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mjsandoz

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I'm not new to photography or diving but I am deciding to invest in combining both. I have a Nikon D5100 and Nikon D7000 and I haven't decided which one to buy a housing for. I was wondering if anybody has experience using one or both of these and could help me out with that decision. Additionally, I plan to shoot mostly macro and am upgrading my current lens. I was thinking about the Nikon 105mm but is that too close for some shots? A little advice is really appreciated and any additional advice that I may need to know is certainly welcome.
 
I'm a Pentax shooter, so the Nikon specific stuff I can't really help you with but from quick reading, the D7000 is a much higher quality body same sensor. Since the D7000 is a better camera, I'd grab the housing for that. Nice thing is the ports will all swap over so you're good there if you upgrade later. Having the screw drive in the 7000 is a plus as well in case you want to go to older lenses to save some money with the old screw drives, AF speed should be about the same. I'd check out ebay and see if you can find any ikelite setups used and go with whichever you find first/cheapest though.
Nikon 5100 with Ikelite Underwater Set Up EXTRAS Excelent Condition | eBay
get an extra body out of it? the lighting is really key, you NEED two lights bare minimum, and good ones. This is not the place to skimp

The key with UW photography is to get the fastest lenses you can afford. 105mm is fine for macro stuff, just beware of the FoV if you're planning on shooting anything other than itty bitty stuff is going to be too far away and you run risk of backscatter and insufficient light. Best solution is to have something as wide as possible so you can get as close as possible to what you're shooting. Depends on how good your buoyancy control is obviously if you're reef diving, and how spooked the animals get. Both cameras are crop sensors, so the 105mm is pretty close up for a macro, might be worth going to the 50mm range and those ports are fairly inexpensive if you have a nifty fifty in the f1.4-2.0 ish range. Might have to crop a little bit for some things, but at least with a 50 you can shoot buddies diving if you want, or get the scope of a whole coral head. Anything slower than F2.8 is really too slow for proper UW photography and while you will end up stopping down quite a bit for DoF, it's much better to stop down for that, than have to shoot a slow lens wide open and pray you have enough light.
 
I need two lights? My dive instructor shoots with just one and gets sufficient light. He uses a sea and sea YS-01 I believe. Are two lights really necessary for macro? I only say so because I cannot spend a fortune unfortunately. I am trying to get the best I can for as little as I can then I can add on later.
 
what are you wanting to shoot? You can get away with one but for macro on land you use a ring flash to get rid of shadows. The same lighting requirements exist underwater. With one light you will get shadows. Now, you can go lightless depending on where you are diving, but you should really explain what you're wanting to shoot which will help narrow down lens selection and true lighting requirements.
 
I shot with one light for years during "film" days, and you can get great macro shots with one light. Wide angle though really needs two lights though.

I recently bought a housing (Sea&Sea) for my D7100 which is definitely an upgrade on my D300. I am also still using my original Nikkor 60mm and 105mm lenses that I bought over 20 years ago to use with my F3 (which I still have)

Recently I have become more taken with "super' macro and have been using my 105 lens with a +10 diopter for these tiny critters, I left it at home when I was in Lembeh last month and regretted it after the first dive, although I had the 85mm Micro lens with me as it uses the same port as my 60, it was all about compromising on weight, which went out the window when I visited Singapore on the way to Lembeh and picked up the housing for the D7100.

Personally if I was starting out from new I would be looking at 4/3 cameras as they are more compact.

Check what other people have, and the housings they use, there are many on the market, and personally I have used Tussey (Nikon F3), Aquatica (Nikon F801) and Sea&Sea (Nikon D70, D300, D7100)
 
I dive mostly off Pensacola and Fort Pickens in Florida up to 80ft. Visibility is usually pretty good but it is no Bahamas. I guess I'm being a bit broad on what exactly I want to shoot but that's mostly because I'd like to shoot a wide variety of marine life but I want to start in Macro, so things up to a couple of inches at most. But even with a macro setup is it possible to shoot from a bit farther back and shoot some larger stuff like say a Bat Fish or Spadefish? I know that depends on visibility and things in the water but on a clear day how far could a typical strobe still be effective?
 
unfortunately you alluded to the distance problem. It's all up to water conditions and those can't be predicted. Too shallow and you have air bubbles from the surf, wrong time of year, too much flora in the water causing backscatter, realistically in marine I don't like to shoot anything more than 10ft away. As a cave diver, my buoyancy is good enough to hover inches above a piece of coral with a 50mm and get real close up shots of it, but most people do better from a foot away or so. This is where you need to practice on land and figure out realistically how close you have to be to shoot what you want and while a 100mm on ff was a great macro size for smaller things, the 60 that Nikon has now is pretty close to that equivalent and may be better depending on size of stuff your shooting.

On my Pentax K5, 100mm gets around 1" object with as close as I'm happy being to what I'm shooting. Remember to factor in the extra distance the dome puts on there. 50 is about 1.5" object, little bit closer due to that dome, but still quite reasonable. The 50 also allows me a lot more leeway in shooting divers if I have to, and the sensor is certainly good enough to crop.
 
As to which camera you should house - definitely go for the better one (D7000). The housing prices are similar and you would want maximum quality and functionality possible.
The 105mm is very popular for underwater. It's the most common lens for macro and photographers even use additional wet lenses such as the Nauticam SMC or Subsee +10 to get even closer. I would recommend getting a flat port with a 67mm thread option and perhaps adding the wet lens in the future after you get the hang of macro shooting.
One light is enough, two lights are better. I shoot a lot with one strobe because I like the simplicity of it and the dramatic lighting. It is however more sensitive to strobe positioning and you might lose a shot if you aren't paying attention to your strobe.
You can always add a second strobe later on.
I would also recommend getting a focus light to improve your focus speed when lighting isn't great (especially for deeper than 20-30ft and low viz).
YS-D1 and YS-01 would both be great. YS-D1 is significantly more powerful though, and has more power levels.
 
Back in 'film days' I tried to do underwater photography with a couple of Nikonos cameras (a II and a III). I didn't get to dive enough to really get any decent 35mm slides. While I still have the Nikonos cameras, I opted for a Nikon D7100 when I relocated close enough to the Sea of Cortez and Southern California to get into a serious, expensive underwater photography addiction.

I've no experience with the D5100 or D7000, but the D7000 was a top pick by underwater photographers who were using DX Nikon cameras before the D7100 came out. That's worth considering if you're making a decision about which of your bodies to put in a housing.

Keep in mind that with a Nikon DX camera body you're not really shooting the focal length lens you stick a non-DX Nikkor on the body. In other words, a 105mm Micro Nikkor N really isn't a 105. It's bigger. The crop factor on your D7000 sensor is probably in the neighborhood of 1.5. I use a 60mm Micro Nikkor N on my D7100 and it functions as a 90mm.

In addition to the 60mm Micro Nikkor N, I shoot a 10-17mm Fisheye DX Tokina and 10-24mm DX Nikkor. Believe it or not you can get up close and personal with a fisheye and a wide angle zoom. Take a look at the photos on my website and see if you can tell which lens I used to get the macro photos. I'll give you a clue. What do you do when you are rigged with a 10-17mm fisheye for big animal encounters and discover the dive boat has anchored right on top of a bunch of seahorses at a site where no one has seen seahorses before? If you're interested or just curious, take a look at the photos at www.cortezbluephotography.com . Seahorse photos are currently in the Recent San Carlos Trips folder on the Portfolio page.

I shoot two strobes, but could probably get by with one for macro stuff. Still, two strobes on long arms do work very well.

I'm by no means an expert and I learn something new every time I go underwater to shoot. If I was really loaded, I'd look for a housing for my Nikon D300 and rig it for macro stuff and have the D7100 rigged for wide angle stuff.

-AZTinman
 
Definitely go with the D7000 housing. However, you might need to find a used one especially if you decide to go with aluminum housing, since AFAIK most of the aluminum D7000 housings have been discontinued since most manufacturers have moved on to D7100 (Ikelite is an exception, their housing is plastic, but also heavier than aluminum). Check the Classifieds board for used housings, here's one that might still be available: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cl...90051-nauticam-housing-ports-nikon-d7000.html. Besides the housing, you also need the ports for the lenses that you want to use. For macro, the most popular Nikon lenses are the 60mm and the 105mm. If you decide to do wide angle later on, the most popular lens is the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom. As others have pointed, you will need strobes, and the arms for them. If you don't want to deal with a lot of hassle, get strobes that can do optical connection (Sea&Sea or Inon), but you might have problems with this if you go with the Ikelite housing. You might also need focus light, some strobes have them, but a dedicated one is very handy since sometimes you might want to not direct the strobes at the subject directly. Light and Motion makes good focus lights (Sola).
 

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