Need advice with Subal housing for Canon 5D

[Manta Buddy]

Hello all, I’ve decided to upgrade to DSLR underwater photography and switch my Oly SP350 with Ikelite housing for a DSLR setup. I’ve spent a while reading through the forums as to what camera capabilities would be most valuable for UW and many people seemed to guide to having good wide angle capability, as in many cases visibility would be a limiting factor to “step back a bit”. So after much of evaluating I jumped the gun and bought Canon 5D hoping to get most out of the wide angle lenses. Vigneting was somewhat of a concern, but many divers seemed to be happy with 5D for UW. As you can guess, the next big question became housing. I was looking more towards Subal as I read many good comments on it from Alcina and other divers. I guess I have a whole slew of questions, but it might make sense not bundling them into a single thread all at once. I’ll stick with three for now.
1. Strobe arm mount type:
1.1. There are two T-plates on top of the housing for mounting balls.
1.2. There are also third-party handles with mounting balls on them. Subal’s original handles would have to be removed. Subal is rated high for good ergonomics, i.e. every control knob or dial is right under your fingertips. I am concerned that switching to third-party handles would compromise ease of accessing controls. Did you find it better to use original handles and mount strobe arms on the T-plates on top of the housing? Would this work O.K. with Ikelite DS125 substrobes?
1.3. Are there other ways to mount strobes on Subal housing? If so, what works best in your experience?
2. I have an Ikelite DS125 substrobe that I used with Ikelite housing for my Oly and was planning on buying a second one. Has anybody used a Canon camera in Subal housing with Ikelite strobes? What TTL conversion circuitry have you used?
3. Any particular strobe arms that you liked best for DS125? Ultralight (ULCS)?

Any advice would be most sincerely appreciated.
Thank you much.
Denis

 

[Ryan]

1. Strobe arm mount type:

BA-TG from ULCS are most common with the stock handles, if you use third party tray & handles mounting the strobes on top of them works nicely.

Subal’s original handles would have to be removed. Subal is rated high for good ergonomics, i.e. every control knob or dial is right under your fingertips. I am concerned that switching to third-party handles would compromise ease of accessing controls.

I prefer this housing with ULCS's Subal Tray & AC-H Handles, which can be moved in closer to the housing for better ergonomics than the stock handles (my opinion, of course. YMMV). This also adds 2 mounting points, leaving room for a second focusing light, or dive light, or even 5 strobes With the stock handles, the front command wheel is a bit of a reach for me, but I can access it easily with the aftermarket handles.

 

[Gudge]

On a recent trip I did there were four of using Subal housings (2 x Canon 20D, 1 x Canon 5D and 1 x Nikon D2X). All the Canon shooters were using the stock handles and the Nikon shooter was using a stock handle on the right hand side and a ULCS handle on the left. My advice would be to try the housing with the stock handles and see if you are happy with them. This still gives you two strobe and one focus light attachment point. If you are not happy with this arrangement (either for ergonomic or number of attachment points) then replace the handle(s) as required.

The Canon 5D shooter was using two Ikelite DS125 strobes (I think), the rest of us were using Inon strobes ( a mix of Z220, Z220s and D2000w). All of us were shooting manual control for the strobes.

As for strobe arms, except for one 20D shooter who was using Loc-Line everyone else was using ULCS arms.

Here's a shot showing the Canon 5D shooter's rig:

 

[Manta Buddy]

Ryan and Gudge. Thank you very much for detailed comments and references to makes and model numbers. This will come in really handy as I get to finalize my shopping list

I really wanted to hear different opinions and see how frequently divers switched stock handles to third-party ones. I would probably try the stock handles first. It is good to know there is an upgrade option just in case.

I am planning a trip to Thailand in January and hoping to get my setup all ready for that some time in December. Hopefully, I’d even get a chance to take a trip to Florida to test dive it. That might be a good opportunity to stop by Ryan’s store. I will be posting other questions related to lenses and box characteristics. Your time sharing words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Gudge, thank you for the picture. The shooter you have on your picture has pretty much the setup I am going for. The picture seems to be fresh from Cocos waters  I hope the trip was nice and you really enjoyed it. I really liked the pictures from the trip on your home page. Very nice fish portrait gallery! Visibility seems to have been great too.

Thank you very much for advice and Safe Diving!

 

[Gudge]

This is the web site of the Canon 5D shooter in the photo I posted:

http://www.ppfotos.com/

An updated version should be available in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully with shots from our recent trip to Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Ningaloo Reef and information on what lenses etc he is using with his 5D. The Cocos shots currently on his web site are from a trip earlier this year to the other Cocos (the one not in the middle of the Indian Ocean). This was his first trip with the 5D, if you go through this gallery you can see what lenses he used with the 5D.

 

[Manta Buddy]

Gudge, Thank you very much for good guidance. It appears that all of the Cocos pictures on PP's site were shot with Canon 17-40. Pbase.com had very good reviews for this lens and very nice picture samples. As pbase.com generates a sample set based on random numbers, I did not get luck to see other UW photos there. I will venture into studying the lens subject more and most likely will be back with a post seeking advice once I have done some ground work, not to ask very silly questions

Again, thank you for getting back to me with guidance. Truly appreciate it. I hope we get a chance to dive at Ningaloo some time in the future.

 

[Gudge]

On our trip to Cocos (Keeling)/Ningaloo he mostly used both the Canon 50 and 100 macro lenses. We'll have to wait until he updates his web site to be sure.

 

[Manta Buddy]

On our trip to Cocos (Keeling)/Ningaloo he mostly used both the Canon 50 and 100 macro lenses. We'll have to wait until he updates his web site to be sure.

Thank you, Gudge. I am quite clear on 100mm macro. I only found one 'Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro' designed in 1987 though. Just to read your note the way you intended, did you mean 50mm was a macro lens or not? If you do not remember, it's not a problem, we'll wait for the site to be updated. I remember Alcina making a point that 100mm macro on a 20D (with added crop factor) allowed to get shots of skittish creatures without distrurbing their behavior. I wonder if 50mm macro without crop factor would be practical or 100mm on a full frame sensor would be the best bet for macro?

 

[Gudge]

Looking at PP's web site he has the Sigma 1:1 50mm macro lens not the Canon 1:2 50mmmacro lens mentioned in your post. I can't say why he uses that particular lens but I saw some shots he took with it in Cocos(Keeling) and the results were excellent. The shots were of larger stuff (not macro critters), fish and octopi etc.

As for the 100mm macro that would be a must have. I loved using a 100mm macro lens when I shot film and the most popular macro lens on the crop frame sensor cameras is the 60mm macro which is equivalent to 100mm lens on these cameras.

 

[alcina]

You're going to want both the Sigma 50mm macro and the Canon 100 macro