Housing- and lens-recommendations for D90

hey there!

at the moment i am still doing my photography with a canon g10 (ikelite housing and ds-160 substrobe) since i have not found anything close to thesese functionalities from Nikon... unfortunately! but so far i am happy with the photos i have taken underwater.

i am seriously thinking about getting a housing for my D90 since I would like to focus more on the photography-part while diving. what would you recommend as a housing?

the next question would be which lenses would you use for macro and/or big fish photography? what would you recommend? (also the ports of course). at the moment i do have a nikkor 16-85mm 1:3.5-5.6 and a nikkor 70-300 (which i obviously will not use underwater ;-))

by the way all the other photos taken on my website on land are all made with my D90.

thanks already for your help!

Thomas

Have you seen the Hugyfot Housings? They're pretty sweet!



HUGYFOT for Nikon D90 housing

The HugyCheck System works great!
Hugyfot Underwater Camera Housings

Since the D90 is on its way out, I would check with Reef Photo & Backscatter for used housings.


Dave

I would go with an aquatica nikon d90 housing. Either the 6inch or 8inch port. Depends on whether you want to go with fisheye or extreme wide angle lens in future the 8 inch is better. The 16-85mm lens is what i use in my aquatica. For 1/1 macro you add a plus 4 diopter on the lens inside the housing. Good for most macro. A pretty versatile lens for underwater. Very sharp lens. The zoom range fits most shots except macro. It is equal to a 22mm lens from film photography so a mild wide angle.

weeksd:

I would go with an aquatica nikon d90 housing. Either the 6inch or 8inch port. Depends on whether you want to go with fisheye or extreme wide angle lens in future the 8 inch is better. The 16-85mm lens is what i use in my aquatica. For 1/1 macro you add a plus 4 diopter on the lens inside the housing. Good for most macro. A pretty versatile lens for underwater. Very sharp lens. The zoom range fits most shots except macro. It is equal to a 22mm lens from film photography so a mild wide angle.

Click to expand...

thanks for the remommendation for the lens! would you recommend aa certain lens for big fish photography? since i'll be going to a big stuff destination in august i'd like to be prepaired if they appear ;-) how do you adjust the white balance settings? ordinary white-slate?

Thomas

I remember reading several positive reviews on the Nexus D90 housing.

For the best "big fish" photos, you'll need to find out how close you can get to them, to take a guess at the optimal focal length to use for the subject. People use lenses such as the tokina 10-17mm fisheye, nikon 10-24mm or nikon 17-35mm for more skittish fish

I've been shooting a D90 for about 2 years. I'm happy with my Ike housing, but understand others comments about Aquatica, Nauticam, and the other (Hugyfoot?). All good, but for the limited time I get to use it, the value wasn't there (I get 15-20 quality days of shooting and another 20 or so scrub days a year).

If you read past posts, everyone typically agrees on the Tokina 10-17 and Nikon 60mm micro (macro) as the baseline for your first 2 lenses. I usually get push back from others on the board, but I really like my 16-85 behind the Ike 8" dome. It provides some great flexibility when you are just not sure whether to shoot wide or macro. I know the 10-17 can shoot very close - there time for that type of shot, but I still like the perspective I get with the 16-85. I'd say I use the 16-85 on less than 20% of dives; 10-17 on 25-30%; and my 60 or 105 macro on the remaining (50%+) of dives.

Rameus,
i have a Ikelite housing and a DS-125 strobe for my D90 and no complaints so far.
Ikelite TTL works grat, the housing is more than enough ergonomic and rugged and very functional.
The only real backdraw is that the internal D90 strobe don't open all and this not will fire.
For this reason this housing is limited to electrically connected strobes, Ikelite DS strobes in TTL mode, other strobes and a adapter cable Ikelite->Nikonos in manual mode using the Nikonos "protocol"..

Regarding the lenses; as already said, a Tokina 11-17mm wide angle lens and a Nikon 60mm or 105mm micro macro lens.
The 105 mm gives you a longer distance to the subject to photograph but is not very easy to use in surge or current conditions due his focal lengst.

If you are interessed: I want to sell the housing, ports and camera body because i would like to step up to the Nikon D7000 because of the video capabilities.
The housing is in Sardinia-Italy and i may can bring it to Switzerland due a trip home this year.

Chris