card on a single battery for the S80?

I know that Ted is working on it, but it's a lot easier to do if everything you shoot is in video mode.

My lens was the UW100 and sold for around $350 when I bought it. the Dome port was about the same and I find myself sticking with cameras, or housings, that will allow me to keep using it. I think it's an awesome piece of glass and the dome allows for split level shots.

The only way to get lenses on the cannon housing is with the Sea &sea adaptor so that you can put on some of the lenses made by them. The Ikelite housing will accept lenses from a variety companies I believe.

I'd be interest to see how bulky your housing is when you get it, and if you got the tray and arm to go with it.

Jon

[Fondueset]

I read the dpreview - 'vignetting' - what is that exactly? From the review it looked like most of the cameras in this range have some of that sort of thing. - whatever it is

[tylerz]

Jon - No, I did not get the tray and arm. Where did you get your Inon stuff from?

Fondueset - Vignetting is where the edges fade out to some degree (become darker).

[Fondueset]

Just reread that review in detail. Pretty good!

[tylerz]

Fondueset, I had a look at the videos and prior photos. Just looked at the latest photos... look great. Great visibility! Was the light similar to what we see in the pictures? It appears that on one of the pictures the flash was used (subtle backscatter?)?

Is the water there is somewhat salty? Lots of types of fish and bottom critters it appears. I noticed muscles and/or barnacles?

[Fondueset]

No flash. The breakwall is limestone - which makes for intense reflected light where it's not covered in muscles.

There was some heavy particulate (mostly pollen i think)above the thermalcline and the 'backscatter' would be sunlight reflecting off of it. I'd also kicked up some stuff from the bottom and was climbing above it to get the shot of the perch. The perch picture - which I think is one of the only uncropped ones - was taken just at the edge of the thermalcline - you see it fade to a deeper blue in the lower right part of the picture. down another 10feet or so the vis was probably double. You can really see the thermalcline in the Bass video - which is from an overcast day with heavy fog - despite the dark visibility at the bottom was around 70 feet.
The mollusks are zebra muscles - an invasive species that is responsible for the stunning water clarity. I remember when 15 foot vis was a miracle - now 20 feet makes me claustrophobic

The brown/black and white goby sitting on the mollusk covered rock is another invasive species - round goby. There are thousands of them all over the place along with a couple of other invasive gobies. They are displacing our indigenous mottled sculpins but I think the bass are happy, certainly the crayfish are(we have an invasive one of those too - the 'rusty crayfish' - same as the rest - just reddish brown) I expect to see pike and trout feeding off the bottom any time - with all the food down there. I imagine the carp probably slurp them up when they get a chance - I've seen them run down free swimmers before.

The colorful little guy is a darter - indiginous I think.

The body of water is Grand Traverse Bay - off Lake Michigan. The fish population is actually just getting going for the season - much larger schools in a few weeks.

[cdavis]

I got a chance to use unirdna's s80 and took some good pics despite little or no photographic knowledge, good fun. One thing I noticed is the drag created by the camera, especially on deeper dives, despite the fact that it is extremely small. Coming up from 80ft or so was dramaticly more difficult holding the camera. It slowed me down far more than I would have thought possible.

Is there some trick or technique that helps reduce drag on these little cameras?

Connor

[tylerz]

My thought is that you cup the housing between your hand and the side of your thigh, if finning with hands at sides. If you are doing hands over head, then cup it between both your hands such that fingers come to a point still. Both ways the camera is protected from directly working against the water and instead your body (arms or hands depending on position) should largely deflect water around it.

I just received my S80 Ikelite housing which has a significantly larger profile than my samsung housing, of which I never noticeably felt drag from and took photos as deep as 40m. It will be interesting to see how it feels in comparison.

[SanderP]

I don't know much about underwater cameras. But you were talking in this thread about regular cameras, weren't you? Aren't a UW camera and a regular camera different things, or is a proper waterproof case that fits all you need?

Sorry for such a silly question.

[unirdna]

Hi Sander,

Some companies like Sea and Sea specialize in making cameras for underwater use, but their cameras are still not a "special" kind. It's the same regardless of who you buy from - normal camera fits into an underwater housing. Olympus was the first large camera company to start manufacturing their own UW cases; Canon followed. Nikon still hasn't gotten with the program; so if you want to take one of their cameras underwater, you need a 3rd-party case like ikelite.

I see you live in Estonia. Must be nice to buy SpecialFins without paying the shipping .