Aquatica A300 Housing Review
Introduction
Let me begin with a couple of qualifications. First, this
is my first time with an SLR under water digital or otherwise so I
have no basis to compare the camera or housing with any other
SLR system.
Second, Aquatica was very kind to rush ship me the housing so I would
have it in time for my Thailand trip while they continued work on a
few details. Items not yet completed include instruction manual, TTL
interface circuit for
Inon strobes, and a few focus rings.
Ryan Canon at Underwater Camera Pros has written a
very good preview
article . Please have a look there first for the
basics. I'll make
references to his descriptions and photos in my report.
Technical Issues
Before putting the housing in the water, I spent a little time
going through
it's functions,
and decided to make an adjustment to the shutter control. As Ryan
described in detail, Aquatica
takes advantage of the easy-to-use electronic shutter release of
the Rebel, and controls the shutter via two simple contact switch shown
in the photo below. The switch
closer to the housing wall sets the focus ( half press on the shutter
button ) and the other one
releases the shutter. My photo show the positions of the contacts
after my adjustment. Since I'm too lazy to reset it, please see
the
photo in Ryan's article for their original positions. There
you'll find
the two
contacts very nearly aligned
resulting in a very sensitive trigger which makes it almost impossible
to
set
focus and
re-frame a shot. My reconfiguration makes focus lock much
easier. This change requires removing the outer contact
piece, flip
it 180 degrees and reassemble.
Because the shaft rotating the two contacts is not round, the offset
between the two is not
continuously adjustable. I
think the way I have it set is the only other useful position.
For my inaugural dive trip with a DSLR, I decided to use a Sigma
15mm FE in an 8 inch dome,
and a Sigma 50mm macro and Sigma 105mm macro in the flat port. I only
have the focus ring
for the 105mm. Because the Similan Island of Thailand is a much
better
wide angle spot than macro, I ended up using the 15mm for about 70% of
the dives and the 50mm for the rest except for two dives where I tried
the
105mm on auto focus.
In the water, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the setup
handled; it really didn't seem that much bigger than the Olympus PT-015
system that I was used to. With the TLC arms and Inon strobes,
the
whole thing is only
slightly negative. The housed camera by itself is actually a
little
buoyant for both the 15mm and 50mm setup. The viewfinder shows
the full
frame clearly although at a slightly reduced size. The housing worked
very well except for a couple of minor issues.
The first is that I often forget to pull the front knob that
controls the
camera aperture/shutter dial up before removing the camera. As a
consequence the O-ring that's glued to the disc came off.
Fortunately, I was able to
find super glue on the boat and re-attach the O-ring.
Even with these minor problems, I enjoyed my first outing with the A300 very much. It was a pleasure to shoot without a noticeable shutter lag. Composing on a view finder instead of a LCD took a little getting use to, but after a few days I didn't find that to be much of a problem. Most important of all I was very pleased with the sharper, cleaner images and the camera's exposure range for sun ball shots.
Photos
Here are a few shots using the Sigma 15mm FE.
To better evaluate the quality of the lens and dome port, here are 100% crops of the above image. The first crop is from the center and the other from the upper left corner.
Here are a few shots with the Sigma 50mm macro.
and one with the Sigma 105mm macro.
Summary
I'll summarize with a few pros and cons plus a few things I learned about the camera and housing that the reader may find useful.
PROS:
- The ports and extensions are easy to mount and dismount.
- The camera fits tightly in the housing yet it's easy to insert and remove.
- Very close to neutral and well balanced
- Dual bulkheads
CONS:
- No lock-down button for the focus point control
- Unless care is taken in opening the housing, the spring loaded latches can smash a finger against the handle.
- Need more focus rings and the one for the Sigma 105mm should be made longer
CAMERA and HOUSING MISC
- Turn the camera off for battery change. The camera appears to function afterward if you don't, but the auto shutoff does not work which can lead to an unexpectedly early dead battery.
- The spotting light and laser on the Inon Z-220 can be made to work with this system with a little modification.
- It's better to leave the mode dial knob up. One time, I confused myself for a minute when I tried to change aperture, and turned that knob instead, ending up at a completely different shooting mode. It's an easy mistake to make if you attempt the change while looking through the view finder.