I Miss My Canon A570! Modern Replacement?

[jpowers]

OK, I actually still have my Canon A570. But it lives in the closet these days. I shot with it for a few years, then switched over to a used Canon 40d and Tokina 10-17 lens in an Ikelite housing, which I'm still using.

(My underwater photography is mostly very wide-angle, as my primary interest has always been wrecks. I've expanded to the UW topography of Florida springs and close-focus wide angle of pretty things on reefs. Pretty much everything I do is either a wide scene of something big or a close-focus shot, lit by strobes, of something in the foreground, including the context behind. Though, I've been known to zoom in on something I like from time to time. I like having people in my photos. I don't do video.)

Although the DSLR has, of course, much higher image quality than the A570, there are many things about that silly little camera that I miss and that made it a very popular model in its day for underwater use. If I could find a comparable compact camera today that could do the things it did, I'd buy it in a minute. In some ways it was much more flexible that the DSLR, not to mention much easier to lug around.

Some of the A570's good qualities:

-It was cheap. Never more than $200 and the Canon housing for it was less than that. When I flooded one, I bought a replacement on eBay for $75.

-Despite its low cost, it had full manual exposure control, as well as the usual auto modes.

-The Canon housing would accommodate the Inon UFL-165 fisheye wet lens, in a nice secure bayonet mount, with 165 degrees of coverage.

-The camera had a broad 35-140mm equivalent zoom range. Despite this 4:1 zoom, you could use the entire zoom length behind the fisheye, with no vignetting.

-It was small. This was somewhat mitigated by the heavy Ikelite handle I used it on and the DS125 strobe, but it was still much small than the 40d. The camera in its housing and the wet lens only took up a corner of my carry-on bag.

I'm not saying it was perfect. The battery life wasn't great, though two dives weren't generally a problem. You couldn't do TTL flash and the internal flash would often leave you hanging while it recycled after triggering your strobe. No RAW mode. (You could install the CDHK firmware to get RAW, but the camera took forever to write the files.)

I periodically check out the new camera/housing models for something that would have the same plusses as the A570, but haven't really been able to find it, at any price. I've considered the Canon SL1 DSLR in the Ikelite housing, which ticks a lot of the boxes, but it vignettes the Tokina fisheye. And, of course, you don't have the range of the A570's built in zoom. The lack of getting true ultra-wide coverage seems to be the most common lacking with the current crop of cameras. On the few combos that provide it, you often can't zoom in. And, while TTL flash exposure in manual mode isn't something I had with the A570, it seems that it shouldn't be as rare as it is today.

It frustrates me that a camera made almost 10 years ago still seems to have the best set of features useful to my underwater picture-taking. Does anyone have any thoughts on a current model compact camera that does the things I'm looking for?

 

[emoreira]

I also love my A570IS with the OEM UW housing !

 

[rob1967]

The compact cameras have become very good these past few years; there really are no bad cameras these days. In the compact world, I still think Canon is top dog (better inherent macro and better usability than Sony, IMHO), although the Olympus TG-4 is also intriguing.

Anyway, if you like Canon as I do, there are plenty of options for compacts underwater. Reading between the lines, I gather you are on a tight budget and want to continue to use your UFL-165 wet wide angle lens. I used that very same lens on a Canon S100 for several years, and it was ok, but not super-sharp. I had what I felt were much nicer wide-angle shots using the Canon EOS M with the 11-22mm EF-M lens in a semi-dome port. If your main interest is wide-angle, you could consider that set-up. (You can get the EOS M 3 now. I think Canon mirrorless with the 11-22 lens is very good for wide angle, but the macro AF is slow with adapted SLR lenses).

If you want to stick with compacts, and want to still use your UFL-165, probably the most economical option would be to pick up a Canon S120 and get either an Ikelite or Canon housing for it. I see that Backscatter is blowing out the Canon housings for S120 for only $100. I believe those housings will take your UFL-165 on a bayonet mount (best to check with a dealer). I am not a big fan of plastic housings, so another option would be to get the RecSea housing which I am fairly certain has a 67 mm bayonet mount.

If you have the budget, even better is to get the Canon G7X and the Nauticam housing. Since you like wide-angle, you get the Nauticam short port, which will optimize wide-angle performance, and then get either the Nauticam wet wide angle lens, or you can get an adapter to convert the 67 mm threads to bayonet mount. I know all of this will cost $$ but sadly underwater photography is not a cheap hobby!

 

[jpowers]

Thanks for your thoughts, Robert.

It's not so much that I'm on a tight budget, as that I've found so many compromises in what's available. (OK, I can be a bit cheap....) Seems like if I find a camera that does one or two good things, it always has a failing that's a deal killer. That's why I went to the SLR in the first place. I'm just getting tired of the massive size of the whole rig and the lack of being able to have a good zoom range without changing lenses. (It's not like I'm not used to lugging lots of heavy equipment around, though -I made my living as a photographer for 30 years. It's just starting to feel like a lot of work!)

I believe my Inon UFL-165 is pretty much useless today. I couldn't find any contemporary cameras that supported it when I went to SLR four years ago, and a look at the chart on the Inon site reinforces that. Unfortunately, the S120 doesn't either. Amazing deal on that housing though!

My understanding is that the Canon M bodies don't support a zoom control, that is, the lens must be set at a fixed focal length.

Thanks for the reminder about the short ports. I think Recsea and Ikelite are also doing those now, at least for a couple models. That may make it easier to find a camera/wet lens combo that works.

I'm a bit partial to the Ikelite housings, in part because any dealings I've had with the company have been so agreeable, and in part because I have several Ikelite strobes. I do like a wired strobe connection a lot.

I've looked at the G7x and found it intriguing. But I'm even more intrigued by the G5x. Ikelite just announced their housing for it at the end of December and it's got a couple things the G7x doesn't -a hardwired flash connection and TTL flash in manual mode, both are big plusses to me. I haven;t seen any reviews, so I guess nobody has one in hand yet. We shall see.

I appreciate your comments.

Jim

 

[rob1967]

Hi Jim,

Good discussion. If you want the versatility of zoom, you probably are better off with a compact. The Nauticam housing for EOS M (and EOS M3 I'm fairly certain) does has a zoom control. I used both the 18-55 kit lens and the 11-22 wide-angle lens in the semi-dome port. I ended up not using the kit lens much underwater because the minimum focusing distance was too long for my liking, but as I said, the 11-22mm was very nice for wide-angle underwater, and the zoom made it more versatile.

However, the G7X gives amazingly good image quality, and I am hard-pressed to see the IQ difference between that and an APSC sensor. The G5X will have the same IQ as the G7X, and does have more controls, plus a hotshot, but it remains to be seen how many housing manufacturers will make a housing for it. To me, TTL is a bit of a relic of the film days, it seems much easier IMHO to just shoot full manual. Rather than getting locked in to the Ikelite eco-system, you might want to consider shooting full manual with fibre-optic connectors. That will allow you to put your on-board flash to minimum power and help improve both battery life and recycle time.

If you want APSC image quality without the bulk of SLR, you could go for Canon mirrorless. In fact, I could even sell you my Nauticam EOS M housing if you like! I've moved on to Canon 7DMII. Image quality is the same as the EOS M, but the AF is much faster using the Canon SLR macro lenses, allowing me to get action shots I could not get before. I probably would not hesitate to get back into Canon mirrorless once they make a native macro lens, as the bulk of SLR is a pain for travel.

 

[jpowers]

I certainly do agree that shooting manual flash, or manual camera exposure, for that matter, is much simpler than many people think. There seems to be a great fear of shooting manually, when you're really not likely to need to make many changes. If you set your camera at ISO 200, 1/125@f5.6, flash at half power, you're probably not going to be too far off in most situations, and usually it's just a matter of bumping the shutter speed a stop or two.

Seems like there ought to be some buzz about the G5x soon. B&H, at least, is showing the Ikelite housing in stock.