Now the long version...
A little background
I started shooting underwater in 1986 on my first open water dive after certification. I borrowed my fathers point and shoot underwater film camera that broke after the first dive, but I was hooked. Capturing images of the creatures and underwater landscapes to share with family and friends became the focus of my diving. For the last 14 years I have been using an Aquatica A3 housing with a Canon F1n manual focus camera.
A Rebirth
So fast forward 14 years, the Aquatica housing served me very well and never let me down. I had not been paying attention to the evolution digital photography other than owning a Nikon Coolpix 990 for shooting photos for web sites that I worked on or for carrying around at work. Everything changed when a friend at work who does portraiture and weddings on the side (I know, all firefighters have side jobs ;-) showed me a new fangled digital SLR called the Canon 10D. I was floored by the feel of the camera, it was familiar to me and I was most impressed by the lack of shutter release lag and the fact you could take as many photos as you wanted and see the results immediately, making corrections as necessary. No more buying film, shooting and waiting for processing to the tune of $10 a roll.
I have spent more in the last 14 years on film and processing then what my Seacam housing cost. This is a good way to justify to your significant other why you need a DSLR and housing, "Honey, I am actually saving us money by getting into digital underwater photography." Actually, my wife did not buy into that reasoning, she just loves me a lot. No, I mean A LOT!
My friend from work and I flew to Vegas to attend the annual Photo Marketing Association trade show in February 2004 to get a first hand look at what was new in photographic equipment. After watching one of Canon's sponsored pros shooting with the 1D Mark II during a live model shoot Canon printed out these huge prints just minutes after the shoot that were stunning. I was sold. I spent most of 2004 selling every piece of camera gear I owned, including my underwater gear, and pre-ordered a 1D Mark II and the new Seacam housing for it. I got the Camera at the end of April which gave me several months to get aquainted with the beast. The housing came in September, perfect timing for the best time of year for diving in Northern California, Fall. Yea right, with all my gear finally, the weather did not cooperate, we had a stormy Fall and the Ocean was a washing machine. I was able to do some pool diving to test the housing and become familiar with it's multitude of controls. Real diving would have to wait until a trip to Maui in late January.
In the mean time, I heard that Canon was updating their full frame DSLR, the 1Ds. I was already looking at getting a second body since I do a lot of other shooting besides underwater. I had speculated that Canon would keep the same form factor and button configuration with the 1Ds Mark II that they had with the 1D Mark II which would allow seamless inter changeability between these two cameras and the Seacam housing. When the 1Ds Mark II was announced, I placed a pre order through Canon's premiere South Florida dealer, Stephen Frink Photographic and received a 1Ds Mark II in time for the holidays. Off to Maui for some real shooting...
The Housing
The housing was extremely easy to set up. I was amazed that despite the ____ number of controls on the body everyone of them lined up perfectly with the housing controls. The only controls that have to be checked for registration are the main on/off switch, zoom/focus gears (if installed) and the metering pattern control knob. This knob is a beveled disk and the housing closes more cleanly if the beveled portion goes over the camera’s metering button first. Some real nice points about buttoning up the housing: The ports screw on but have a stop pin that engages with the housing to prevent the port from screwing any tighter. This works like bayonet mount at the end of the threaded portion of the port. This is ingenious. The only time I have had water leak into my Aquatica housing was when I did not screw on a macro port tight enough. It was always a judgment call as to how tight was tight enough. With the Seacam, once the port pin bottoms out on the housing, you have positive confirmation that the port is on properly. The other nice feature when sealing the housing is that the latches that close the housing are not adjustable. The housing is either open or closed, there is not in between. My previous housing had adjustable tension latches where you could adjust the tension of all four latches independently. But you could inadvertently either not have them tightened enough for a good seal or not have them tightened evenly since all four are independent. I had 100% confidence when my Seacam was taken aboard the boat in the parking lot and put into the rinse tank for storage.
The controls were very well laid out and easy to get to while underwater. It took one dive to get used to using the “ * “ button to focus instead of using the shutter release. This is a great feature that gives you the best of both manual and auto focus worlds during macro dives.
What’s not to like about this housing and camera? Well a couple of nit picks here. The first is the window over the LCD display. You have to tilt the housing forward and look up through the LCD viewing port to see the top of the LCD. This is not a big deal but just not perfect like the rest of the housing. Other than that, the housing is everything I had expected. The Seacam Silver finish is quite amazing, not sure what it is but it is tough, I mean real tough. My old Aquatica had a painted exterior that chipped and flaked off easily, though this was only cosmetic.
The camera worked great in the housing and for me the full frame sensor was a must. I love the large bright viewfinder and the fact that there is no field of view crop due to a smaller sensor. (If I were to start over today picking a system, I would definately give the new Nikon D2x a serious look, it appears Nikon has pulled a rabit out of it's hat.)
I came away with 30 or so keepers from the 7 dives. In my film days, I would have huddled over a light table chucking 90% of each roll of Velvia into the garbage. Digital is just amazing!
