NAUTICAM D700 – FIELD REVIEW

Field test of the Nauticam D700 housing by Alex Mustard. Australia 2010.

Nauticam was launched into the world of underwater photography at DEMA 2009, where owner Edward Lai showcased his impressive range of housings. On the Wetpixel forums few products have generated such anticipation and, it is fair to say, salivation from underwater photographers. There has been widespread praise for the build quality, design innovation and ergonomics, especially because with a clever port system the Nauticam can take ports from other manufacturers. Making Nauticam a serious option for most folks. But much of the chat has focused on these being quality housings at a price that undercuts many existing brands. Welcome news for all underwater photographers.

I arranged to borrow a Nauticam D700 housing during my trip to temperate Australian waters in February and March 2010. The shoot, in the cool and often murky waters around Sydney and Melbourne, provided a variety of real-world photographic challenges for the system. The trip also gave me the chance to meet and dive with a number of Australian underwater photographers and collate their views on the Nauticam and to compare it to most of the popular housing brands (diving alongside Subal, Seacam, Aquatica, Nexus, Sea & Sea & Ikelite). Everyone I met was eager to see the Nauticam and to find out if it justifies the excitement that has greeted it on the forums. The question on every photographer’s lips was “Can we believe the hype?”

I am grateful to Edward at Nauticam, Alex Tattersall at Underwater Visions (Nauticam UK) and Peter Mooney at Scubapix (Nauticam Australia) for making this possible. I would also like to thank Peter Rowlands of UWP Mag for lending me his D700 so that I could run a complete Nauticam system alongside my Subal D700, which I have reviewed here on Wetpixel. Please refer to that review for details of the D700 underwater, here I want to concentrate on the Nauticam housing and design philosophy and I hope most of my comments are relevant to their whole range of housings.

With so much positive press since the launch of Nauticam, I have tried to adopt an objective and critical eye. This is a very fine housing, but there is no benefit in me searching for different ways to say it is great. As with the other reviews I have done on Wetpixel, I have praised features and innovations I found useful and where I have found negatives, I have suggested some areas for improvement. Please note that many of these criticisms could also be levelled at other housings, but I felt readers would appreciate a detailed review of this new line, rather than another everything is perfect review.

Continued…

The Housing Design

The Nauticam is an attractive looking housing, designed with a clear attention to detail and a build quality that inspires confidence. Straight away it feels a quality piece of kit, all the controls fall where you expect and are intuitive to use. It is supplied with detailed instructions, spare o-rings and o-ring grease, an Allen key set etc. Extra items are sold in small neat white cardboard boxes, with accessories such as the optical viewfinder supplied with a handsome neoprene carrying bag. This feels like a mature brand, not a newcomer.

It feels unfair when, discussing Nauticam, to immediately mention price. But the fact is that it undercuts most existing brands significantly has generated much interest. In no way should you consider Nauticam as a budget or cut price product. In many aspects of design innovation, quality and ergonomics it clearly out shines many existing housings.

All that said the D700 housing is one of Nauticam’s more expensive products. It sells for $3200. The Nauticam D90 housing (which seems to have all the same buttons) is close to a 1/3 cheaper ($2300). For perspective, here are USDs in ascending order for D700 housings (undiscounted website prices, no accessories, source Reef Photo and Backscatter): Ikelite $1600, Aquatica $2950, Nauticam $3200, Sea & Sea $3700, Subal $4500, Seacam $5850.

The Nauticam is noticeably taller and wider than my Subal, even if you don’t consider the Nauticam’s hump, which enables the flash to pop up and drive the optical flash synchronisation. It is a larger than people expect, one Aussie photographer’s first comment was “Wow, it’s big!” However, as a consequence of its larger volume, the Nauticam is more neutrally buoyant underwater than my Subal. Although like almost all housings it still exerts a torque on your wrist because it does not naturally sit flat in the water, instead the port floats upward. (Off topic, but amusingly, I have heard that one manufacturer claims that this feature is especially engineered into their housings so that if you drop them they will not scratch the port!!)

The Nauticam housing provides dials, levers and buttons to access all the controls of the camera. It is a great tool for taking images. The push button resistance is excellent, providing a soft but positive press. The only fiddly control is the focus grouping mode selector, which was particularly difficult to change in gloves (see my D3 Subal review for some of the benefits in switching modes ).

The gearing on the dials is also praise-worthy, with a direct one click on the housing to make one change on the camera. Quite a few housings get this wrong, so you are not left spinning the dial endlessly to make changes. The shutter lever is pleasingly sculpted and covered in rubber to avoid finger slippage! When I tried the housing on land I was impressed by its ability to allow me to feel the biting point between activating autofocus and firing the shutter. However, underwater I found I did occasionally take pictures, when trying to just focus, which was annoying. The half-press point is not as clear as on my Subal. Although the Nauticam’s shutter lever is better than many housings I have tried. Despite the example picture below, this is a minor point.

Handles are a very personal feature, but most people immediately had positive words to say about those on the Nauticam, some immediately preferring holding the Nauticam to their own housings. They are not adjustable. We tested the hands of both girls and boys and all found the shutter release and aperture fell straight to hand. The shutter speed dial is more of a stretch, particularly so underwater. I feel this is the only significant ergonomic weakness on the housing. It is one of the issues I’ll discuss further in the underwater testing section.

Continued…

Nauticam’s port locking system is excellent: a true market leading innovation. You simply line up and push on the port and then close the lever on the bottom left of the front of the housing to lock it securely. It is simple to use and inspires confidence. I have seen quite a few housings flood (not mine) with ports being knocked loose or rotated. This is a valuable feature. However, it should be noted that if you continue to use ports from your existing housing then the Nauticam port adaptor will be locked securely in place, but you old port will be mounted on to it with the same issues as on your old housing. Hardly Nauticam’s fault!

The Subal port adaptor I used positioned my Subal ports exactly as they are on my housing relative to the lens, meaning that optics remain correctly aligned. However, the Nauticam port adaptor would not fit directly on my, or my buddy Shannon’s, Subal FE dome port. Subal users, at least, thinking of switching should double check their FE port works with the Nauticam. It would be an expensive mistake if it does not. Please note, all the other Subal ports and port extension rings worked perfectly.

The Nauticam is fitted with a leak detector with a visible and audible alarm. Not that I tested it properly! The housing design is certainly confidence inspiring. The o-ring track is smooth, with no fussy details than can cause o-rings to pop out unnoticed when the housing is open.

The housing is sealed with three snappy latches. I am not a fan of snappy latches. First, three is one more than I have hands, meaning the third always snags when you don’t want it to! Also there is just the right amount of room between the locks and the handles to trap my fingers every time I opened the housing. But despite my bias, importantly they provide a secure seal (unless you have a Wilk moment, Keri’s Nauticam housing was opened underwater by Indonesian kids right in front of his face).

The Nauticam is designed to run optical synched strobes, and, in standard configuration, does not come with an electronic flash synch socket (although there is a blanked off hole, where one, but only one, can be easily fitted). Optical synched strobes are a neat solution providing un-floodable fibre-optic synch cables and the ability to shoot TTL with newer strobes, driven by the camera’s own built in flash. On the negative side, not all strobes can be fired using optical cables (notably some of the best for clear water wide angle) and at small apertures shooting TTL, you are sometimes cannot shoot until the internal flash has recharged, which tends to be slower than your strobes. I’ll discuss some positives and negatives of the flash system I encountered shooting in Australia, below.

The Nauticam has a button to pop up the flash when underwater (should you forget) and also a leaver to lower it, which provides a very swift solution for switching to shooting without flash (close the flash and your external strobes will not fire, saving you turning them both off). The Nauticam bristles with innovative solutions: another feature that drew praise was the large M-S-C, which enables you to focus and then switch to manual without removing your eye from the viewfinder. This is a handy benefit for supermacro. The housing also has a well-placed lever (under your right thumb) for AF-On, if you prefer this method of assisted focus. Manual focus gears are also available, but I did not test them.

Continued…

A further neat feature of the housing is that the image playback button is not simply a push button, but a lever that falls directly to your left thumb. This is probably the most pressed button on the back of most housings and it is good to see Nauticam providing a superior ergonomic solution for it. The view of the LCD screen is not as good as on my Subal. I prefer housings that provide a well shaded individual window for the LCD screen, rather than a large clear panel on the back of the housing. Although this is only a significant difference in shallow, bright conditions.

Strobe arm connection balls are supplied which fit on top of the housing. For several reasons I much prefer strobe arms to be mounted onto the housing, rather than onto the handles. Not least because it means that you do not end up pinching your hand between the handle and strobe arm when adjusting lighting! But also because I regularly dive without the left handle on my Subal to enable me to get the housing and inch or two (upto 5cm) lower when shooting vertical macro portraits on the sand. Nauticam also supplies a very useful carrying strap that is fitted between the two strobe arm mounting balls. Another handy innovation.

Unlike my Subal, there is no lever to release lenses, so with fatter lenses especially with gears on, this means taking the whole camera out of the housing. This is actually very easy with the camera mounted on a quick release tray, especially as there is no hotshoe to disconnect. The memory card can be removed (when the housing is open) without taking the camera out of the housing. The D700’s battery cannot.

I used the Nauticam with their 180 degrees (straight) magnified viewfinder, which I liked a lot. This magnified viewfinder gives and excellent, bright view and importantly makes viewing the corners of the frame straight forward. It was also easy to view at a distance, when trying to creep the camera even closer to the subject. I highly recommend it. The optional viewfinder does block one button the AE/AF lock button (although readers should note that many housings do not provide access to this button anyway). It can be easily taken on and off for travel.

The viewfinder also has a dioptre adjustment for eyesight. I am not convinced that this is a valuable feature as it must inevitably increase the manufacture cost for this accessory. Furthermore the adjustment knob sticks out and can be knocked easily meaning it must be readjusted. Since most users would adjust this once and then leave it, it would make sense to make the adjustment knob either lockable or recessed. Although I would prefer the option of a cheaper viewfinder without the adjustment.

Continued…

Underwater Shooting Notes

It was easy to adjust to using the Nauticam underwater and it is a credit to its design and ergonomics that I was able to produce pleasing images from the first dive. Several of the images in this review, including the TTL test (next page), were shot on my first dive with the housing.

The comments in this section are based around issues I encountered. The system was excellent most of the time, but when everything goes swimmingly there is not much to say. So if this section reads predominantly negatively, I should restate that my overall impression of the Nauticam was hugely positive. The reason so many people read Wetpixel reviews is that we look at products objectively and do not shy away from discussing areas for improvement.

I mainly used the system for macro as dictated by the diving around Sydney and Melbourne, were visibility is often limited. These are temperate waters so it was drysuit diving throughout, sometimes with gloves. All the previous Nauticam tests have been in the tropics, so it was good to get it out of its comfort zone.

The primary controls on an underwater housing are the shutter release, aperture and shutter speed. These are the ones we use the most and therefore the most important. Despite this most housings do not get them 100% right.

The shutter and aperture are very well positioned and make operating the housing very easy. For example when shooting the pot-bellied seahorse (below) I initially found the background too distracting. The Nauticam made it simple to open the aperture and blur the background, reducing this distraction. Good ergonomics like this make you more inclined to make these changes that make a real difference to your images.

The aperture and shutter speed knobs on the Nauticam are small compared to many other housings. This makes no difference when diving with warm fingers in the tropics, but with cold fingers and/or thick gloves I would prefer larger dials, with deeper indentations. There is no problem using the housing as it is, but it would be easier with larger, more indented knobs. I believe that it is worth making things as easy as possible underwater. An easy solution would be for Nauticam to offer alternative knobs for users who plan to dive their housing in cold waters.

I feel that the only significant ergonomic shortfall of the Nauticam D700 is the shutter speed knob. Put the housing on a table and it is easy to reach the shutter with your thumb, but underwater with your fingers on the shutter lever and aperture knob, none of us could reach and turn the shutter speed knob easily. Ideally a housing should allow you to do this with you eye on the viewfinder (many do not). You can test this yourself on land, by balancing the housing on the edge of the table and seeing how easily you can adjust them.

The issue could be overcome easily by making the shutter speed knob longer and larger, with deeper indentations. There is plenty of room. Without thinking, I found I was resorting to taking my hand from the handle and turning the shutter speed dial with my thumb and finger. I am interested to hear from other Nauticam users on this one. Also note that I believe the Canon Nauticam’s have this knob in a different position, although I don’t know if this improves matters.

It is also important to note that whether stretching your thumb to the shutter speed or using both finger and thumb you are forced to hold the housing with both hands. Most of the time this is of little consequence, but if your left hand is holding on in a current, it is problematic. It is a small gripe, but an important one. Reader’s should note that many housings have issues with their primary controls and that actually Nauticam’s are better than many as they are, although there is room for improvement.

Continued…

The macro nature of the diving around Australia’s largest two cities, also played to the strengths of the optical TTL system. I used the optical TTL system with a pair of Inon Z240 strobes. It worked well and the optical TTL gave accurate and reproducible exposures on typical macro subjects without the need for any exposure compensation. The test shots on the striated frogfish from Sydney Harbour show that the system produced consistent flash exposures, by varying the flash power, from f/20 to f/4.

However, I struggled to get the reliable exposure compensation with the system, which may have been user error! One click on the Inon gave a large under or over exposure. More importantly I was not able to get a significantly different strobe output from the two sides on TTL.

Of course, it is possible to switch over to manual shooting for full control. Initially, I did this by simply switching the strobes onto manual. Perhaps “simply” isn’t the best word. This means change both the mode and power dials on the Inons - annoyingly fiddly. However, when I spotted a seahorse giving birth I learned a lesson that you should also change the camera from TTL to manual. Leaving the camera on TTL slows the shooting rate significantly because with the strobes ignoring TTL pre-flashes, the internal flash fires on full. I missed the opportunity to shoot better images of the seahorse giving birth because I was unable to shoot when I wanted. Most frustrating when an opportunity is hard to repeat.

Thanks to advice from those more experienced than me with optical strobes (praise be, the Wetpixel forums) I learned to set the D700’s built in flash to minimum manual power (1/125th). This guaranteed high frame rates (although I didn’t need them again)! But manual gave me the chance to shoot any creative lighting I wished. Being quite a pain to switch between manual and TTL (four dials changes on strobes and a trip through the camera menu) I stuck with manual strobes, triggered by the optical cables for the rest of my time with the Nauticam. Ultimately I was very happy with the performance of the optical cables.

I feel that only providing the option for a single electronic synch socket is inadequate. I would recommend Nauticam make a dual socket adaptor (Y-shaped) for the single hole in the housing. Anyone wanting to shoot electronically synched strobes, will probably want to shoot two. The optical technology works well, it just does not work with all the strobes I, and many other photographers, want to use. Getting the right light is important in photography.

Continued…

Conclusion

My time with the Nauticam housing left me in no doubt that this is a very important new line in the world of underwater photography. I’d like to see improvements to the shutter speed knob, but even taking this into consideration, this new housing brand has better ergonomics than many existing lines. Furthermore, Nauticam, the company, give me the clear impression that they will keep refining their designs with each new generation of housing until they are as good as they can be. The D700, for example, does not have their innovative “piano keys” solution for the push buttons seen on their newer designs.

In conclusion, the Nauticam outshines many existing housings in the critical areas of ergonomics and design innovations. And this is not just my opinion. Others, who I dived with in Australia could immediately see better solutions on the Nauticam than their own housings. And then there is the price. Much of the Nauticam line brings this quality for a significantly lower price of many other brands. Although not so their D700, which is undercut by the Aquatica, for instance.

One issue I cannot address in a short-term review (I returned the housing before flying on to Tasmania) is how these housings will age, how they will cope with the abuse underwater photographers general throw at things. Watch the Wetpixel forums for this. It is also not possible to discuss the owning experience. A few housing manufacturers have cropped up over the last few years, caused people to switch and then suddenly fallen from fashion. Nauticam gives the impression it is here for the long haul. They have lined up an impressive roll-call of dealers around the world. It sends the message that customer care is clearly a high priority. I would have no doubts about investing in Nauticam from an after-sales perspective, either.

Without a doubt, we can believe the Nauticam hype. Their housings deliver in both quality and ergonomics. The Nauticam D700 isn’t as much of a bargain as some of their other housings, although it is still at the cheaper end of the scale. Across its range Nauticam has set a new standard for high quality and innovations at an affordable price. It has thrown down the gauntlet to other manufacturers to match it. This can only be good news for all underwater photographers, whether we become a Nauticam users or not.

If you are considering a new housing, look very seriously at Nauticam. I will.

Alex Mustard. Sydney, Australia. March 2010. If you found this review useful or have a question please leave a comment.