I have a Canon 7D, Tokina 10-17, and 100mm macro (new L series) and am going to be getting an Underwater setup for it. I am a fairly inexperienced UW photographer, having done three dive trips now with my G9 setup (Ikelite housing, Ikelite DS-51 Strobe, Inon UWL-100 WA lens).

My initial thought was to go with an Ikelite setup for the 7D. I like how their TTL works seemlessly with their flashes, so I was thinking I would get the housing, ports for the 10-17mm and 100mm and the Ikelite 8" dome. For a strobe, I was thinking I'd start with an Ikelite DS-161 (love that it serves as a dual-purpose strobe and video light, so I can take advantage of the 7D's HD capabilities), and later expand to two DS-161s as money permits.

However, I don't want to jump into this purchase and I have probably 5-6 months until my next dive trip, so I have some time. I'm wondering what the advantages are of the much pricier housings by Nauticam, Sea & Sea, etc.? I know they are machined out of metal, which makes them a bit more rugged, and they are rated to greater depth, but these advantages aren't really necessary for me. What else is there? TIA.

I think if you've never dove w/ an SLR before then the Ikelite is a great first housing. You may outgrow it and want for more features down the line (bigger viewfinder, etc) but at that point you'll probably want to upgrade to the newest and greatest camera body too - so you can switch housings then...

Just my opinion.

Cheers
James

Its the size and bulk... When you pick up a machined Aluminium housing and compare it direct to the Ikelite, you can see the difference. I thought i would save money too and go with the Ike housing, until i actually saw it, picked it up and played with it in the shop. The sales guy (clever man...) handed me an Aquatica and i was sold and 1000$ poorer...

I also liked the TTL idea with the Ike as this too would be my first dslr setup, and was thinking the 161 too, again until i saw the size of the ike strobes... huge! Put it next door to an Inon 240 or Sea & Sea ....

TTL in these strobes can be acheived by direct fibre optic cables, rather than electrical sync. FO is cheaper and does not require O ring seals on electrical parts, u can unplug underwater if u really want to (no idea why u need to), a sync cable flood, could lead to loss of camera, or strobe as well as the exp cable.

Having said all this, the ike is a great housing and no housing is gonna stop u getting great results. Its just an ease of use thing, and a bulk underwater which i was put off by. I also live and breath diving, i dive almost every day as i live in the Philippines, and as its my job to dive i thought it justified the extra price comparison and the more rugged housing would put up with the extra torture i would put it through.

My suggestion, go to ur nearest dealer and pick them up, see how ur thumbs reach buttons on the back etc and see what feels comfortable. Then see if the cost outlay is worth it for how much diving you do.

Olly

My way of seeing it when I first bought an SLR settup was that I was going to be spending a LOT of money getting everything I needed, so what was an extra $1k to go from an Ikelite housing to something a lot easier to use and handle made of Aluminium?

I guess I'll have to try them out and see if the size difference justifies the cost. We have a local shop that is an Ikelite, Aquatica, and Sea & Sea dealer (Helix Photo), but I'm not sure where I can try Nauticam local -- anyone know where I might find Nauticam near Chicago?

Also, one draw of Ikelite for me is the clear housing -- only going on 1-2 dive trips a year, I sometimes forget what controls what, and being able to see inside is nice for this. Wondering how much I'll miss this?

FYI, Helix is not an Aquatica dealer and has not been one for quite a few years. we where in Chicago, both me (Aquatica) and Chris Parson from Nauticam and had our gears for the 7D on display, too bad you didn't make it that is a very rare occasion when you have both competitive products on hand as well as the reps to answer your questions, of course every one knows and agree that the best 7D housing in the world is definitely depending on you you talk too me or Chris.

I know...I was in Palau during Our World Underwater, wish the timing were different....does Helix still carry Aquatica, but aren't an official dealer, or do they not carry Aquatica at all? FYI - they still list Aquatica on their website.

One other question -- I like the Ikelite DS-161 since it doubles as a strobe and movie light. I've looked but haven't seen any other manufacturers with such a product. Are there any that exist or are rumored to be in the works?

They are not carrying Aquatica, at least for the best of almost 10 years and No the shouldn't be carrying our logo on their website, I will check into that,

The Ikes Ds-161 are pretty unique at the moment and I am sure the precursor of an upcoming trend

And if you ask me I too would have preffered to be in Palau than Chicago (no offense to the wind city resident, its a grat city and crowd but... Palau!)

The Aquatica housing (and I'd assume other aluminium housings) has printed on it what buttons are what, so couldnt see it would be a problem.

Another options is to fire your strobes optically. Strobes like the Inon Z-240 and Sea&Sea YS-110a support TTL when fired optically, and both the Nauticam and Aquatica 7D housings (and probably others) have optical connections.

When considering any video lights, check the rated output to see if it will meet your needs.



As Jean mentioned, we were both just in Chicago, sorry we missed you. Nauticam currently does not have a dealer in the Chicago area. I suspect we'll have one there at some point, but probably not in time to be of assistance. I do have a standing offer to anyone who wants to venture down to south Florida to try one of our housings on a dive. Just need a little advance notice. Although right at the moment, I have no 7D demos since they are all in Lembeh.

As for the clear housing thing, the main advantage of that is more easily being able to see if your o-rings are seated right. We're working on developing transparent aluminum (Star Trek reference... :-)), but in the meantime, as someone mentioned, many aluminum housings (including Nauticam 7D), have labels on the buttons.

Good points Chris,

But optically fired strobes definitely have their downside too - like waiting for the camera flash to recycle w/ its tiny capacitors and batteries. A DS161 that is electrically connected can fire significantly faster than a Z240 that is optically connected, just due to the overall system design.

That's probably not as big an issue for a newbie shooter though.

Cheers
James

Agreed.

It's all about tradeoffs. I really like playing with the optical TTL, but personally I am leaning towards shooting manual with electrical sync cords for some situations. Or, as has been discussed in a different thread, shooting optically but in manual with camera flash set on low power (Ryan posted a video of us doing with with 7D and getting about 2FPS). I've been without TTL for so long I don't really miss it, but I definitely see it as an advantage for newer shooters. Another advantage is no sync cord to flood, though I have never flooded one.

You got to admit that maintenance wise, travelling wise (most are small such as the Inon and Sea & Sea YS-110 and cords are but a fraction of the weight) and just plain simple TTL ease of operation, optical fiber does have some pretty major advantages. and when used with freshly charged battery firing rate is not as big an issue as one would think in a lot of conditions.

If you put the 7D's internal flash to manual mode and set it at minimum power (1/128 of full power) it will keep up with the camera shooting at around four frames per second. The only thing that will hold you back in this mode is how fast your external strobes can recycle. When shooting TTL you can minimise the recycle time of the camera's flash by using a metering pattern appropriate to your subject and/or using flash metering combined with either spot or partial metering and the Flash Exposure Lock button.

Another advantage of fibre optics is that you can shoot with second curtain sync by setting the camera's internal flash to second curtain sync.

Gudge,

Sorry fairly new to DSLR stuff, but Why is Second Curtain sync an advantage? and what exactly is it?

Olly

I'm not sure that it is 4fps. There is a slight busy delay after each shot. This is set up exactly as you describe:





This is absolutely true, and a significant advantage for creative photography.

I got that figure (with the camera out of the housing and no external strobes) by taking a burst of 20 shots, found the time the first and last were taken from EXIF data and used this data to calculate the frame rate. I got around 4 fps. I did this test shooting JPEGs as I couldn't get 20 shots in a row with RAW because the buffer filled up and caused a delay. Whether your external strobes can keep up is another question all together and dependent on what strobe and/or power you are using. Are you sure the external strobes fired every time the camera's internal flash fired in your video?. Did you have the camera in low or high speed continuous mode (I used high speed)?

Edit:
I just did another test using RAW this time and my new 60MB/sec SanDisk Extreme Card and the buffer didn't fill up after 32 shots. Frame rate from this test was just over 3 1/2 fps. Rounding to the nearest whole number fives me "around 4 fps ". I did another test shooting Large size JPEGs and got just under 3 1/2 fps.

SLR shutters have two curtains. When you release the shutter the first curtain opens to start the exposure and the second curtain closes to stop the exposure. The normally the flash is set to fire at the start of the exposure just after the first curtain opens, called first curtain sync. With some cameras/flashes you can make the flash fire just before the second curtain closes, called second curtain sync. If you are shooting at high shutter speeds there is no real advantage to using second curtain sync but if you shooting moving objects with slow shutter speeds second curtain sync is good. Read this to see why:

http://www.davidfenwick.co.uk/blog/2008/07...rtain-sync.html

I'm also looking to house my 7D soon... Mainly looking at the Aquatica and the Nauticam. Must saythat the Nauticam looks more than impressive... Without having had the housing in my hands I must say that I'm a bit worried for diving with it in cold water... The knobs controlling the aperture and shutter look very small and hard to handle with dry gloves... (I read from Tony Wu's blog that there might be a change to the knobs though)

Looking forward to hear from divers when the housing hits the water...