I am taking the Subal ND700 to the Red Sea on Friday. It is pictured here alongside my F100 housing - with which it shares remarkably similar dimensions.

Click to view attachment

I am going to be doing a review for Wetpixel - so if anyone has any specific interests or features that they would like investigating, let me know.

I don't think I will be taking either of the domes you can see here. Luggage allowances are very tight.

Alex

Hi Alex,

I think the probability is very low, but anyway like you have both housings in your hands, can you check the possibility to fit the D700 in the N10 housing.
If they have similar dimensions like you said, the back door of the ND700 fit in the N10?

Thanks in advance for your information and have a nice trip to Red Sea.

Best regards,
Tigershark

Unfortunately not. The F100 is a narrower camera, front to back than the D700. So I don't see any way to get the D700 into a F100 housing. Just not enough depth in the housing.

Alex

Just for interest, here are the full set of ND700 (D700) vs N10 (F100) photos. I was curious to post the two side by side because I find the D700 so reminiscent of the F100.



Images scaled by eye - so not exactly comparable.

Alex

Alex,

Will this be your first time using the 45 degree finder?

Cheers
James

Trying to decide whether to use it.

What are you going to use for wide angle? Going to try the new Subal superdome? The 14-24??

Sorry Dave, no.

I remain unconvinced about the 14-24mm. I don't see that a the extra 10 degrees of coverage relative to the 17-35mm (114˚ versus 104˚) would be worth not being able to use a dioptre for the sake of those corners.

I'm only taking that 17-35mm for the oceanics anyway. All the other wide angle is fisheye in the Red Sea. And from looking at the subal super dome I would not expect it to improve on fisheye performance over their 8" FE dome.

And the Super-dome would take up my entire luggage allowance in one go!

Alex

edited as i should have check in earlier in the week.

Just finished my Red Sea workshop and really loved shooting the D700. Its gonna be hard to give it back.

Here is a photo from my first dive of the week. Taken with the D700 and 17-35mm. Subal and 45 degree finder. Lens @ 25mm 1/100 @ F13. I have tried to leave the EXIF intact.
Click to view attachment

Anyway, much more to come. Better get back to the boat, we still have to do our end of week slide show.

Alex

Can't wait to hear more; I am sooooo close to ordering a housing!

How does it compare with the D200 and D300?

Have you a larger version of the image? The edges look very good, but a blow-up would be nice (idle speculation, though, as I'm stuck with an APS size sensor for the foreseeable future).

How do you find the one ray that hasn't been grubbing in the sand, by the way?

Tim



PS That looks suspiciously like Andy Davies is planning an upgrade...

Yeah ... me too ... I'm considering selling the G9 rig to get an Ikelite housing for the D700.

I'll never truly have a prayer of getting a good UW HDR until I do ...

Alex - have you done much shooting with the FF sensor and the Magic Filters yet?

Hi Guys,

I wrote most of the review on the plane last night, so should have answers soon. Regarding the corner sharpness with the 17-35mm, I did a series of tests shooting the same subjects at a range of apertures.

Alex

Full review now on the Front Page.



Alex

Uncommon photo of a common subject Alex. Beautiful.

Alex,

How do you rate the 17-35mm with the Subal D700 combination against the Nikon 12-24 on a cropped sensor?

I'm intending to switch to the D700 as I have long wished for the advantages of the bright full frame viewfinder that I got with film. Although I have had 3 Subal housings I am not certain that I will use the ND700. I like the idea of fibre linked strobes driven off the pop-up flash (like Nexus and others). Only wish Subal would adopt this. Any thoughts?

Richard

That is a difficult question. Neither is 100% perfect, but if you get both set up correctly, both will give entirely acceptable results. A lot of people don't get them set up correctly. I don't think I have reached the optimum on the D700 with the 17-35mm, but if and when I buy a camera, I will experiment in detail and share my findings.

I also think that the pop-up flash/optical TTL option on the Subal D700 would be useful. I should have mentioned the lack of it in my review. The downside of it is that it limits you to using Japanese strobes which all have colour temperatures above 5400K.

Alex

That is my view too. It doesn't help that the port configuration given by SUBAL for the 12-24 puts the lens in the wrong position relative to the centre of curvature of the port (too far back).

Richard

Alex - Have you had a chance to experiment with 14-24 on any full frame camera/housing combination yet? I've seen a few posts with images but nothing from a controlled, scientific perspective meant to test corner performance and comparative angle of view.

The comparison of optimal achievable image quality from 14-24 vs. 17-35 (both on full frame) vs. 12-24 (on cropped sensor) would be very enlightening, especially with a Tokina 10-17 thrown in there on cropped sensor just to demonstrate yet another option.

I'd do the test but I shoot Canon, and therefore don't have any of the necessary cameras and lenses and housings. Is there some Nikon shooter out there willing to take on the task?

Hi Steve,

No, I have not tried the 14-24mm underwater. And I agree it would be great to see some back to back testing of the three options you suggest.

For me it will have to wait until I own a full frame camera - as I don't even feel I have an optimal setup for the 17-35mm yet - and when I get my mitts on kit for review there isn't the time to really experiment.

So I suspect someone will beat me to doing it, and I hope that they will be generous enough to share the results.

I have two moe trips left this year and I might shoot full frame on the second one. If I do I might try and borrow a 14-24mm (they did offer).

Alex

I remember Ryan the Lion did write something about the Subal 10" dome and corners?