New "toys"

I'm excited to share with you my most recent addition to my equipment bag: an underwater housing set-up! I haven't taken it the drink yet, but can't wait to try it! Those who know me, know how thorough of a shopper I am, and the housing purchase was under no less scrutiny. Thanks to my friends and family for being patient and great sounding boards! Features, price, accessibility, and other options were all considered sensibly. I literally have spent months weighing my options carefully and recently came to a conclusion...



Haha! No, that's not it! That's my old housing for my Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot. It was on a recent honeymoon shoot with that gear that I really fell in love with underwater photography.

Here's a very brief theory and review that I hope will help some of you other topside photographers in making a housing choice. In years past, I would buy an underwater film-based disposable camera, and that was cool, but pretty limiting. The Panasonic FX-30 I have did a great job for its cost and size... it was the world's smallest 28mm point-and-shoot and about $350 when it was new, plus about another $300 for the housing. Being used to a professional-level camera topside, I quickly became annoyed with the limitations and shutter lag of the point-and-shoot underwater, despite it being way better than a disposable. When I decided I wanted to house a dslr, I had a lot of options. Housings for my D3 however cost about $7000-8000, not including a lens port (which you need to house the lens). Also, in the unlikely event of a housing flood, I didn't want to drown a five thousand dollar camera. So, I bought a D300 and decided on a Sea & Sea MDX-D300 housing. The housing was not cheap, but is a very good value when you consider its superior engineering, build materials, and quality craftsmanship. Unlike its polycarbonate counterparts, the MDX-D300 is machined out of a solid block of aluminum. I also considered Subal, Aquatica, Ikelite, and Seatool. Backscatter has good resources, as do many of the underwater photography forums, like Wetpixel.





There are two basic types of underwater photography, I've learned: macro and wide angle. Telephoto lenses are impractical due to the inherent characteristics of shooting in water and the intense fall-off of light. For my first trip with the new gear (another honeymoon shoot coming up at the end of this month in St. Thomas), I decided to start with wide angle. I chose this primarily because of my subjects... in this case, a recently-married couple. For this, I bought a 9.5" dome port to house my 12-24mm lens and my 10.5mm fisheye. So, I hope to test it out not only recreationally, but also with my clients. They're both swimmers, so I'm sure they'll be very comfortable in the water.

Here is the port attached to the housing, next to the 10.5mm for scale. It's gonna make packing interesting!


For light, I opted for the Sea & Sea YS-250, considered the flagship of their strobe line, it should do nicely. It's kinda big too... here it is compared to my Nikon SB-900 and the SB-800.





Here's the set-up:


And the housing alone, compared to the D300 and the D3 for scale:


So, even though I'll be quite out of my element with this gear underwater, I have a great enthusiasm for it and am very excited to try it out soon!! I'll be sure to post photos as soon as I have them ready!