andy_g

I dont know about the small port but it does work very well in the larger fisheye port

Thanks to everyone who gave mee feedback when I was looking to buy a housing for my 7D. I eventually went with the following set-up: 7D + 15-85 + 100mm macro + 10-17mm Tokina Hugyfot housing, with acrylic dome, macro port and 50mm extension ring Single Inon z240 with B&H fantasea arms and fibreoptic connection This gave me the ability to use the 10-17 or 15-85 in the dome and the 100mm behind the flat glass and the strobe could be placed anywhere thanks to the triple section arm. Andy at Divelife placed the order for me and even managed to shave a bit off the price by amending the order to require less items to achieve the same set-up. Service was great - if you are listenning thanks Andy :-) When I received it the dome looked like it was scratched - but this turned out to be some residue from the neoprene cover and came off on the first dive. Hugy also send the wrong hotshoe mount which had me scratching my head when I did the first test as I couldn't get the strobe to fire at all. This was, of course, as the hotshoe mount had triggered the reed switch to say an external strobe was on so don't fire the internal one!). They have since replaced this with the correct one FOC and the wrong one was still useable (albeit not mounted propoerly on the hotshoe). Overall impression of the system is very good. The housing is small and very well balanced underwater (I don't seem to need floats on the arms) with a slight tendancy to float dome up (no bad thing with rocks around!). All controls are accessible (except for the flash pop up button - but you can force the flash to pop up by covering the lens and setting the camera to noddy auto mode) and you can see the viewfinder, main screen and small top screen to see the settings etc. I do find it hard to see all the viewfinder information so the top screen was more useful than I thought it would be. The Hugycheck system of vacuuming the housing proved invaluable as one of the screws had come a bit loose on one dive but the vacuum kept it all held together with no leaks until well back on the boat. I also discovered that you don't actually need the vacuum pump as it is perfectly possible to suck through the oneway valve in reduce the pressure sufficiently (useful when I left the pump in the bedroom one day!). Before I went I thought I would need to use the custom setting a lot to make life easy but in reality I found it was best to set the camera on Manual and fiddle as I went. The other thing that suprised me was the quality of the 15-85 lens. I really didn't expect this to be a great choice and had taken it as a back-up but in the end I found that the 100mm could be hard to hold still in a swell (no IS) and with a +4 dioptre on the 15-85 I could get better fish shots with this lens through the dome - although true macro was better with the 100mm. This actually made the 15-85 the go to lens if I didn't know what I would see as the Tok was too wide for fish shots as I often couldn't get close enough. Focusing seemed very fast and accurate in all conditions with all lenses and I was able to get shots of jacks swimming past very fast that I would not have been able to get with my compact camera. TTL via fibreoptic worked very well generally (even with silver scaled fish) but if you squash the cable as I did then TTL no longer works as the light is not transmitted properly (so I had to cut an inch off the end to correct the issue). Mistakes I made: when I shot in portrait close to the surface I often got flare - need to make a neoprene ring to prevent this as the lens shield only really covers top and bottom same flare issue if I moved the strobe in front of the axis of the camera when it was out to the side of the housing 15-85 zoom ring is a bit too loose and after a a few zooms tended to fall off - need to find a way of holding it in place better be careful where the optical cable emerges from teh housing - it is easy to squash it with a strobe arm always remember to tighten the screws holding the housing together, then vacuum, then tighten again to ensure not loose! Overall though I am very happy but would like some constructive criticism of my shots ... Here is one and there are some more in my gallery - not sure how to put the right link here but I'm sure someone can do it! Please feel free to comment appropriately :-) Cheers

I think only when you are in a rush and want to freeze the action with a given depth of field and let the ISO compensate. Clearly for macro when the buggers wont run away you hav time to set it all up. I guess it may be useful for pelagic shots though if you haven't had a chance to set up first.

I was mis-remembering slightly .. if you use Auto ISO if defaults to 400 as soon as the flash pops up or it detects an external strobe. Strange but true. If you use manual ISO then you can use what-ever you like

Guys Any recommendations on whether to use the C1-C3 custom settings on the 7D for underwater shooting? I was thinking along the lines of: C1 - Macro : Av , flash on (forcing iso400?) , AWB or FWB C2 - Wide Angle : Tv or M , flash disabled, Manual WB C3 - Video : as w/a but with ISO fixed at a suitable multiple of 160 I guess the main issue if the flash - using the fibreotic cables I trigger from teh internal strobe so am fixed on iso 400 I think. btw - does anyone know how to force the internal strobe to fire if you have something connected via the hotshoe? Cheers Andy

Sounds sensible - and I assume that if I am running them on manual low power via optic this would work just as well with my existing D180s or DS150a strobes so a Z240 for TTL and using one of these as the fill in and manual partner may be a good option.

Can you advise on how you do this? Is it using the internal strobe via fibre to trigger but then just setting the Z240 to a manual setting or triggering via cable and hotshoe?

Cheers Steve The wired port (with TTL converter) will set me back an additional ~ £350 but then I need to know whether to go with a 5 or 6 pin connector ... (I agree natural light seems to work best with big critters but I always seem to need good TTL control for decent macro.

Thanks Tristan What are the advantages of the Nauticam over the Hugy?

but if I go wired I would need a ttl converter or do it all manually I guess ... there again I gather many people do just fire the flash on full and use the camera to chose the exposure to compensate. can always add the wires later though I guess.

Thanks for the advice guys - looks like the Z240 as a strobe with the optical bulkhead. As for the lens - the tokina 10-17 seems to be ~£400 and will work with the standard dome on the Hugy as a very compact package. Alternatives would be the Canon 10-22 or the Sigma 8-16 (both ~£550) but I guess these are rectliner and dont give the same effect as the tokina underwater. I have to say i'm tempted - although reviews seem to imply that I would then need two strobes as well and also need to get very close to use it to best effect. Will I (or in fact do I want to) get close enough to the sharks in galapagos to enjoy it?

Hi Guys Looking at taking my 7D u/w on a trip to Galapagos following many years of playing with compacts. Having looked around it seems that the hugyfot is a neat housing (access to all controls, light, and I like the hugycheck system) but the main question is lenses etc. I have 15-85, 100 macro and 100-400L and believe I can use both the first two uw although I may need a +4 dioptre for the 15-85. The Hugy will come with a dome and flat port with extensions to fit both lenses but the questions are still many : is the housing a good choice? do I really need the +4 and if so which of the many makes (Hoya, B&W, fox, kood, massa, zeikos, neewer etc)? will the 15-85 be a reasonable general purpose lens? I'm used to using a fuji f31fd with 0.5x but I assume that a 15mm w/a behind a dome will be similar field of view overall? should I get a 'real' w/a as well which could be used in the same dome (eg Tokina 10-17 or Canon 10-22)? what is the best way of controling TTL strobe (TTL converter to use with cable and YS60, optical with my inon D180s or epoque DS150a, or new Z240 etc) does anyone use optical ttl with the 7D ? do people have favourite settings for UW use using C1-3 or do you always run it mannually? Thanks in advance Andy