1d MKII housing?

[txaggie08]

Sorry folks, I'm knew to diving and underwater equipment entirely.

What will I need, housing/lens wise, to be able to use my MkII sub surface? Is there an affordable housing, and what glass is commonly used with each?

 

[bvanant]

A lot depends on what you mean by affordable. New housings for the 1dMKII are in the $4500 range. Is this a 1d or 1ds? In any case, you can find used housings for $2000 or so and then you need to figure out wide angle or macro. For macro the Canon 100 mm macro is probably your best bet, for wide angle the Canon 16-35 or 17-40 are probably your best choices. For the macro lens you will need a macro port and for the wide angle, a dome port. Housings are available from Subal (expensive), Seacam (obscenely expensive), and Nexus (1ds only, only moderately expensive). Ports will depend on the housing. Strobes and arms will add another $2500 or so (depending on which strobes you get). Not cheap but doable for under $6K I would guess.
Bill

 

[txaggie08]

It's the 1d body. So the 16-35 f2.8 is reasonably popular then? That's good, it was next on my list anyway

 

[txaggie08]

Wow looking at what it's going to cost, I'm thinking the purchase of a 20/30d or another rebel might be cheaper, when you include the housing, than trying to get my 1d setup appropriately at this point in time. I think I can acquire a body and used housing cheaper than I can get a housing for the 1d, and will have some cheap options to play around with on lenses....

I love my 1d, but god it's a pain in the butt at times......

 

[NTSilver]

if you want to shoot video as well you might want to look at the 5D mkII or the new 7D

 

[bvanant]

The 1d (not the s version) is a great camera but given that it is 4 years old and only 8 MP you could get a used 5D and housing for it a lot cheaper and with better IQ (IMHO). You can pick up a full system with camera, housing and ports for $4k or so.
Alternatively, the T1D can be had for $800 and a housing with ports for $2500 so you can get more MP (but not full frame). If you are interested I have a brand new T1I and S&S housing that I might be willing to sell
Bill

 

[txaggie08]

I already own a 1d MkII guys, I actually shoot some semi-professional stuff, weddings etc. Also do a lot of sports and wildlife(equine sports is really my passion, but birds in flight is also something I love.), thus the choice on the 1d system.

I need a backup body anyway, I'm actually considering one of the new 7d's to replace my older 1 as it's as capable, even though it's APS-C. There is something to be said about image quality going up in sensor size. Larger sensors generally produce higher quality, even at lower resolution.