Nikon 4300

[Howard]

If the battery is full then it is a matter of seconds.
The image remains on the LCD screen for a few seconds but if you shoot without it then you can shoot right away.

http://www.fantasea.com/technical.htm

 

[Dee]

It's nice to have you here answering questions on the Fantasea housing and it's use. Hopefully as more people get comfortable using it, we'll build a good reference base to draw upon.

Thanks!

 

[norcaldiver]

I got the 4300 after finding the fantasea housing for it. I had "heard" that Oly was stopping production of the housing for the 4040 and I didn't want to shell out the money for the 5050.

Yes, there are more buttons on the Oly housing, but I'm not infor all of that. Iam actually working on a page that reviews the 4300, just for my own personal use and anyone else that wants to read it. Over all, housing's aside, I like the quality of pictures, but there are 2 things I don't like about it.
1. I agree, that lens shadow is a bummer, but it's not the housing's fault. I get that on land too, its the way the lens sticks out....the housing may make a bigger shadow, but....
2. The zoom is on the back with the thumb. I'm used to it being on the front with the index finger zooming and hitting the shutter.
Eh, I can live with it, because the specs on the Oly 4040 and the Nik 4300 are, for all practical purposes, indentical, and the 4300 fits perfectly in my hand. The Oly just didn't "feel" right. I dunno....

I just read a review where they state that with the monitor on the battery life is about 90 minutes. Without the monitor on, it's about 60 hours. You can't beat that. I'm playing with it now to auto-shutoff after 1 minute of inactivity to see how this helps the bat life. All you have to do it hit the shutter and it comes back on and you're ready to shoot, so I don't see the on/off thing being a big problem.

 

[mita]

i have a nikon 4300 with the cp4 pro housing and i loooove it! Battery lasts for 2 dives when stand by is set to 5 mins.

here's a pic from last week's cozumel trip
cheers,
mita

 

[divegeek]

For those 4300 users....

What settings did you set the camera on (manual, scene, auto, etc).

Thanks,

 

[mita]

i haven't played much with the settings (yet) used only auto on the default scene mode

here's another pic

 

[RockyHeap]

Its about time the 4300 starts to get some reviews.

I just shot 200-300 pictures with the Nikon and Fantasea housing during 12 dives over 5 days in Belize.

I'm still wading through the mass of photos, but will get some posted up soon.

Kudo's to the Fantasea housing, I took it down to 150 foot deep in the Blue Hole and no leaks or problems.

I shot mostly in auto mode, but found too much bluing and washed out colors if the auto-exposure took it at 1/60 shutter and a F2.8, most all the F7.2 or F8 stop pics had much better contrast, so I shot some in forced manual 1/60th and f7.2 too.

Macro shots during a night dive are spectacular, you need to zoom out about 1/2 lens travel to not have the built in flash shadow from the housing, but no big deal once you learn the camera.

Camera got pretty warm over 50-60 forced flashes per dive and I had a bit of condensation build up that cleared up once I started using anti-fog on the inside housing lens and monitor screen window.


Dive routine was to shoot about 40-60 shoots per dive, and during topside I'd review pics and delete poor shots, then change Ni-MH to a fresh one and do another dive.

Built in flash was actually surprizingly bright up to 5 foot away, you start to lose flash coverage past 6-7 foot.

You can fill up a 256 meg CF chip pretty fast shooting at 1600x1200 pixel shots, which are about 650-700K per picture.

The Fantasea housing doesn't allow changing between auto and manual exposure or go to movie mode, nor access to the MENU functions so you can't set white-balance at depth either.

For a "first time" user of a dive camera, I found the pictures for the most part are top notch, and when everything works perfect the pictures are quite stunning for a 4 meg pixel $500 total investment set-up.

Camera was $320 off the web, and the housing is about $185.

Top side surface shots are great too, and those Nikon Cool Pix series fit ohhhh so nice in your hand.

Over a 2 week trip in Belize, we shot over 1000 photos and filled up Two 256 meg ram chips, and a 128 meg ram too.

Any questions, I'll really try and help out.

I'll get some pictures posted real soon, or PM me and I can send some dirrectly to your email if you want.

RockyHeap
Seattle.

 

[howard4113]

I have a Nikon 4300 and FantaSea Pro housing with a YS-50 strobe using a TTL slave attachment. I've done some underwater and a LOT of above water testing. Here are my recommendations.

Shoot MANUAL - highest F-stop to increase depth of field
Flash ON -- you can turn off the flash by selecting "infinity" focus mode.

Auto Focus ON -- use a focus lamp if needed. I use a mini Q-40 flashlight rubber-banded onto my strobe. I just leave it on all the time - the flash is so much brighter you cannot see where it illuminates the subject in the picture.


Manual focus if you have to -- but the LCD is just too small to make a good determination

 

[divegeek]

Has anyone used the little stick-on flash diffusers that came with the Fantasea? BTW, thanks for all the tips!

 

[Dive Source]

howard4113 once bubbled...

Auto Focus ON -- use a focus lamp if needed. I use a mini Q-40 flashlight rubber-banded onto my strobe. I just leave it on all the time - the flash is so much brighter you cannot see where it illuminates the subject in the picture.

This was a great tip Howard !

I just attached a Sea & Sea YS-25DX to mine and tried this trick and voila I could finally get it to focus in macro.

It's also a great way to see where the strobe is aiming.

Unfortunately I have this great setup ready to go and don't even have a pool session coming up to try it out ;-0

Oh well...I guess I could put it in rental...But...

NO...It's MINE you undertand.. MINE ALL MINE Booohahahaha!!!! (wav file)