I got my A300 on Friday night, and went to Catalina today and tested it out.

My current config is a Drebel with 1 Gb CF card, A300 with dual bulkheads and manual board (getting the ICU when it is ready), 2 DS-125s each on 2 12" ULCS arms with Nikonos-Ike synch cords. ChrisM took some pictures of me in the water that he will probably post - how about the good ones only, Chris.

First impressions - the housing is significantly smaller than the Titan D100, and looks good. I like the fact that all the buttons are labeled! There were no instructions, so I made some errors along the way. Here are some pointers that will save you at least an hour.

1) The electro-mechanical shutter release works very well in the water, but you need to set the communication mode variable in the Drebel setup to "PTP" or most camera features will be disabled when you plug the shutter release cable in to the camera.

2) Be careful installing the strobe hot shoe - the connector is not directional and it is easy to put it on backwards. Just look and make sure the pins line up.

3) I had to add some electrical tape to the aperture screw control to make it depress the button enough.

First dive was with the 8" dome port and shade, but no camera to check for leaks. Not a drop. The housing + arms +strobes was slightly bouyant.

Second dive installed the camera with the kit 18-55 lens. All the WA shots in the gallery were taken on this dive at 18mm. Vis was only 20-30' with a lot of particulate, and this was my first dive using manual strobes (coming from a 4040 with Ike optical TTL), so there aren't any fantastic shots, but some decent ones showing good optical performance. On some of the sunburst tests I can see the writing on the front of the lens - I'll need to black the letters out next time.





The third dive inserted a sigma 50mm macro lens. All the macro shots in the gallery were on this dive, including this business end of a sea cucumber.



I'm not too fond of this lens (which I just yesterday) - the minimum focus distance is way too close. I'm going to return in and get the canon 100mm.

So, overall impressions on the housing (remembering I've never used a SLR underwater before)

1) I really like no shutter lag!
2) The shutter release makes a half press easy - I like it.
3) My rig is about neutral with the 8" dome + shade, a little negative with the macro port. Perhaps the extension ring for the 100mm will bring it back to neutral for macro.
4) The 2 12" long arms might be a tad bit of overkill.
5) Manual strobes wasn't too hard, but the control layout for M mode wasn't great - the screw in control to change the dial from shutter to aperture is a bit hard to do. Too bad the Drebel doesn't have a second command dial. This isn't reallty an issue for macro where I just left the shutter at 1/200 sec.
6) I had no problems seeing through the viewfinder.
7) I'm looking forward to the ICU coming.

See all the half-way decent shots at:
www.jetboots.com/031304gal/index.html

In this gallery there was no real image alterations. I developed them using C1 Rebel.

I'll be in Curacao March 20-27th so I should have some better shots after the trip.

Ben Mazin
www.jetboots.com

Thanks Ben, that's an excellent preliminary review of the new housing.
I'm looking forward to seeing the next batch of photos, and the results of the ICU when you get one!

Thanks for the review -its very helpful - cant wait for my housing (Ikelite).

The shots are very goos - love the sunburst - could you post the settings on the camera for the pics.

What benefit do you see in getting the 100mm Macro lens - is it just the focal distance ??

Many thanks again

Kirky

I'll say, but then, in retrospect, engraving a copyright message onto the lens probably wasn't the best idea. :wink:

I love that sunburst and surprised to see no banding in the light areas (ok except in the dark area in the LH corner - but I'm putting that down to .jpg-isation).

For a first attempt I'd say you should feel rather pleased.

You say you are returninf the 50mm Sigma for the 100mm. Is this because you feel you will be happy using the 55mm end of the kit lens? I have the 50mm and the 100mm as I see them useful for two different reasons.

I have to review, but the Sigma will do 1:1 but can't recall the kit specs off hand.

I had a Sigma 50mm Macro for Canon for a couple of days to play with, and wan't impressed with its AF ability.

It is a nice, sharp, lens, but down around 1:2 or 1:1, it focuses pretty poorly compared to the Canon EF macro 50mm. I did not have access to the lifesize converter, so I couldn't really make an apples to apples comparison. If I had this lens, I'd use MF, especially since this housing has no AF Lock.

Both are slower in AF, in my opinion, than the Nikkor 60mm.

I was exhausted last night, and forgot to thank Ken Ashman of California Digital Diving for getting everything together in time for me to have some test dives before my trip - very good work, thanks!

100mm macro should focus best of the available macro choices. My Tamron 90mm is just about the slowest of the lot! Thinking of a switch to the Canon 100mm sometime.

Was just looking at some pictures of the ICU. It looks pretty simple - I wonder if you could install it in other manufacturer's housings?!

Did you use a diopter with the 18-55?

I'm pretty much sold on this housing, just waiting to see if the ICU actually works first!

I wonder if you could buy one. Fitting it into most housings would be pretty easy but I wonder if they will sell them individually?

You could buy an aquatica A300 just for the ICU, pull it out and put it in your Seacam/1Ds setup!

Yes - the first ICU boards are being put through UW tests right now. (As a matter of fact, Ben has graciously agreed to be one of the UW testers! They are working perfectly in the table-top tests.) Once they are shipping, you will be able to buy them seperately. List price is $199.

www.CaliforniaDigitalDiving.com