I am a reasonable good amateur photographer, but my underwater experience is limited to disposable point and shoot cameras. I plan to do snorkeling/freediving to about 30 feet in Hawaii next summer and would like to use my D70. Since I won't be using it much, once a year maybe, I don't want to spend a lot of money on a housing and port, and probably don't need a strobe.
What do you think about the Fantasea line? Or would it be better in some way to look more to Ikelite or Aquatica?

Hi Michael,

Interesting question about Fantasea, as you can see, not too many responses.
I too have wondered what that housing is like, i don't believe anyone on here has bought one.
I would suggest either Ike or Aquatica as they are a more known entity and their quality is unquestioned

Thanks for the input. I do notice that Ike is the most used, but I get the impression that it is heavier and bulkier than the more expensive ones. Like in everything else, there are trade offs.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_two/cmparesize.html

The Fantasea housing is new in the market so you'll probably won’t find too much information about it.
I had a very good experience with that company and few friend of my that had dome Nikon P&S camera use the Fantasea housing for them and quit happy.
The Fantasea are among the less expensive housing in the market and nice thing about them is that the housing comes with one year flood insurance.

I had the chance to see one in Eilat. Howard from Fantasea was testing the FD70. The housing seemed nice, but there are only 2 or 3 ports. One is a dome port, the others are flat. If you want to shoot the dome, you need to research to make sure it will work with your lens.

Actually in their Site there four ports that cover: 18-70, Sigma 15 / Nikon 16, 60 & 105 mm lens.
There where rumors that this housing can work with S&S port but I don’t know if it’s true.

I've been scuba diving a while and have also done a fair bit of freediving. The scuba diving got me into underwater photography with a housed SLR. However, I only take my housing when I go on scuba - Just for the sheer bulk of the gear, the strobe arms etc. I just cannot think how I'd get reasonable photos. A point & shoot is different, I used to have a Canon Powershot S30 in its WP-DC300 plastic housing. It had no strobes attached and it handled really well when snorkelling or freediving.
If you really want to take a housed SLR while freediving, then I'd guess you're limited to wideangle. Macro shots take too much time to set up. And when freediving, the ONE thing you haven't got is time (unless you're called Umberto and have grown gills :-)
I'd look for a setup that allows you good natural light photographs - as strobe arms cause too much drag in the water.
So look out for a fast wideangle lens and find a matching port. I would suggest the Sigma 14mm f2.8 EX or maybe even the 10.5mm Nikkor fisheye. You'll get good shots in natural light with those lenses and not need much time to set anything up while underwater.

I don't want to keep from using a full setup while freediving, and I don't have much experience with my housing while freediving myself, it's just what I think would make sense.

Good luck.

Fred