help choosing a new rig

[phishphood]

So I've been looking in to uw photography for a while and have gotten by with my old (1st gen) GoPro and borrowing a friend's Sony P7000/Sony RX100 in knock-off cases but I really want my own rig. I've acquired an Oly OMD-EM5 body at a decent price but now I'm stuck. Funds are a bit of an issue but I can slowly acquire different things. I'm at the point of deciding if it will be an UW dedicated system or if it will replace my aging Nikon D40. It wouldn't take much to replace it, as I mostly shoot with the kit 18-55 while traveling/exploring but I do still want to be able to change lenses and ideally use a viewfinder above water. Right now potential rigs are literally just the bare minimum. I can craft/DIY my way out of most other issues such as lighting, trays etc until funds become available.

So right now I am looking at:
-slowwwlly building up gear for the em5, acquiring a lens (14-42 but which version), and housing/port. ETA- hopefully by end of year, will probably end up being an olympus housing though which means no upgrading.
-sell em5 body and look for an older m4/3 setup like epl2 or 3 with nauticam housing/ports so the lenses and ports can move up with me as I eventually upgrade. ETA-several months depending on availability of used gear.
-sell em5 body and buy a decent p&s in housing and just live with it as dedicated U/W. Suggestions for cameras in this range? RX100 mk1, s95, etc?

 

[rob1967]

Same as for another post, I would like to give you some advice, but I need to ask you a few questions first: Do you know how to shoot in manual mode, or are you shooting in automatic mode only? Do you mostly take stills, or video? And what light source do you plan to use? Strobes are the best for stills. You can get great still shots with strobes with just about any camera, as long as you shoot in manual mode.

 

[phishphood]

Sorry, forgot to cover that bit. I shoot my d40 almost exclusively in manual, but swap to aperture priority sometimes. That's one reason I was leaning towards ILC cameras over most point and shoots, for the easy access to shutter/aperture controls (I know there are some exceptions). As for light sources, I'll add strobes in to the mix later. I know there's some that can/can't do TTL, but like I said I can play around with that later. I would currently be shooting ambient light or a diffused dive light like I sometimes do with my gopro now. And that should all be prefaced by the fact that I'm looking for something to shoot stills with that also has capability to shoot HD1080p. I would love to delve more into video, but my background is in photography so I'll stick with that for now.

 

[rob1967]

Hi Phishphood, as promised, I'll give you my humble opinion. First off I have to admit I am not overly familiar with Olympus and have a strong bias towards Canon. For most people that are new to underwater photography, I would strongly suggest starting with a compact camera. However, since you are already an experienced land-based photographer and can shoot in manual, you could certainly consider keeping the EM-5 and housing it.

The biggest improvement in image quality will be when you add strobes. Underwater, a basic point and shoot with strobes will give you much better IQ than the fanciest SLR without strobes (or fanciest SLR in automatic mode for that matter!). The key is to shoot in manual mode so you can use a fast shutter speed (i.e., 1/200 or faster) so you can block out the ambient light and light your subject with strobe only. That's how you get nice colours and sharp images. If you shoot ambient light only, your images will have a washed-out blue appearance (due to the red being filtered out at depth), and the high ISOs and slow shutter speed required to correctly expose the image will result in a lot of blur and noise (unless shooting very shallow on a very sunny day in excellent viz). (You can correct the blue cast to some degree by shooting in RAW and white balancing later, but your images will still be blurry/noisy).

A continuous light source helps of course, better than ambient light alone, but still can't match strobes for sheer light output in very fast burst (1/2000 of a sec or faster) which allows the fast shutter speeds that block out ambient light and freeze your subject.

Most casual observers cannot readily see the difference in image quality between a high-end compact and a 4/3rds camera. Plus the compacts have the advantage of versatility over interchangeable lens systems. An interchangeable lens gives you better IQ but at the expense of versatility. So if you want better macro and don't mind dedicating your whole dive to macro, a mirrorless camera with a macro lens will outperform the compact. Or if you want to shoot wide-angle, a mirrorless camera with a wide angle lens will outperform the compact. A mirrorless camera with a kit lens would be a bit better than a compact, with more or less the same versatility.

If you don't want to take your EM-5 underwater, and want to save some money, you might be able to get your hands on an older compact Canon. A Canon S100 or S110 has very similar IQ to the S120. Same as the G14 or G15 compared to the G16. But if you can't find the older models, you can still get the S120 or G16 new,and they are relatively cheap. All these cameras are very easy to shoot in manual mode. Back dial controls your shutter speed, and front ring controls your aperture.

If you want to go for the best compact possible, then you would go for the new "large-sensor" compacts, i.e. the Sony RX 100 (mark 2), which everybody raves about. However its inherent macro capability is poor, so you would have to add a wet diopter to shoot macro. Of course, since I am a Canon fan, I would say forget the Sony and go for the brand-spanking new Canon G7x which has the exact same sensor as the Sony, but better macro capabilities!

cheers and happy diving!

 

[phishphood]

Thanks for your thoughts Rob. A lot of my quandry comes from deciding whether to replace my D40 with whatever I'm acquiring now for dryland shooting. As for my leaning towards a M4/3, it was simply to be able to scale up and upgrade with time instead of buying all new.

As for anyone else, I would appreciate you chiming in.