I bought a Nikon D90. What lense do y'all recommend?

I just got certified a few months back, and sold my D3000 since it had no video for the Nikon D90 (D7000 is what I want, but far to overpriced on ebay, lol). Anyhow, I bought a tele lens for personal use (50-250mm) but obviously dont plan on using this underwater. What lenses are recommended?

Would the standard lens that comes with due well (18-55mm AF-S)?

Still deciding on what housing to buy (ikelite, or aquatica). I dont like the clear stuff, but price is best..

Thanks.

I have a D90 in a Ikelite housing and i am happy with the Ikelite housing. The only backdraw is that you can't use optical triggered strobes as the D90 internal strobe won't pop open completly and so refuse to fire.
I have a Nikon 105mm D (no VR) lens and a Tokina 12-24mm lens.
The Nikon 105mm works perfectly and is a very good lens while the 12-24mm Tokina works very well and with minor distortions above water but have issues with corner sharpness using the small Ikelite 6'' tokina 12-24mm specific dome and a 3x diopter. The Tokina 10-17mm or 11-16mm should give much better results.
Your 18-55mm lens may work, but usually zoom lenses have their limits, especially on the wide side. I bought the port for my -out of the box- 18-105mm VR but i find it rather useless under water.

I hope you are a experienced photographer, if not, well you will have "some" problems to handle your self diving and handle a DSLR. If this is the case, you may start with a smaller P&S camera to gain experience with fun and positive feedback and not getting frustrated.

You should also think what type of strobe you would like as this influences your choice for the housing.

Chris

I agree with Chris.
A DSLR really is alot of expensive gear to be taking diving when your only recently been certified. Your still learning to dive and honestly recommend you rack up alot more dives before you consider taking a DSLR underwater.

It also a huge investment as its not just the camera costs involved its also the lens, ports, clamps, strobes, sync cords, focusing lights and the list goes on.

Down the track if you get more experience then have a look at the Tokina 10-17mm and either the 60mm or 105mm Macro lenses from Nikon. That what i shoot most of the time with.

Regards Mark

HerraduraDivers:

I have a Nikon 105mm D (no VR) lens and a Tokina 12-24mm lens.
The Nikon 105mm works perfectly and is a very good lens while the 12-24mm Tokina works very well and with minor distortions above water but have issues with corner sharpness using the small Ikelite 6'' tokina 12-24mm specific dome and a 3x diopter. The Tokina 10-17mm or 11-16mm should give much better results.

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Yes, the Ikelite 6" dome (#5503), with the shade removed, does give good results with the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom lens.

I use a D90 with the Tokina 10-17 for wide angle and usually the Nikon 85mm macro lens for macro and both are great. I have the Ikelite housing and strobes, and it's bulky, but works fine for me. You mentioned video, and I think macro video would be almost impossible with the D90, but probably with the fisheye it would work okay because there is a huge depth of field.

It is a big investment and a lot of gear to manage underwater for a new diver, but it's also a lot of fun. It might be good to get a little more experience diving before getting your rig.

My buddy has the d90 in an aquatica housing with 8inch domeport. He uses a nikon 16-85 vr lens. With the 8inch domeport aquatica recomends a +3 diopter for normal photography and for macro he adds a +4 diopter to shoot 1:2 macro. Works great. I have the aquatica housing for my d40x camera and use a 6 inch domeport. The 6 inch domeport i find is so much smaller so packing for travel is easier. I have the same lens and diopter setup.

Don't be an idiot! A newly certified diver fiddling underwater with an SLR is a recipe for disaster. Learn to be completely comfortable diving with all your other equipment, and develop good buoyancy control before adding a camera to the equation.

lol - thank you for your opinion "Dr Fish" but i think i got it under control. Max depth will be like 50ft until I get more expierence... I'm going in for advanced class in a month. But yeah if I go underwater with my d90 (and I will) I dont intend on going too deep. But yeah, i think ima go with a Nikon Macro lens. I bought spare air if that helps so hopefully i wont die ;-p haha

I bought spare air if that helps so hopefully i wont die ;-p haha

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I think that you have still a long way to go, learning a lot of things and not a spare air or a D90 will help you with that .....

The worst thing i saw while diving was the seabed below the reefs around Hurgada (Red Sea) is covered with snatched of corals and sponges.
Most of this damage on the reef was made by dive students and in particular inexperienced divers with underwater cameras of any size.
Please remember one thing: Marine life is growing very very slow and you may snatch off a coral or sponge in a second while it took
hundreds or thousands of of years to grow!

Chris

I would agree with the others, do not fool with an DSLR underwater until you get pretty used to diving. One of the big risks in diving is getting "task loaded". Task loading results when you have to "think" your way through things that will later become automatic. One can only handle so many things at one time. It is easy to get into trouble by concentrating on too many things and not noticing something that could be REALLY hazardous.

As for the lenses, I would recommend a macro lens. Many people prefer a longer macro like a 105 because it allows them to give the small critters "more space". A third party macro lens would work just fine. Most of the third party manufacturers make perfectly serviceable macro lenses but their AFS might be a bit less functional than the Nikon lens. This lens would work in a pinch as a sort of portrait lens on fish.

For underwater photography, it is nice to have a wide angle lens and almost the wider the better. You want to get as close to your subject as possible to reduce the water column between you and them. There are a number of fine zooms out there in the 10-17 or 10-20 or 12-24. Any of those would be good.

An 18-55 2.8 lens would also be good for more general shooting.

If I had to take just 2 lenses, I think I would go macro and wide angle zoom.