Seeking Advice

[shaun spies]

Alcina, your reply was most informative and appreciated. I am an instructor and with a fair amount of dives under my belt. Until recently I was a part time DM for our club on the Natal coast of South Africa, on a reef known as Aliwal Shoal. At present I am in Aberdeen Scotland, undergoing training as a ROV pilot.

The camera's I am looking at are:

- OLYMPUS C - 8080
- SONY CYBERSHOT DSC - F828
- NIKON COOLPIX 8700

Do you have any info./experience ( Clients/friends or other ) on the above mentioned products? I know you mentioned that you would not advise SONY, but would that also include the above mentioned product?

 

[jbichsel]

Shaun,
I have a Nikon Coolpix 5700. Same thing as the 8700, just not the MP. I do not have a housing for it, but wanted to give you feedback on the camera. Housings run from $780 US and up depending on brand. Ikelite seems to be the 'cheapest'.
As to the camera, we love it. So far we have been using it in 'point-and-shoot' mode and getting fantastic results. When I bought it, it came with a 8MB card which is useless, but I got and additional 128 and 256 card. I just recently bought a 512 since I had discovered that the RAW and NEF format photos are awesome.
Everyone in the family can take outstanding photos, from my 64 year old mother to our 9 years old twins.
I think the only fault I can find is the shutter lag in certain lighting conditions. But again, since we are not using any manual settings, that may be able to be overcome.
If you choose the 8700 and have deep enough pockets for a housing for it, I think you would not be disappointed at all.
My debate is whether to save up for a housing for my 5700, or take the same amount of $$ and get a camera and housing in the Olympus family.
Hope this helps.

 

[alcina]

Out of those for all around use the Oly 8080 seems to be the best of the bunch. Many of the other 8MP cameras are currently a bit lacklustre. Personally, I wouldn't go for an 8MP camera with the current state of things. I'd stick with the 5MP range - excellent results and several choices.

The 8080's underwater performance has gotten little notice. I don't think that it is really built for underwater and has some issues. Of course, you can make any camera work with enough patience and acceptance of any limitations you come across.

I'd ask myself why I wanted an 8MP camera. If there was definitely something extra in it for me to justify the cost and aggravation, I'd go for it. I don't see that currently for myself. But if it was primarily to get more pixels or to have one of the newest models, I wouldn't. More pixels are not always an indicator of excellence. YMMV

 

[lukeROB]

Agree with Alcina, I wouldn't head down the 8Mp path. They are big and bulky and in my opinion you may as well just get a DSLR. The oly is the best of that bunch because it will be far cheaper than the other two to house.

Look at the 5MP range. I hate to say all the oly fans but the new Canon S60 would be a good choice. I prefer the oly C5060 for many reasons except the fact that you have to attach ports to get wider angles. Wet attachment lenses have better sharpness and the ability to change between wide and macro on the same dive.

 

[LAWDIVER]

I will give a thumbs up for the sony, I currently use a DSC-P93 with marine pack and love it. I am new to U/W photography and wanted something small and easy to use. The sony fits the bill perfectly. The pictures I have have taken thus far with just the internal flash are great with little or no back scatter. The focus is great even under very low light. THe attached picture was taken in the cave at Vortex springs with just the internal flash and no added external light source. I will say the olympus cameras are good cameras, but for just starting out the sony is great. I got the camera and housing for $500.00.

 

[bridgenet]

I just went through the same problem of what to do. I probably have about $10K in len's and digital equipment for my digital Fuji S2 DSLR. Started with the Nikon D100 but ended up with the S2 for various reasons not relevant here. Initialially I bought the DSLR for diving, after I got use to taking land photo's, but as I got into it you look at the potential costs for a camera that is outdated quickly. My Nikon len's will be good for a long time but I can already get a better camera. Hence why would I want to spend $1500-2K for a bare housing then another $1K on dome ports and accessories unless I was either diving daily and/or doing it as a profession. Not to mention having to haul it on airplanes. Now add another $1500 - 2K if I want a decent pair of strobes and arms. Its gets expensive.

Which brought me to the C5050 Olympus. Lot's of support. $400 online price (harder to get now though so probably have to get the C5060) so if it floods I don't loose much money versus a $2500 digital (now cheaper but was cost new).

Still a complete setup adds up. The PT-015 housing, Inon D-180 strobe, leak detector, lens store, wide angle, tray, arm = $1500. Toss in the camera and a 1G Sandisk CF card, good rechargeables (> 200 pics) and you are about $2200 complete. On top of that I have found that having only one strobe you are alot more apt to get shadows thus I'll probably spring for another strobe, arm and fiber cable next year adding another $700. Expensive hobby but this is still alot less than a full digital SLR and if I want to get a new camera and housing I'm talking about $1K, 1/3 the cost of and expensive housing with domes.

Live-aboard wanted $600/week rental so I figure my $2200 investment only cost me $1600 and will drop on each additional trip.

With regards to pixels... Fuji is 6.1 Mpix, Olympus 5 Mpix. Fuji takes much better pictures but has nothing to do with the pixels. A lens can cost as much as the camera and my $1800 lens with vibration reduction can work magic (20" X 30" enlargements), $300 lens and you can get alot of distortions (luck of the draw when buying it). Recent underwater trip photo's (C-5050) have come back, many blown up to 11 X 14 and they are awesome. Not what the Fuji would do nor probably the less expensive Canon Rebel with a high quality lens, but more than adequate. You can't put a cheap lens on a DSLR and expect good photo's unless you are real lucky with the lens that is shipped to you.

www.pbase.com/bridgenet/australia

These are reduced to 80K files versus the 2-3Meg used for enlargement but gives an idea of what a first time C5050 user can do, no previous experience except a couple days of C4040 rentals 2 years prior.

 

[ChrisA]

Here goes a list as I have picked up till now, if there is anything else to ad, please do.

- Housing type and why ( Ex. Ike-lite vs. ? )
- Short shutter lag
- High speed memory
- macro capability
- Why use external strobe
- Strobe preference and why
- Best size CF memory card
- Difference between memory cards, and where to use them

Some other things to look at before you buy a camera:

- The lens. What is the range of focal lenghts and f-stop and
the focaus range (how close?) And of cuser optical quality

Also think about how you shoot photos on land. Frankly if you are happy to usea disposable cardboard camera on land why would yu want a $5,000 digital SLR for diving? On the other hand if yu are like some people and own cases of photoequipment already you likely already know what you want for UW work.

One good way to go is to buy a very simple low cost camera and plan on replacing it after a year. The after a year or 6 months look at your photos and ask yourself what is required to improve them. Likely your answer will be likely it will be that _you_ need to learn more about composition,, light and so on but then you could find you really do need better strobe(s) and different lens(es)

If you buy a small "point and shoot" it will educate you and later when you buy the big camera the small one will be usfull for times when you don't want the bulk of a big system.

 

[sbloomer]

Alcina, your reply was most informative and appreciated. I am an instructor and with a fair amount of dives under my belt. Until recently I was a part time DM for our club on the Natal coast of South Africa, on a reef known as Aliwal Shoal. At present I am in Aberdeen Scotland, undergoing training as a ROV pilot.

The camera's I am looking at are:

- OLYMPUS C - 8080
- SONY CYBERSHOT DSC - F828
- NIKON COOLPIX 8700

Do you have any info./experience ( Clients/friends or other ) on the above mentioned products? I know you mentioned that you would not advise SONY, but would that also include the above mentioned product?

Shaun

I see you are a fellow South African. Quick question, are you planning on using your camera mostly in SA or what? The reason I ask is that I have been told on good authority, that despite the large presence of Olympus cameras here, many dealers refuse to sell Olympus because of the withdrawl of their repair facilities in SA. If you need after sales service here, then forget Olympus.

I use a Canon S1, but obviously your budget is significatly higher than mine was, but you might consider the Canon Pro-1 in addition to your existing choices.