Buying new set-up, need some advice please

[Linder]

Hi guys,

I'm reasonably new to UW photography.

I currently use a Canon G9 with the original Canon housing, a Fantasea "BIG Eye" wide-angle lens and a very basic Sealife storbe.

Me and my GF are going to New York (we live in Stockholm, Sweden), and as photo equipment (especially UW) is way cheaper in the states I'm looking to sell my G9 set-up and purchase an upgrade whilst in NY.

However I really need your recommendations on what to get. I'm not a advanced UW-photographer but I have been playing around with my G9-set up for a few years and I'm getting used to working some manual settings on both the camera and storbe (although I prefer it to be as simple and automated as possible).

I'm looking to get a versatile set-up for both macro and wide-angle shooting, that has a somewhat decent video capability, and I have no more than $2200 to spend (preferably less but that is the absolute limit). I've started looking at the Canon S95 with the Fix S95 housing a Fix UWL-04 Wide Angle Lens and a Sea & Sea YS01a strobe.

Now to my questions:

Is this a good set-up or what else do you recommend with my kind of budget? (I'm a bit lost as to the many different possible set-ups out there, I am in no way prone to Canon cameras so any suggestions are welcome)

Can I shoot macro using the Fix Wide Angle? Or do I need to get a separate macro lens?

Should I aim for one or two strobes? What about video light, should I just shoots with natural light (guessing that a dedicated video-light will be expensive?)

Many thanks for your thoughts and recommendations, like I said feel free to recommend something completely different!

 

[rameus]

Hey Linder

A lot of questions to answer. Allthough I usually am a Nikonian I used a Canon G10 for underwater photography so far, too. I used it with an Ikelite housing and an Ikelite DS-160 substrobe. The setup is brilliant: not too heavy and you get great shots! All the shots on my page were made with the G10 and one external strobe (max). It is an Ikelite DS-160 substrobe which has quite a bit of power.

I do not know in detail the models you just mentioned above but I do know that you do not need a special lens to do macro-shooting (at least I didn't need one with the G10) and I sometimes got very close. This all depends on the minimum distance you are allowed by the camera or the lens.

Since you have already been using Canong I would try to stick with it or something similar. They do a very good job in manual setup-possibilities and especially for underwater-photography this is one of the key-elements you have IMHO to look for. The more you can specify on your camera the more pictures will turn out the way you want them to without shooting 20 or postprocess it on Photoshop.

As already mentioned above: If you have ONE good strobe you will not need to have an other one. Just pay attention how to position it to avoid backscatter. If you're interested, I wrote an article about backscatter and how to avoiid it with a short description.

That would be all for the moment, I guess ;-)

Thomas

Just for the record... I'm selling my G10 with an Ikelite-housing but that's not the discussion here (and I'd be way below 2200$) ;-) If you stil want infos, let me know.