picking a new camera set up

[barrmust]

I lost my camera set up in maui a month ago. it was insured by DEPP and i am getting a new set up. the set up i had is discontnued so i have to pick a new one. my old set up was a c5060, ikelite housing, 20mm wa lens, and a ds-51 strobe. so my question is what would you buy? the dollar values for each item are:

camera: $500
housing: $500
wa lens: $280
strobe: $500

they will pay up to these amounts and i can pick anything i want. if the price goes over those amounts i would pay the difference. so let me know your opinions and why.

Russ

 

[scubapatton]

I am looking at the new Canon G9 to upgrade my current setup. It seems the pricing may be near what you are looking at price wise. You could go with the Ikelite housing for a little higher end than the Canon WP-DC21 housing. Not sure how it compares to the C5060 though personally.

 

[barrmust]

ok guys, how about some suggestions. i would like raw and ttl but not many choices there. i am looking at the nikon p5000, sea & sea dx-1g, canon g7. not sure what to get and would like some help. i must admit i am kind of a point and shoot kind of guy. so ttl was nice and raw was nice for photoshop.

Russ

 

[oly5050user]

ok guys, how about some suggestions. i would like raw and ttl but not many choices there. i am looking at the nikon p5000, sea & sea dx-1g, canon g7. not sure what to get and would like some help. i must admit i am kind of a point and shoot kind of guy. so ttl was nice and raw was nice for photoshop.

Russ

go with the nikon p5000 in a ikelite housing,ike wide angle lens and either the ike 125 strobe or the ds51 with a sync cord..This set up will be comparable to your oly5060 and has true ttl use via the sync cord.
I have a oly 5050 set up and would go this way now if I had to set up again,ike housing -125 strobe-wal-as the oly 5050 is discontinued.Can use ttl or shoot totally manual.

 

[Scuba.com]

The Sea & Sea DX-1G Pro Islander Package with an upgrade to a YS-110 DS-TTL Digital Strobe and Sea Arm VII is a great package. With the YS 110 Strobe you get the following:
Works with all digital cameras
Can use five pin connectors for sync cords or fiber optic cable for digital camera housings
Features 12-step power control for manual operating modes, plus DS-TTL auto exposure
Slave mode syncs for DS-TTL flash on compact digital cameras
Delivers a wide 105 x 105 beam pattern
Fast 3 second recycle time
U/W Guide number: 36 with ISO 100 film
The Sea Arm VII matches well with this setup.
http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear-535/069640/Sea---Sea-DX-1G-Pro-Islander-Package.html

 

[zen_man]

ok guys, how about some suggestions. i would like raw and ttl but not many choices there. i am looking at the nikon p5000, sea & sea dx-1g, canon g7. not sure what to get and would like some help. i must admit i am kind of a point and shoot kind of guy. so ttl was nice and raw was nice for photoshop.

Russ

You will get some very different opinions on this as cameras are like cars.
I'm personally waiting to see the news on the G9. The G7 does not support RAW, but the G9 does. Reading some reviews on the p5000 and the Ricoh GX 100 (which is basically the DX-1G), you may want to wait to see about the G9 as well. The p5000 appeared to have slow focus and sluggish performance:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikonp5000/page15.asp
And the GX100 did fair very well with processing and noise:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/ricohgx100/page14.asp

Just my 2 BAR

Buck

 

[ScubaSteve]

go with the nikon p5000 in a ikelite housing,ike wide angle lens and either the ike 125 strobe or the ds51 with a sync cord..This set up will be comparable to your oly5060 and has true ttl use via the sync cord.
I have a oly 5050 set up and would go this way now if I had to set up again,ike housing -125 strobe-wal-as the oly 5050 is discontinued.Can use ttl or shoot totally manual.

I pretty much have this set-up described above. I have the P5000, Ikelite housing, WA lens, TTL and the Ikelite DS-125 strobe. It might run a little over your price, but not much (I purchased a lot of extras that were not necessarily required so without them it would be very close). It takes a pretty great shot for a point and click (I am still a noob so I am learning as I go). It is fairly negative "out of the box" however this is probably standard with a lot of set-ups.

I would personally say this is a good set-up for the "non-professional" photographer.

 

[barrmust]

so what is "negative out of the box"? also i dont know if i really need ttl or raw. seems like most cameras dont offer both. also i dont know how long before ikelite offers a housinf for the g9.

Russ

 

[RTRski]

negative buoyancy, probably. e.g. heavy to carry around underwater. You can add buoyancy arms, or sleeve some 'pool noodle' over the strobe arm to help counteract this.

 

[ScubaSteve]

negative buoyancy, probably. e.g. heavy to carry around underwater. You can add buoyancy arms, or sleeve some 'pool noodle' over the strobe arm to help counteract this.

This is correct. I meant that it was heavy and negatively buoyant underwater. I estimate it to be about 2 pounds negative and am trying a couple things to compensate. It is not so heavy I get tired diving with it however if my lanyard ever broke...I'd have a tough time catching up as the set-up sank. I think is a pretty good system even if it is heavy.