GregWilliams

Hi, I've got a 5D, but this question is relevent to any SLR user who regularly puts their camera in and out a housing. When using my camera above water, I always like to use the neck strap on my camera. When putting the camera in the housing clearly the neck strap has to come off. When I go on holiday I'm going to be putting the camera in and out of the housing everyday, and don't really want to have to keep attaching and detaching the standard Canon strap as it's a little fiddly and takes time to do. After all, it's not been designed for frequent attachment/detachment. Has anyone found a better strap mechanism allowing for quick attachement to and from the camera? Thanks, Greg

Yeah, I've read that. But past experience of me trying to get closer to fish / rays / sharks ends up with them swimming away faster than I'm approaching them :-) Thanks for the advice though, the 17-40 should also fit in my port, so I can give that a go. Do people think I'll need a +4 diopter on that lens too?

Ok, I'll order the diopter. I'm aware the lens doesn't do the body full justice, but I can only buy one thing at a time, and I thought given the housing locks you into one particular body, it'll be more worthwhile to push the boat out a little on the body first, and I can buy better lenses later. I'd love to swap it for the 24-105, and maybe I will later in the year! I also have a 17-40L, but I thought the 24-85 would give me a better zoom coverage. Perhaps you disagree on that choice (if so, don't be too hard on me - I am new to this field of photography!)? Perhaps the 17-40 will also work in the same port and I can try that sometime... Greg

What the "Magic" filter? Nice pics. Greg

The closest it can focus (above water) seems to be around the 0.5m mark. Is it definitely the diopter and not being caused by not having a "spotlight"? Do other people shoot with just the DS-50 strobe (and no spotlight) ok?

I took my new underwater setup (Canon EOS 5D, Ikelite Housing, 24-85 lens, dome port, DS50 strobe) diving for the first time the other day in a swimming pool with my local dive club. The good news is it didn't flood :-) The bad news was the camera had a *really* hard time focusing underwater. I'd hooked up the gear on the housing to control the zoom-ring on the lens, and was relying on the camera to autofocus. In one-shot AF mode, the camera doesn't let you take a picture until the subject is in focus. Above water with the camera in the housing this works fine. Underwater, when asking the camera to focus, it just couldn't manage it. I was mostly trying to focus on other divers approx 2 metres away. Because it wasn't able to focus, it wouldn't take any photos. If I took it out of One-shot focus mode and put it in AI Servo, then it still tried to autofocus, but it let me take a photo as soon as I fully depress the shutter. This worked underwater (shots were taken, stobe fired etc.), however they were still of course all completely out of focus! My question is, what is wrong with my setup that meant the camera couldn't autofocus underwater? After looking around on the net, and from my own guesswork, it could be any of the following: - I need a +4 diopter filter on my lens - I need a "spotlight" (permanently on light) shining on the subject to illuminate it whilst the camera is trying to focus. My DS50 does not have a spotlight on it. - I need a wider lens (24-85 widest aperature is 3.5). - Autofocus isn't going to work and I need to put the housing's gear on the focus ring rather than the zoom ring and manual focus before taking photo. I really hope I don't have to resort to manual focus, because that's tricky enough to do well above water, let alone under! Also I'd lose the use of the zoom ring. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.