D200 initial impressions....

[RonFrank]

ABQDive was nice enough to let me play with his D200 on Sunday for a bit. I can not really do an entire camera review after shooting for less than 30 minutes, but I did post some photo's of the Hole from last Sunday! Here are some thoughts.

Loved the camera feel.

Exposure is very good, love the seperate channel histograms.

Handles very much like the Nikon D1/D2 pro line. Focusing is very fast and accurate, however I was not familiar with all the options, so I did little to try the various options.

Do NOT use Vivid for portraits. I can see however why people like it for UW photography with Strobe as it appears to jump up the reds, and greens to a lesser extent. So this would be good for landscapes, UW, and many animal subjects, but for skin tones it stunk. I had to edit out a LOT of red, and all the subjects I shot looked like they had spent about 3 hours in a tanning booth out of camera.

I also used the 18-200VR for a bit. About the only thing I can really say is that the VR definately works well. I was hand holding at 1/100 using the 200mm focal length which is difficult to do without VR.

Overall I wish I could have spent more time to get used to the camera, but IMO awesome, and there are plenty of people who have spent lots of time with the D200 if you want in depth reviews.

Here are some shots.

You can see the Album HERE

I have a few more that I may add, but I've been putting in serious overtime at work, so......

 

[alcina]

Looking forward to seeing some people photos when you get yours

 

[Warren_L]

Definitely agree - I got mine a month ago and love the feel of it over the D70. But housing will have to wait, as I think I killed my money tree.

 

[Rooster]

I also have had mine for about a month. It’s a great camera, but I don't quite like it as much as my "old" F-5, but it's close. Maybe after I get the MB-D200 battery pack it will feel more like the F-5. It does fit my fat fingered mitts better than my D70. I’m really not sure if I would be thinking about housing it, if I didn’t have issues with my Ike D70 housing. When I bought my F-100 and housed it in an Aquatica housing I was quite happy with it. Then when I got my F-5 to replace the F-100 for land use, I wanted to put it in a housing. I then decided that the F-100 was great for UW work and there was no need to put a more expensive camera into a more expensive housing. Things are different with my D70 / D200. I don’t really like the Ikelite I have for my D70. There are several things that I have issues with that I never did with My Aquatica housings. The biggest problem is that I had a flood on the first day of my recent Palau trip. It was “NOT” user error. Luckily I caught it before it did any damage to camera or lens. It did cause me to lose a dive. I was able to do some field repairs, that should not have been necessary, and I was able to use it with no other incident. So now I’m thinking that I really want to go back to Aquatica and house the D200. I’m just waiting to see if there are any early bugs that need to be shaken out. In the mean time I’ll use the D70 and Ike housing and keep a weary eye on it for leaks. Any way, here's a couple of shots with the D200 in Palau.

 

[Warren_L]

Rooster, what was the nature of your flood? I also had a flood on a recent trip with my Ike D70 housing, which I believe was not user error either. It was a loose nut on the back of the bulkhead connector to the strobe cable. I contacted Ikelite about it, and they told me that that was something that shouldn't come loose and normally needs not to be checked.

 

[RonFrank]

Hey Rooster,thanks for the response. I'm interested to hear a bit more about the nature of the issues you had with the Ike housing. It's currently on my short list for a couple reasons, price, and iTTL which after seeing images from several using iTTL it appears to work great.

Thanks,

 

[alcina]

I also had a flood on a recent trip with my Ike D70 housing, which I believe was not user error either. It was a loose nut on the back of the bulkhead connector to the strobe cable. I contacted Ikelite about it, and they told me that that was something that shouldn't come loose and normally needs not to be checked.

Good reminder - you can only rely on yourself! LOL Even those things that don't need to be checked, should be checked before dragging a camera underwater If nothing else it brings piece of mind!

 

[ABQdiver]

Nice pics Rooster.

It might be awhile before I house the D200 and get it wet. Gotta finish paying for the camera and lenses first.

We all know the risks taking an expensive camera underwater, it pays to have insurance........

 

[Rooster]

Rooster, what was the nature of your flood? I also had a flood on a recent trip with my Ike D70 housing, which I believe was not user error either. It was a loose nut on the back of the bulkhead connector to the strobe cable. I contacted Ikelite about it, and they told me that that was something that shouldn't come loose and normally needs not to be checked.

Mine was a loose nut for the tray mount. After I removed the camera and dried everything out, I put it into a rinse tank to see if I could find the leak. It was clearly comming from the right tray mount bolt/nut. There is a rubber washer type thing that dose not act as a seal but looks like it's supposed to act like a lock washer. It has a sticky back that hold it in place. After I removed the washer I found the nut to be only finger tight. It's a wonder it hadn't flooded sooner. I dissasembled both mounts, the left one was tight, cleaned and lubed the O-rings, then put the mounts back together. I made sure they were both snug. I re-tested and got no leak. Luckily I didn't get any water into the ITTL circuitry. I did leave it open in the airconditioned room all night to make sure any moisture was removed. I did six dives after that with not a drop. I did check each day to make sure the nuts were not working loose.

 

[Warren_L]

Basically the same thing happened to me. The nut must have come loose I figure from all the time spent sitting in rinse buckets aboard motorized boats. The vibrations probably loosened it up enough so that the rubber o-ring seated against the back of the bulkhead and the housing back lost contact, allowing water to enter the housing. Like you, it was a slow flood, so I caught it in time so that I could tip the housing so water would pool away from anything critical. Got back on the boat, drained and cleaned the housing. Upon checking the housing, I noticed the bulkhead connector was loose and knew immediately that was the problem. No damage to the iTTL circuitry, the camera, or the lens .... luckily.