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I recently had the opportunity to travel to Fiji for some liveaboard and land based diving over a 9 day period. This system was put to test for 26 dives during this time. I have many years of housed Canon SLR experience but this was to be my first underwater digital experience. I had the camera for about four months before this dive trip and had become familiar with its features.

Equipment:

THE UK 10D HOUSING

Pros:

• Very solidly built.
• Reasonable size and not unduly heavy. (Length 210 mm, height 200 mm, depth 115 mm. Weight: approx. 2700 g without port)
• Access is provided to all controls required. (The only control that is not accessible is the assist button which you really wont miss underwater. Note that you also have access to the LCD panel illumination button which is great for night diving).
• Well balanced and easy to handle underwater with any ports attached.
• Easy to open and close housing and change ports.
• Can remove compact flash card without taking camera out of housing. (to change battery you do have to remove the camera)
• Appears to be extremely durable and easy to maintain.
• One hand access to shutter and * button possible.

One hand access to shutter and * button possible.

Cons:

• Arrived with no instructions.
• A bit fiddly to put together – lining up and installing zoom gears requires quite a bit of trial an error.
• The mounting thumbscrew that holds the camera to the housing base is tough to line up. I eventually enlarged the hole slightly allowing easier installation. (just don't loose it now as it can fall out when camera not attached)
• The housing mode control dial and the main dial control button required a bit of adjustment to make solid contact with camera controls.
• The viewfinder image is unenlarged. This is not a problem if you are used to this but if you have been spoilt before it will take some getting used to viewing it underwater.
• The included right hand grip is in a slightly awkward place as you often need to wrap your hand around the camera to operate the various controls.
• The mounting holes on the housing for bases, arms and focusing lights were not particularly user friendly for my Sea and Sea and Ultralight arms but I did manage to put it together. I managed to secure a lock-line base adapter to the right hand grip which allowed me to connect a Sea and Sea bendy arm for a second strobe for macro photography.
• The supplied port caps are flimsy plastic ones that you might as well throw away. So be prepared to make some. My Sea and Sea CX603 dome port cover worked just fine for the UK dome port.
• The labeling of the controls isn't very good – a mixture of English and German. However if you know the camera well this is not a problem.
• The zoom control lever is on the right hand side. This was a bit awkward at first as I have always used my left hand for this function.
• There is no leak detector included although it may be available as an optional extra.

INSTALLATION NOTES

Remember to slide the 10D viewfinder rubber cap off before installing camera into housing. When installing the housing strobe connector to the camera housing make sure to push it in all the way. (I made this mistake on two occasions and ended up with no flash.) Always remember to make sure the camera battery is OK and you have enough space on your CF card before the dive!

The housing and ports have yellow dots that line up when properly installed. You cannot detach the port in the full anticlockwise position where you would expect it. When you disconnect a port from the housing turn the port anticlockwise as far as it will go and then turn it back clockwise about 1cm at which point you can detach it.

OTHER HOUSING INFO:

• You can have N5 Nikonos or S6 (for housed Canon land strobes) strobe bulkheads installed or even one of each.
• UK Germany website: http://www.uk-germany.com/

10D CAMERA SETTINGS FOR UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY
[note: these are suggestions by the author only. you should experiment with what works for you! -editor]

• Set the viewfinder dioptric adjustment for your vision
• Make sure the quick control dial on/off switch is always on
• Menu settings: My suggestions
  • Quality – RAW is an essential tool for underwater photography in my opinion
  • Red-eye – off
  • AEB – default
  • WB-BKT – default
  • Beep – off
  • Colour temp – default
  • Parameters – Standard (non functioning in RAW mode)
  • ISO expansion – On (might as well?)
  • Auto power off – 8 minutes works well
  • Review – On (Info) This setting is CRUCIAL! It allows you to see the histogram which is a must to confirm correct strobe exposures
  • Review time – hold. This ensures enough time to view the image and histogram. It disappears as soon as the shutter is touched again.
  • Auto rotate – on. Saves a lot of sorting out at a later stage
  • LCD brightness – the second lowest level appears to be fine underwater
  • Date/Time – don't forget to set when you are away from home
    File numbering – continuous
  • Custom Functions – changes from defaults:
    • 02 - #1 Shutter release not possible without CF card – in case you forget!
    • 04
      • #0 (default) normally
      • #1 for night or dedicated macro photography where manual focus may be required.
      • In this mode the auto focus works on the * button. So you get your required focusing distance and then you can move the camera to the exact point before taking the shot (depressing the shutter doesn't cause the camera to refocus). If you want pure manual focus you can of course always set your lens on MF, but you will require a focus ring for the specific lens.
    • 05 - #2 only ext flash emits/fires
    • 08 – Setting for accompanying JPEG size in RAW mode: Your choice but I don't see much use for the JPEGs so I stick with #0
  • Autofocus mode – Al Focus
  • White balance – AWB (not an issue with RAW)
  • Drive mode – single frame
  • ISO – I set 200 as my standard. From here I can go one stop down or two up (ISO 800) as required.
  • Metering mode – Evaluative metering
  • Mode Dial
    • AV (aperture priority) for wide angle or ambient light exposure
    • M (Manual mode) – for close-ups and macro
  • Focus point selector – The center point works best for me – simply focus on the center point, recompose, and shoot
  • Exposure compensation. This is very important for getting blue water. After lots of experimentation I found that -2 is pretty much what you require. At this setting you can almost shoot directly up into the sun. I got into the habit of leaving the camera at -2 exposure compensation and only changed it for really dark situations.

STROBE EXPOSURE

This was the area that caused me the greatest concern beforehand. I was not sure that I was going to be able to master manual strobe exposures. Over the years I had become so accustomed to the luxury of TTL exposure. This experience taught me three things – it is easy, there is quite a wide acceptable latitude and you must trust your histogram.

My plan was to keep things simple for the learning process. I decided to keep the f stops constant at first so that I could find the right strobe to subject distance for a given f stop.

For wide angle exposure I used my Sea and Sea YS 120 with Ultralight arms at full power with the diffuser on. I started off at ISO 200 and set the f stop at 8 in the AV mode. This gave me shutter speeds of 1/180 to 1/30 sec – all acceptable. Remember the exposure compensation of -2 as mentioned earlier. At these settings I was almost immediately in the right ball park for most situations where we are typically in the 2 to 5 foot strobe to subject range. If the histogram is too far to the left the options are to move the strobe closer, up the ISO to 400 or 800, or select a larger aperture. Conversely if the histogram is too far to the right you can move the strobe back, set ISO to 100, change strobe power to ½ or select a smaller aperture. With this approach it was almost as easy as point and shoot by the third day!

For macro (50mm and 100mm lenses) I used manual exposure mode with a shutter speed of 180 and initial f stop of 22. I used Sea and Sea lock line arms for my strobes. The main strobe was the Sea and Sea YS 90 Auto strobe which has f stop settings from 2.0 to 22 which you match with your camera f stop. The second strobe was a YS 90 Duo in manual setting at ½ power with diffuser on (the idea being to merely fill in harsh shadows but having minimal overall effect on exposure so as not to complicate things) This was once again very reliable and even at f 32 I could get adequate strobe exposure. Once again a glance at the histogram would immediately tell you if your exposure was OK.

For close-ups and mid range reef creatures with a 50mm or 28-90mm zoom I had a similar setup with the mentioned strobes and started at f11 and soon managed to get strobe exposure correct.

RESULTS:

I have returned with hundreds of keepers and overall I am extremely pleased with the system. The image quality with this camera is extremely high. I did shoot one roll of Fuji Provia with my Canon Rebel 2000 and have scanned a few of the best slides with my Polaroid film scanner at 4000 dpi. When comparing 17 X 11 inch prints from this method with those produced from the 10D, the 10D seems to have the edge in quality, and it is a whole lot simpler of course. This, and the advantages of digital media over slide film in cost and number of possible exposures, will make me a primarily digital shooter in future.

CONCLUSION

A rugged housing with great functionality for underwater photography. Initial teething problems were minor and the adjustment for me as a SLR housing slide shooter was not complicated. I believe the camera with its excellent resolution, superb digital colour rendition and near zero noise up to ISO 800 has great potential for underwater photography. The housing by UK does a great job in enabling this transition.

GALLERY

System components

Housing from above

Back view

Housing with flat port and extension

With dome port and hand grip removed

With hand grip. Note lock line.

Housing open

One-handed access to shutter and * button

Anemones

Beehive coral

Blue Christmastree worm

Blue Ribbon Eel

Cat`s Meow

Diver and lettuce corals

Exploring the reef at Wakaya

Hingebeak Shrimp

Julie, from Aquacadabra

Nudibranch

Purple Coral Gobies

Reef scene

Regal Angelfish

Schooling Anthias

Soft coral at night

Turtle