Underwater Photography lens?

Audrey_D

Audrey_D

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Audrey
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Hey guys!

Hope you are all well... and a happy new year to you! :)

I am posting on behalf of a friend. He is looking at purchasing a Canon 60D and has asked my advice on what lens to get with it for underwater photography (corals/fish etc).

I was thinking a tamron 17-50mm f2.8 as he doesnt want to spend a fortune :shrug:

Any feedback on lenses or other equipment needed would be a great help. Ideally he would like a lens he can combine for landscapes but I have warned him this is an expensive hobby :bonk:

Audrey :) x
 
What underwater housing does he plan to use? A zoom lens wouldn't necessarily be a good idea, depending on the housing.
 
Audrey_D said:
I was thinking a tamron 17-50mm f2.8 as he doesnt want to spend a fortune :shrug:
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Pretty much useless for underwater and unlikely to fit in many housings.

Firstly is it underwater macro or wide angle? The 2 are completely different fields needing different ports and so on.

Underwater distance to subject is everything as the water absorbs light and colour massively. There is no red light below about 5m for example. Even the most powerful strobe is going to fail to do anything with a subject distance over about 1.5m.

So far that reason generally you need a lens as wide as possible. I use a Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5) and its very common. Nearly all my photos are shot at 10mm as you really do have to be that close to get decent colour even with a big strobe.
Some people use the sigma or other lenses but certainly 10-20mm range is where you need to be. Aperture isn't really an issue due to the air-water properties and subject distance.
A lot depends on the housing as well - some lenses (such as sigma) wont fit on the zoom gear in an ikelite housing for example. Some need dioptres to improve corner sharpness.

A 17-50 lens will put the subject too far from the camera to get any sort of good light and colour and its too "wide" for a macro setup. Non-starter really. Also the new USM version is too thick in size to fit into any housing i know of. You need to see what lenses fit into what housings rather than buy a lens and find it wont actually fit into any housing.

A 10-22 or similar will work perfectly for landscapes as well (i use it for both).

As well as that he'll most likely need a strobe - good ones come in at £800 or so. Eventually 2 or 3.

Underwater photography isn't cheap. Quite often the body and glass are the cheapest part of the setup. A cheap housing alone will cost about £1500, then add strobes and so on don't expect change out of £3000.

My setup is 10-22mm for reef/coral/diver shots and Canon 60mm f/2.8 for macro shots (ie really small shrimp and so on).

Macro is pretty much impossible without a powerful strobe whereas wide angle IF you keep it shallow (less than 10m or so) and in tropical clear waters you can get away with it for a while before getting frustrated.

I got the lens first, used it on land for a while before deciding which housing setup to go for and spending the money. Need to choose from Ikelite (cheapest but bulky) through to the more compact and pricey Nauticams, Subals etc.

Edit:- Dont think this is against board policy, i have no connection with the company but a link to get ideas about housings, equipment needed etc:

http://www.camerasunderwater.co.uk/slrindex
 
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Ditto what Richard said, he hit the nail on the head.
 
Audrey_D said:
I was thinking a tamron 17-50mm f2.8 as he doesnt want to spend a fortune :shrug:
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underwater photography not spending a fortune are normally mutually exclusive. As above I'd go wider for underwater, but the majority of his cost will be housing and ports
 
Most people use a minimum of a 2 lens setup. A wide angle and a macro. With the macro the default lens is the 60mm, but if he's shooting primarily in clear tropical water, a 100mm might be an option to consider.

The main features for the wide angle lens is close focussing ability and intended subject matter. The tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom is massively popular underwater but requires perfect buoyancy due to the short working distances employed and is great for mantas bigger sharks and seascapes. It also takes the kenko 1.4x converter for close focus wide angle shots which ate spectacular when done right.

If the tokina is a bit extreme then the canon 10-22 is the one to go for.

Some people use the sigma 17-70 as an all rounder but it's really should be considered a jack of all trades, master of none.

Either way he goes, perfect buoyancy is way more important than camera skills.
 
Problem with fisheye is really you aren't going to be able to use it on land. Its a great lens for diver/reef shots but for wrecks you get some odd effects and on land it just looks strange.

Id say go for rectilinear as at least then you have a surface use too so a bit more justification on the spend.

Edit:- What i forgot to mention was if he doesnt want to spend £3k on underwater stuff for his SLR it might be far more beneficial to get a good compact like a Canon S95 and canon or ikelite housing. You can get wet adaptors to increase the wider angle and buy strobes if needed and that'll cost maybe £500 or £600 all in instead and get decent results. It does RAW too which is essential for underwater.
 
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Audrey_D said:
Hey guys!

Hope you are all well... and a happy new year to you! :)

I am posting on behalf of a friend. He is looking at purchasing a Canon 60D and has asked my advice on what lens to get with it for underwater photography (corals/fish etc).

I was thinking a tamron 17-50mm f2.8 as he doesnt want to spend a fortune :shrug:

Any feedback on lenses or other equipment needed would be a great help. Ideally he would like a lens he can combine for landscapes but I have warned him this is an expensive hobby :bonk:

Audrey :) x
Click to expand...

What Richard said. The camera and lens are likely going to be shrapnel on top of the housing and strobe cost if he goes the SLR route. Waterproof 'bag' type housings can be had for £400, but they're generally for shallow diving, and they offer only protection from water, no kind of impact protection at all. (also have to be careful of puncturing them).

A compact + housing would do much better on a budget.
 
Bag housings are bad. As said, they're very delicate, optically a mess (the port at the front gets reflections, glare and everything else, the buoyancy of them is terrible as is the balance in that they rotate. Awful things. More suitable to paddling in a river or in heavy rain than diving.
 
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gnirtS said:
Bag housings are bad. As said, they're very delicate, optically a mess (the port at the front gets reflections, glare and everything else, the buoyancy of them is terrible as is the balance in that they rotate. Awful things. More suitabled to paddling in a river or in heavy rain than diving.
Click to expand...

That was my point, should have made it clearer. :)
I need to find someone to donate one of the D7000 housings :rules:
 
As said, don't even think about a bag housing (Ewa etc) unless you are using it for just dipping the lens in a duck pond! Well ok you could use one for holding it above water say when canoeing etc. The cheapest of housings you will find worth having is an Ikelite but still over £1000 without a port and their acrylic 8" dome is nice but is another £350 without an extension ring or shade and the port attachment clips are really weak unless you are diving to a reasonable depth when pressure will hold the port on. Dont even look at Subal or the other aluminium housings as they are lovely pieces of kit but priced accordingly. Unless budget is at least £3-4k you should only consider a compact with a fibre optic triggered strobe. My strobes were £1000+ each a couple of years ago

If you want to look into it a bit deeper (sorry LOL) Wetpixel and similar sites are good sources.
 
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If you are willing to go to film I have a lot of equipment I would let go
 
thank you so much for all your replies :)

after seeing pics online you just presume that there's enough light and I didn't take into consideration the distance from the subject when thinking about lenses. I have never been diving in my life so had no experience in the problems that may arise... in particular with the housings.

I'm on my phone at the moment on my way to work so will reread over all the comments once there.

thank you all again for taking the time to reply. very much appreciated :)
 
The other thing for you[r friend] to note is that, if he's not an experienced diver, he shouldn't even think of going down with a DSLR. Managing a DSLR in a big housing underwater is not trivial. He'd be better off with a point-and-shoot. (Much cheaper too.)
 
Agree with the last poster, personally I'd recommend a compact camera + housing solution. Something like an S95 and the waterproof case will give you manual control, close focusing, wide-angle and at a price that's the similar to buying the 10-22mm lens on its own. DSLRs and housings are a really expensive solution tbh.
 
I agree with Stewart. I passed my open water diver training and would not feel comfortable handling a DSLR etc underwater. If this purchase is for a holiday or to try a hobby why not look at the great range of compacts? I just bought the mrs a Panasonic Lumix FT3 for Xmas and the general picture quality is pretty good on dry land. Admittedly i'm yet to get it wet but it got a really good review from Digital Photo magazine last year (best on test from a range of waterproof compacts). It will allow your friend to take pics down to 12 metres which is one of the best on the market at the moment. The review is still on the website I believe www.photoanswers.co.uk
Best of all it's only £264 on Amazon (other websites are available ;))

Phil
 
Be careful with those - i know of at least 4 that have flooded shallower than 12m in a short space of time.

Essential features for an underwater camera:-
(i) RAW (due to white balance changes, exposure getting blue water etc wrong and so on)
(ii) A lens that's as wide as possible - lots of compacts have a fairly narrow field of view even at their widest and as above that isn't good
(iii) Different exposure modes and ideally manual exposure. At LEAST you need AV
(iv) Low ISO noise. A lot of compacts are notorious for having gain noise above or even at ISO200. Its a low light environment and the dark blue water column really really shows red sensor noise. Some Olympus and Fujis ive seen are very bad for this.
Example here the G9 was an excellent camera for underwater, the G10 awful as the higher pixel density led to noisier images per same ISO so bad underwater, the lens was also narrower by default. The G12 went back to being fantastic.

Its also worth seeing if 3rd parties such as Ikelite manufacture a housing for the compact in question as these are more flexible, allow wet lens fitting, strobe control and so on. Features you generally wont get with the manufacturers own.

Most manufacturer housings are rated to 30-40m depth which is fine for recreational diving (and without a big multi strobe setup theres no point taking it deeper anyway). Ikelites are usually rated to 60m.
That said ive had a few Canon compacts and the housings do work way past their design depth but the buttons get hard to press. I've had an old Powershot A series housing to 72m by accident at once, it still worked although opening the case afterwards was a nightmare.

If i was buying a compact now (actually i might be as a small carry round and pocket sized "work diving" case!) id go for the S95 or G12.

As above though, the diving skills have to be nailed first. Unless buoyancy is good, awareness is good then the photos will be poor (in addition to risking damaging the diver and/or the reef). And then there's a difference in approach. A compact you can clip off and carry with you on a dive and take pictures IF you want to but if you don't it doesn't get in the way. A big DSLR changes thing - the purpose of the dive is photography. Its too bulky to clip off comfortably and your entire goal is photography. Some people find this kills the enjoyment of diving for them and even experienced land SLR users plumb for compacts. Others thing differently.

Lots to think about.
 
How about a compact and dedicated underwater housing for it?

I have a Canon compact and waterproof housing that I have taken pictures for books with. It is only a small compact but it shoots RAW and works well, it is also simple to use, which if he is new to fiddling around underwater would be a bonus. Like everything, you have to get used ot things - walk before you can run.

My compact will coe in at around £150 all up - and takes pictures you can enlarge to A3 quite happily with fabulous, exhibition results. The flash distance is limited, but then anything is underwater - to get the range you will pay £1000 for the flash alone.

Is he diving, or snorkelling? The Canon compact will go down to 40m safely - it is dark down there, so you are on flash for everything, other than looking up at the bottom of the boat and other divers silhouetted.
 
Make your own?? Oh jings! lol!

So the overall opinion is for underwater a compact would not only be financially better but also easier to use when down there? Score. I shall pass on the info.

Thanks guys!
 
I have a Panasonic TZ7 that I have used with a dedicated underwater housing and it's OK for snorkelling. The pictures look OK (to me) and of course it does video as well. Not a cheap set-up though as the housing alone cost £200 ish.

I'll be putting the housing (and maybe the camera) in the classified forum once I get it down from the loft tomorrow.
 
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