Intro Photo-Kit Recommendations?

[Sonia Savio]

Hi Guys!

I'm a professional "land" photographer and I'm looking to take my love of photography underwater. I'd like to start with a compact camera, with not too much in the way of bells and whistles, just to get my feet wet (pun intended). That said, I'm looking for a camera with a fair amount of versatility.

- Compact manageable housing allowing a depth of 130 feet conservatively.
- Compact symmetrical lighting
- Macro and wide options, ideally without the need of accessory attacments
- High ISO with low grain
- Fairly decent resolution
- Speed

I'm currently debating between the Sealife DC2000 and the Olympus TG-5

I'm willing to compromise manual features and video as I'm principally interested in still photography and don't want to get too obsessed with settings underwater. I principally just want something that's going to be easy and versatile at a good depth. I don't want photography to effect my experience, just enhance it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You!

Sonia

 

[Barmaglot]

You're looking for a unicorn Your requirements are impossible to meet in any single system.

Compact housing rated to 130 feet - depends on the definition of 'compact', I guess. Any housing is fairly bulky, but aluminum ones are smaller than plastic. You pay for it though - for example, Nauticam aluminum housing for Sony RX100 V is a cool $995 before any accessories.
Compact symmetrical lighting - not happening, period. You need arms to hold your strobes away from the camera, and there's physically no way to make them both long and compact.
Macro and wide options, ideally without the need of accessory attacments - also not happening, as you need a dome port for wide angle and a flat port for macro. Closest you can come to it is carrying two wet lenses - a fisheye for wide-angle and a diopter for macro.
High ISO with low grain - requires a large-sensor camera, which won't be compact.
Fairly decent resolution - most anything but the cheapest compact will have that, although high-end ILCs will obviously stand out.
Speed - more or less rules out compacts and steers you toward DSLRs or higher-end MILCs, but those won't be compact.

Neither Sealife DC2000 nor Olympus TG series are, IMHO, good scuba diving cameras. You pay a significant premium, in money and features, for waterproof construction, but it's only waterproof to 15-18 meters, so you end up putting them in a housing, at which point they're just as bulky as any other compact and significantly feature-deficient compared to other compacts at their price point, like the Sony RX100 series. DC2000 is also, by many accounts, excruciatingly slow.

Depending on your budget, you're probably best off looking at Sony RX100 series, Canon G7X II, Olympus E-M5 series, or Sony A6xxx series, with appropriate housings plus strobes and wet lenses. Any DSLR is going to be a boat anchor, but a small MILC with a small lens is still reasonably compact.

 

[Sonia Savio]

Barmaglot, thanks so much for the reply! Haha, I guess I do shoot for the stars and I'm quite out of my depth with expectations. That said, for a novice scuba shooter, who's a little wary of bringing a camera down there to begin with, I am first and foremost looking for a compact easy camera (anything but an anchor). What in your opinion is going to give me range and quality? I would like the option to attach strobes on both sides but maybe it's not as necessary and I think. Just let me know. I'm generally less concerned about cost. I'm really just interested in what the optimal camera for someone like me would be Thanks again!

 

[Barmaglot]

A Sony RX100 V with wet lenses would probably come closest to hitting most of your goals.

For housing, Meikon/SeaFrogs is the cheapest option at around $250, but it lacks access to the rear dial, which, incidentally, is the only dial that the camera has - without it, shooting in modes other than auto, is significantly more difficult. Fantasea is a step up from there at $400, with access to all controls including the rear dial. Nauticam aluminum housing is much more expensive at $995, but being metal rather than plastic, it's more compact, and it has the option to attach a vacuum system for extra safety - the way it works is, while you're preparing to dive, you use a pump to remove air from the housing, and then a sensor monitors the pressure inside; if the housing isn't sealed properly, air will leak in, and an indicator will turn red, saving you from destroying an expensive camera. Metal housings are said to also be more resistant to fogging than plastic ones.

Strobes attach to arms which attach to a tray, and you use fiber optic cables to trigger them off the camera's built-in flash. This will work with any housing currently on the market that I know of, although again, this will add significant weight and bulk to your rig.

You may also want to determine the amount of positive or negative buoyancy of your housing, wet lenses, tray and strobes - if your rig has significant negative buoyancy, you may want to use float arms to compensate. A neutrally-buoyant rig is much easier to handle underwater.

 

[bvanant]

A lot will depend on your budget. Right now you can get an OLY EM5-II with housing for $1299 ( a very good price). Get the kit 12-50 lens and you can shoot moderately wide to reasonably close with that lens alone. Get two good strong video lights and you won't need strobes (at least for a while). All in for maybe $2K. Otherwise look at the Sony RX100 in a Recsea housing, you can add the Kraken 3000 ring light and you have a very tiny system, good stills, good video for little things. All in for maybe $1400 or so.
Either of these will do the job and allow you to grow your system with strobes and add on lights etc.
Underwater photography is a black hole for $ as you will learn.
Cheers

Bill

 

[Sonia Savio]

Thanks Bill & Barmaglot. Bill, between the two, which would you recommend starting with? I just need to get into it, and I'm about to do a liveaboard in Indonesia so it's the prefect opportunity. I'm prepared for the investment, I just don't want to go bananas because I want to enjoy myself instead of feeling weighed down underwater. At first blush it seems the RX100 with a ring light is the simplest set up... What do you think, Barmaglot?

 

[bvanant]

I like to tell the people that I help teach underwater photography to that get the last system first, meaning that almost all of us have bought smaller systems first, used them a bit and then put them on a shelf and bought the ultimate system. That being said, what is your goal and how much video will you shoot?
If you want to just show your friends what you saw on a dive then get a camera that does competent video; almost always video is better at this than stills. If your goal is to make photos that you can print large (like 16x2o) then the Olympus (which you can add the ring flash to) would be a better choice.
What is your goal?
Bill

 

[Sonia Savio]

My current profession is professional photography; 5D Mark IV, with all the bells, whistles and then some. That said, if I could take my camera down with me it would with a 24 to 70 mm and two strobes. That said, I'm not sure if underwater photography is going to become a thing with me. I'm not confident going down with a bulky system. However, my end goal is to to create a art. Beautiful unique pics. I'm not super video oriented at the moment, I fear it would pull from the experience too much.

 

[Barmaglot]

RX100 doesn't focus very close - if you want to concentrate on macro (the ring light isn't strong enough to light things that aren't very close), you'll probably need to add a diopter to your setup.

 

[Sonia Savio]

Yeah, at the moment I have no idea what I'm going to "like" shooting. I could see myself getting into micro because of the color variety etc. That's what appealed so much about the TG-5 but I guess my main goal would be to capture a whale shark or manta ray. I would be devestated if I went down with gear that couldn't capture anything macro.