Suggestions for a new guy.

[Mustangfreak]

Howdy, I'm new here and new to diving. I've only been on 6 dives, but I got hooked quick! And before diving, photography has been a hobby of mine. And of course I want to get into underwater photography and videos.

I do have a little bit of gear, all Canon. EOS 300D with 3 basic lenses. 18-55, 74-300, and a 50 prime. I also have a video camera, the Canon ZR300.

Now my question is, should I get a housing for my ZR300? or find a p&s that comes with a housing that takes still pics and video? And if you suggest not getting a housing for my ZR300, what would be a good camera to get?

 

[ABQdiver]

Finding a housing for your camera/camcorder can be a problem. Your's is not, Ikelite has one that will fit.
It will always be better to use a camera you are comfortable with and "know" how to use!

Howdy, I'm new here and new to diving. I've only been on 6 dives, but I got hooked quick! And before diving, photography has been a hobby of mine. And of course I want to get into underwater photography and videos.

I do have a little bit of gear, all Canon. EOS 300D with 3 basic lenses. 18-55, 74-300, and a 50 prime. I also have a video camera, the Canon ZR300.

Now my question is, should I get a housing for my ZR300? or find a p&s that comes with a housing that takes still pics and video? And if you suggest not getting a housing for my ZR300, what would be a good camera to get?

 

[Mustangfreak]

Finding a housing for your camera/camcorder can be a problem. Your's is not, Ikelite has one that will fit.
It will always be better to use a camera you are comfortable with and "know" how to use!

Yeah, but I dont know which camera (ZR300 or 300D) to get a housing for. I want both

 

[Mustangfreak]

Or maybe I could get these 2

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_s80.asp
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...837&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation


I went ahead and bought these 2

 

[dbh]

You are probably not going to like what I have to say...but...get more dives under your belt before you take a camera underwater! You will have enough tasking without it. You need to be very comfortable in the water and your buoyancy needs to be spot-on. I would even recommend getting your AOW before diving with your camera.

Get to where you can add / dump air from your BC, clear your mask, etc. without even thinking about it. If you take a camera down, it takes alot of concentration and could lead to disaster if your diving skills aren't up to par.

If your buoyancy isn't perfect, you will be crashing into the reef while trying to take a picture....and that is not good!!! Our reefs have enough problems without an inexperienced diver / photographer crashing in to them.

Dave

 

[fairybasslet]

You are probably not going to like what I have to say...but...get more dives under your belt before you take a camera underwater! You will have enough tasking without it. You need to be very comfortable in the water and your buoyancy needs to be spot-on. I would even recommend getting your AOW before diving with your camera.

Get to where you can add / dump air from your BC, clear your mask, etc. without even thinking about it. If you take a camera down, it takes alot of concentration and could lead to disaster if your diving skills aren't up to par.

If your buoyancy isn't perfect, you will be crashing into the reef while trying to take a picture....and that is not good!!! Our reefs have enough problems without an inexperienced diver / photographer crashing in to them.

Dave

I absolutely agree with this. I've been diving for a while and finally got a good setup in the late summer. I still find that my favorite subjects are sponges and christmas tree worms because they don't move. It is so hard to get a moving subject while remaining aware of where your fins are. Also, when I was in the Flower Gardens, I left my camera on board during my first platform dives because I didn't want to think about too many different things. I'll never forget being in Key Largo a few years ago and some new divers were on our boat. They didn't even buy decent fins (were renting snorkling fins) yet they had expensive camera set ups and they were overweighted and crashing into the reef. An instructor who was with another group spoke to them about their buoyancy skills.

 

[mddolson]

You are probably not going to like what I have to say...but...get more dives under your belt before you take a camera underwater! You will have enough tasking without it. You need to be very comfortable in the water and your buoyancy needs to be spot-on. I would even recommend getting your AOW before diving with your camera.

Get to where you can add / dump air from your BC, clear your mask, etc. without even thinking about it. If you take a camera down, it takes alot of concentration and could lead to disaster if your diving skills aren't up to par.

If your buoyancy isn't perfect, you will be crashing into the reef while trying to take a picture....and that is not good!!! Our reefs have enough problems without an inexperienced diver / photographer crashing in to them.

Dave

I agree 100%. Take the AOW, and get lots of dives before attempting photographry.
I am an experienced diver ,over 30 years of diving. 1000+ personal logged dives, 25 years of teaching ,1000+ training dives.
I started U/W photgraphy first with video, but as of spring this year. now I am into digital stills.
Put a camera into a diver's hands and he becomes a clutz.
I was a bad buddy, lost my partner a number of times, buoyancy control was all shot, I became my own worst enemy stiring up the silt.

Mike D

 

[Mustangfreak]

You are probably not going to like what I have to say...but...get more dives under your belt before you take a camera underwater! You will have enough tasking without it. You need to be very comfortable in the water and your buoyancy needs to be spot-on. I would even recommend getting your AOW before diving with your camera.

Get to where you can add / dump air from your BC, clear your mask, etc. without even thinking about it. If you take a camera down, it takes alot of concentration and could lead to disaster if your diving skills aren't up to par.

If your buoyancy isn't perfect, you will be crashing into the reef while trying to take a picture....and that is not good!!! Our reefs have enough problems without an inexperienced diver / photographer crashing in to them.

Dave

I completely understand and agree. I will go on some more dives before taking pictures. I'm already super aware of where my fins and equip. are when I'm underwater. There are so many beautifull corals and fish here in Okinawa:14: Plus I'm also super paranoid about bumping into all these baby sea snakes that are with their parents around, or stone fish!:11doh:

I just got the itch as a photographer to take my photography experience to new "depths" haha.

 

[SadiesMom]

In addition to buoyancy issues in U/W photography, one thing you should become aware of is that U/W photographers are *notoriously* bad buddies. Most of us are well aware of that fact and make sure we make our buddies well aware of it. Even those of us who have good buoyancy and are polite (i.e. don't elbow other divers out of the way to get a shot of a cool critter) generally make terrible buddies.

We either a) spend Gawdawful lengths of time at one anemone trying to get "just the right" photo of it and bore our non-photographer buddies to death while waiting for us to finish shooting; b) focus our entire attention through our camera lenses so that we wouldn't notice a whaleshark swimming up next to us unless it whacked us with a fin (think I'm kidding? I haven't missed a whale shark, but I *have* missed a shark... ; or c) stop dead to shoot a picture and totally miss the fact that our buddy, who we neglected to inform that we were stopping, has lost us.

U/W photography is also a GREAT way to lose any disposable income you had left after you started diving - you may *think* you have a nice camera now, but in a couple of years, you'll be upgrading, getting multiple strobes, lenses, ports, etc. U/W photography is the crack of diving.

Don't start trying to take photos U/W until you're *really* comfortable diving - it's serious task loading and more than one U/W photographer has run low or out of air forgetting to look as his/her gauges while trying to "get the shot." Personally, I try to make it a habit that after *every* shot, I check my gauges, and look for my buddy. I also make sure I warn my buddy prior to getting in the water with them that if I have my camera, I *will* suck as a buddy and that they'll need to keep an eye on me so as not to lose me. For the most part, I haven't had any problem with that, as that means they get to see cool stuff, since I'm spotting cool little critters and pointing them out to my buddy . (Well, people do keep coming back to buddy with me again, so I guess that's a good sign ).

Have a great time getting used to diving and then getting your rig set up. Enjoy!

 

[Mustangfreak]

In addition to buoyancy issues in U/W photography, one thing you should become aware of is that U/W photographers are *notoriously* bad buddies. Most of us are well aware of that fact and make sure we make our buddies well aware of it. Even those of us who have good buoyancy and are polite (i.e. don't elbow other divers out of the way to get a shot of a cool critter) generally make terrible buddies.

We either a) spend Gawdawful lengths of time at one anemone trying to get "just the right" photo of it and bore our non-photographer buddies to death while waiting for us to finish shooting; b) focus our entire attention through our camera lenses so that we wouldn't notice a whaleshark swimming up next to us unless it whacked us with a fin (think I'm kidding? I haven't missed a whale shark, but I *have* missed a shark... ; or c) stop dead to shoot a picture and totally miss the fact that our buddy, who we neglected to inform that we were stopping, has lost us.

U/W photography is also a GREAT way to lose any disposable income you had left after you started diving - you may *think* you have a nice camera now, but in a couple of years, you'll be upgrading, getting multiple strobes, lenses, ports, etc. U/W photography is the crack of diving.

Don't start trying to take photos U/W until you're *really* comfortable diving - it's serious task loading and more than one U/W photographer has run low or out of air forgetting to look as his/her gauges while trying to "get the shot." Personally, I try to make it a habit that after *every* shot, I check my gauges, and look for my buddy. I also make sure I warn my buddy prior to getting in the water with them that if I have my camera, I *will* suck as a buddy and that they'll need to keep an eye on me so as not to lose me. For the most part, I haven't had any problem with that, as that means they get to see cool stuff, since I'm spotting cool little critters and pointing them out to my buddy . (Well, people do keep coming back to buddy with me again, so I guess that's a good sign ).

Have a great time getting used to diving and then getting your rig set up. Enjoy!

Word, but the guy I always dive with, said that I can take as much time taking pics, as he doesnt mind staying in one spot for a while. Heck, on our last dive we stayed in one spot the whole time just to practice bouyency and calming our breathing.