First trip underwater with the Digital Rebel!

My husband Jeff and I spent yesterday at Santa Barbara Island on the Peace, with Ken and Rita Ashman of California Digital Diving. The lovely Ashmans procured an Aquatica housing for us to try out (thanks, guys!), so we were finally able to take our precious SLR underwater.

The full gallery is here: http://gallery.thelaitys.com/uw-20040906_santabarbara

If you click to see the large versions, they still won't be full-resolution - they're just too big for most people to want them. If any of you DO want to see the original, full-resolution versions, just contact me and I'll be happy to put them someplace accessible.

My two favorites:

Very nice. How were you satisfied with your camera UW?

Very cool! I really like the last one of all the seals in the kelp.

Well, I personally did not use the camera underwater - I prefer to just point to things I want Jeff to take pictures of. But he claims it was a lot easier than he expected to be. He definitely liked the Aquatica housing - we've already contacted Cal. Digital Diving about buying our own.

I'm definitely impressed with his results on his first time with it underwater, especially considering that he's not as familiar as I am with the use of this camera (it's my baby above water).

So overall, I have to say a big thumbs-up to both the camera and the housing. Hopefully there will be better and better pics coming!

Great pics!!!
A few questions:

How deep where you?
Did you used a strobe?
What housing?

I'm new to photography and been looking at this camera for over and under water photos.

Just wondering how much I've to spend.

Thank you

Mandy

Mandy3206:

Great pics!!!
A few questions:

How deep where you?
Did you used a strobe?
What housing?

I'm new to photography and been looking at this camera for over and under water photos.

Just wondering how much I've to spend.

Thank you

Mandy

Click to expand...

Prepare to spend.

We were between 30-60 feet for all pics, on a day with great visibility (25-50 feet). We used a strobe for the last two dives (so the first few pics in our gallery were strobless).

The configuration yesterday was:
Aquatica A300
YS-90DX strobe on a TLC strobe arm
wide-angle dome port (don't have the exact product info)

We're still awaiting the quote for the whole package, but I'm expecting it to be around $2500.

Very cool pictures. I also like the one of the seal in the kelp. Checked out you Underwater Gallery. Very good. I think the guy carrying the Fan at the clean up was a DM at one of my classes.

Hi, I'm the husband. One thing we learned about diving with the D-Rebel is that full manual mode becomes a two-step process. On the D-Rebel, when you're in Manual the data wheel changes your shutter speed. To change the aperture, you press the button by your right thumb and turn the wheel. This is no problem on land, when the button and the wheel are an inch apart. But on an underwater housing, they're too far apart to change with one hand. And since one hand has to hold the camera, you can't do the adjustment with two hands.

The way Aquatica gets around this (and Ikelite too, I believe) is to have a screw that holds the button in. So to change the aperture, you screw in a thumbscrew to hold the button down, then change the value while it's held down. This wasn't as big of a problem as it sounds, but it's something that takes getting used to. I found myself setting a shutter speed, closing down the screw, and spending the rest of the dive changing apertures to get the correct amount of light. The camera seems to be happy operating with this button down all the time.

If you're on the fence between this camera and something higher-end like the D20, I would see if that camera allows you to change aperture and shutter from two different controls. That would be easier than turning a screw to change into aperture mode.

The great thing about diving with the D-Rebel was the info preview that you get after taking a picture. I would instantly see a preview, histogram, and a flashing light showing where my picture was overexposed. I could then readjust and take another pic. I don't know how people shot with film for so long! "Hmmm, F8 at 1/60th, paint with the strobe at 1/2 power, click. Well, I hope that worked." I'm completely spoiled shooting digital.

I'm using EOS-D300 too. My housing is Sea&Sea DX-300D,it is a little big compare with the camera body, but underwater I can handle it easy, even I am not a big guy and small hand. I worried about I could obtained satisfactory results or not, especially I could capture the gradation of the blue color. But I had no problems and it was superior like using positive film. For the bigginers, the only one problem is , it does not work TTL with nikonos type strobes, but for wide angle photo, Even the TTL strobe does not work well, so not so big problem. And I got the new item infomation, that Sea&Sea will release UW TTL strobe for Canon DSLR soon. it will be worth for macro photographing. I felt that underwater digital photographing steped to the second stage. there are no pictures that can not be taken with Digital cameras. I rather think it has more capacity.
Yuzo
EOS-D300, 100mm USM,15mm , Sea&Sea DX-300D , INON glass dome port
YS-90DX, INON Z-220, ULCS arm

synthetic:

Hi, I'm the husband.

Click to expand...

lol...