Advice on gear, please!

[EBH]

Sorry to bother you with the following question - If I clicked the "has this been asked before?"-button half this forum would be thrown at me, but rather than having everyone say what gear they like the most, I would like to hear your thoughts on my gear needs given my diving experience and expectations for image quality..

My diving experience is extremely limited, I have 12 logged dives, all done at the Similans about a year and a half ago. I'm going to egypt in a couple of weeks to get my advanced certificate (after the review course) and have a look at what the Red Sea has to offer..

When it comes to topside photography it's the other way around. I use a D80 and know about the technicalities and so on...

As for my expectations for IQ, I want the ability to take naturally coloured, well exposed shots. I don't mind fiddling with RAW afterwards as I'm used to this and have the software. I'm not really looking for 526 halfbad images of every single creature I see, I want great images - if I get 1 wallhanger, I'm happy!

So I guess my first question would be, should I buy a camera at this stage at all? My diving and (topside) photography skills are a complete mismatch and I can't help thinking that maybe it would be best to just focus on the diving and try to control my gear lust for now (???)

Whether I buy one for this trip or not, these are my thoughts on gear:
I can get Panasonic cameras and housing at very decent prices through work, so of course I would prefer this. But none of the Pany's have RAW, and the one I'd prefer, the FX35 because of size, doesn't even have an aperture priority setting. Is there any chance I can get what I want when it comes to IQ with pany equipment? (adding a strobe perhaps?) Or will I have to turn to Canon?

Since it's cheap, I could also just get the FX35 and a housing without a strobe and just get the practice..?

If you've come this far I hope you a few thoughts to share

Thanks!!

 

[Larry C]

I wouldn't put a camera in the hands of a diver with 12 dives and a year without diving. You need to have excellent buoyancy skills and emergency skills, and be completely familiar with your sac rate, buddy skills and navigation before you distract yourself with something that will take your mind off everything else about your dive. In order to take those "wall shots" you need to concentrate entirely on your subject, your lighting and your camera set-up. You should also be experienced enough with underwater life to know how to get very close to your subject. It is very difficult to do these things and pay attention to your buddy and your navigation as well, even for an experienced diver. For someone with your limited experience, it could lead to a chamber stay or worse.
When you are ready for UW photography, in order to take the kind of pictures you're used to taking on the surface, you'll need a camera that has manual controls available for EVERYTHING. You can take decent pictures on auto settings, but great pictures require settings that are different from those your camera uses topside. The lack of light underwater fools the camera and steals both light and color. Because you can compensate for the flash, you can set your camera properly. Your auto-settings will tend to be either too slow or with too big an aperture setting, causing poor focus and blurred pictures. RAW is nice, but many fine photographers shoot without it. It takes great skill, however, to take a picture that doesn't require the type of editing that can best be done in a RAW format. As far as the price of the camera, be assured that it will be about 10% of what you put into your UW photography outfit by the time you're done. I tried to start cheap, in terms of things like strobes and accessories such as wet lenses, trays and arms. What that allows you to do is buy everything twice, after the frustration of taking lousy pictures with unreliable or inferior equipment. Figure out what you really want, what it costs and what time frame you have for buying it. Remember that cameras go obsolete within two years, so you'll want to buy your camera and housing at the same time. For a high quality point and shoot set-up, with tray, strobe, maybe a ttl converter, wide angle lens and close up lens with mounts, plan on spending about $2000-$2500 before you're finished. Diving is not a cheap sport. Underwater photography is no less so if you want quality results.

 

[driftwood]

There are two schools of thought on intro to u/w photography, Larry espouses the view that you need to be an expert diver before you add any distractions. The other school believes that the distraction will make you a better diver. Personally, I agree with Larry and am firmly convinced that one of the greatest threats to reefs by divers are from new photographers chasing "the" shot.

I think that the first thing I would do is take a GOOD u/w photography class to see if you want to go there at all. Once you finish the class you will have a much better understanding of the skills and equipment you need to take photos you can hang on the wall.

My definition of a "good" class; taught by an avid u/w photographer, willing to adjust the classroom portion to fit your experience level (since you shoot RAW, you don't need Photoshop 101), spends a lot of time in the pool and a dive on a site with decent vis for practice. The camera they provide, or you rent, is not that important at this point. Just make sure that it has an external strobe and is digital.

The class runs about $200 locally and you will save at least that much by not buying gear that you think will get the job done.

 

[EBH]

Thanks very much for your answers - I'm convinced! If I can, I'll take underwater photography as one of the dives I'll do during my advanced and learn a little more first. I brought a rented camera on one of my last dives in Thailand and had loads of fun although the results were crap, so I'm sure I'll love u/w photography, but I'm also certain that you're right about getting the dive skills first, especially with the results I will be looking for once I get into u/w photography.. Once again, thanks very much for your insight!

 

[alcina]

Excellent advice so far! Here's a couple of extra things I've thought of for you...

Be aware that the uw photo on the Advanced Course is a sampler only. It is unlikely you will get much besides some experience and a couple of pointers. That's OK - that is what the course is built for, to whet your appetite before heading into a specialty or area of diving. It's good to lay hands on a new task while you have someone there dedicated to helping you manage the extra task loading.

I don't have a problem with new divers taking a camera underwater as long as they are mostly in control of their diving skills and are confident enough to clip the camera off if something comes up. The photo is not everything while you are underwater and you have to be willing to forget about it, too.

You also must be extremely aware of your environment, buddy and self - most newer divers can't do this effectively and many experienced can't do this effectively *at first* when adding something like a camera. So you need to have a very good, thorough talk with your buddy about your goal, expectations and plan for each individual dive. This can be very hard to do with a buddy you haven't met until you get on the boat, so keep your goals reasonable. Use these dives to take happy snaps instead of mind-blowers and use them to practice your diving and awareness skills.

Have reasonable goals. I see that you want some wall-hangers. You need to understand that it takes about a million percent more effort and skill underwater to take a stunner underwater than it does on land. Your land skills will stand you in good stead underwater, but you must have superior diving skills as well. And the only way to get skills is to practice practice practice. You will also see that as you develop, what was once a wall-hanger becomes something you shake your head and wonder about Excellent uw photos do not come easy or fast - so set achievable goals, enjoy the moments and be happy with "good" to begin with

As for systems, the Sticky has lots of excellent advice and examples compiled from our members - you can get there via the Pink Link in my signature or from the top of the UW Photo area.

I would personally pick up a Canon A series and housing for my trip to Egypt if I were you. The housing can do double duty to keep sand and debris out of your camera if you are heading into the desert But these systems allow you to use manual white balance (so no strobe required), they have some auto modes you might find handy and they also allow full manual controls if you want to start practicing with those. I would take the opportunities provided by this upcoming dive trip to start to get familar with the camera, the way light works underwater, having another task to concentrate on, practicing some framing and finding out what you like the look of and having fun. I wouldn't be expecting great images, but I would expect to have some time to play and to take home some fun ones to share. This is all part of learning, imho.

HTH

 

[scubazlot]

The OP mentioned they would like to look at Panasonic and RAW, and well, there may be a solution. Panasonic just announced the new Lumix DMC-LX3, which is a smaller point and shoot camera and it supports RAW (according to the dpreview writeup). I have never looked into Panasonic cameras personally, and I have no idea if there will be an underwater housing for the camera. It will be available in the UK starting in August, so too late for your trip, but something to keep in mind. As others said, it may be best to leave the camera at home until you get more diving experience. And once you have the experience, perhaps the LX3 will have a housing and it will provide a solid solution for you.

 

[parabolic]

EBH

This is probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know about the subject, but I've put some thoughts together on underwater photographic equipment and technique here:

http://www.kenbondy.com/images/Journeys/Chapter 6_UnderwaterPhotography.pdf

Warning! This covers over 30 years of my personal experience with underwater photography so it might not be completely relevant to what you are looking for.

++Ken++

 

[DesertEagle]

Go ahead and get the FX35. As far as camera and housing only, the wider lens is great. The ability to shoot HD video is super, too. Later on, you can add wide/macro lenses and strobes. It's a great starter camera that can form the base of a larger system. You should definitely look at buying a Magic Filter. They're relatively cheap and work to keep good colors in shallow water. The Auto filter is best for compact cameras. M A G I C - F I L T E R S

My advice on diving with the camera- give it to your dive master for the first few dives. He or she can get some photos of YOU. As you become more proficient in your buoyancy and awareness, then you will want to do some photos.

I recently looked at an old video, from about 15 years ago when I was inexperienced. I was breathing huge amounts of air and kept trying to use my hands to stabilize myself. On my next trip I took a one-day buoyancy workshop. It made all the difference. That was about my 20th dive, and after that I could hover relatively motionless.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

If you can find a good instructor, a buoyancy course would be my first recommendation, then a photography course. With PADI it's Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Photographer and Digital Underwater Photographer. Many have poo-poo'ed PPB and just as many feel those skills should be in Open Water classes, but the fact is with a proper instructor PPB will improve your diving and prepare you to be a better underwater photographer.

 

[RTW]

It's been touched on in this thread, but I would also recommend the following insightful and in-depth post:
The Photographer’s Dive Buddy