New body, more glass or U/W housing??

[lukey_t123 0]

Hi!

New member / 1st post!

Recently come back from 2 months in Bali and want to get into U/W photography... Both diving & surf... just recreationally to begin with but with the aim to make a little bit on the side eventually!

Currently own:
- Canon 70D
- Tokina 11-16 f2.8
- Canon 50mm f1.4

Unsure on best route to take, new body, more glass or u/w housing?? Obviously I'll need a housing if i want to get in the water but i'm not sure if i should hold off getting a housing until I have a full frame as the housing is such an investment in itself... Also wondering if there are any good housings that could double up for surf & diving photography - removable pistol grip etc? Open to good quality second hand gear!

I don't have money to burn, but like to buy the best that I can afford, just putting the feelers out for now so i've got a good idea on which way i'm going to go when I can afford to!

I will be shooting a mixture of both stills and video to begin with, see how it goes, start with wide angle and eventually step down to macro!

The toss up i'm having is that I would like a full frame for better perfomance in lower light and it is eventually the step I want to take anyway, but on the other hand the 70D is great for sports photography / quick autofocus etc...

All advice appreciated at this stage as i am a newbie really and it's a whole new world to me!!

Look forward to hearing from y'all ! TIA

[Barmaglot 250]

A few points:

 

• Underwater, full frame is often more trouble than it's worth. The light-gathering advantage doesn't come into play much because most of the time, you're shooting stopped-down with strobes, and the thin depth of field doesn't play well with dome ports, requiring huge, heavy, unwieldy and expensive domes. Likewise for macro - in most situations, you want as deep a DoF as you can get, which does not exactly play into full-frame's strengths.
• Surf housings and dive housings are generally two separate markets. Surf housings with pistol grips tend to be built as lightly as possible so that you can hold them out of water for extended periods, but this restricts them to very shallow depths, as the light construction isn't so good at resisting water pressure. Conversely, dive housings tend to be much heavier than surf ones, so the manufacturers generally don't bother fitting them with surf-specific features. One exception is Meikon/SeaFrogs, who have a line of housings for Sony A6xxx and A7/A9 series (and an RX100 M3 through M6 model coming soon) that can take an optional pistol grip with trigger, but as can be expected, they're heavier than competing surf-specific offerings - my A6xxx model is about 1.4kg with just a basic flat port and no camera inside; approaching 3kg with camera, lens and dome.
• If you're serious about underwater photography, a good pair of strobes is a much better investment than just about any camera or lens. A cheap P&S with strobes will easily outperform the best DSLR that has to shoot in ambient light at 20-30 meters.
• Shooting stills and video in the same dive is a difficult proposition - not only do they require different gear (strobes for stills, constant lights for video), but more importantly, it's a whole different mindset when it comes to finding and framing your shots. Most people concentrate on one of the other.

[trimix125 73]

Hi,
as long as your surf pics are no super wide shots,i would stay with DX and that helps you later with macros.
But as said before, between dive and surf housings, there is a big difference.
So make clear what you want, or buy both.
Regards,

Wolfgang

[ChrisRoss 150]

Just because you own a camera that you like to use topside doesn't mean its the best choice to house. For example if you go with Nauticam housings you can buy a m43 camera, lens and the housing and have change for a port for the price of just the housing for an APS-C DSLR housing. Dome size also trends with sensor size with rectilinear wide angle lenses. for 16mm equivalent you would be looking at a 230mm dome for full frame and still have slightly soft corners at f11-16, while you can use a 170mm dome with a 7-14mm lens on a m43 camera. Fisheye lenses is about the same dome size for all formats.

 

High ISO capability is not so useful UW except for a few select things like deep dives at dawn for thresher sharks, yo can also use wider apertures with smaller formats reducing the need for high ISO and levelling the playing field a little. The fact that you use strbes to bring out the colours UW also ean you are generally shooting at or near base ISO for that type of work.

 

You could probably use one of the m43 housings with a hand strap for surf stuff, but probably not ideal. You would not want to be using a 230mm dome on a DSLR housing in heavy swells.

[rfkissling3 1]

A housed 70D will take you far. Agree with the poster that recommended investing in strobes. Good light will take you much further than the subtle and often overstated differences between cameras.