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Not the first image with the camera, Nikon D7000 and Tokina 12-24, but the first images with the camera in an SPL Waterhousing.

A swimmer at Merewhether Baths let me take his photo



One of the starting blocks, wanted to try an over/under shot. Will have to be careful with water on the front of the port.



And the pumphouse in an over/under shot as well.



If you click on the image, it will take you to a larger version on Flickr.

The housing worked great. It is mostly the operator that was having trouble.

The housing also comes with a pistol grip, which I wasn't using here. I used the shutter release. I also got a lens port for my 10-17 fisheye. Will be able to get some wave shots and surfing photos, once the water gets warmer. I was lucky it was a warm day and I was in the baths, water temp about 17C. I did have a Sharkskin top to help me out - made right here in the Hunter.

Initially, I was looking at the Aquatech waterhousing for the D7000 but they are pretty limited in the controls that are available on the case, as opposed to their sport housings for the D700.

Cheers,

André

i've always wanted to give it a go, i just don't think i could willingly put my camera in it for the first time! I like how you've tried to go above and bellow the water, but I think there is too much on the top and not enough on the bottom. But keep trying and i can't wait to see future images you try like this! Hope your gear remains nice and dry!!

bigsarg7 wrote:Hope your gear remains nice and dry!!

Initially, most will be while snorkelling, so they will be all "under". When doing the over/under thing, I will likely be trying that out with the fisheye and the 6" lens dome port, so goes the theory anyway. I will also be using a 20mm prime to see how that goes in the dome port.

Certainly the heart was going a bit faster when I first put the housing and camera under water

thanks,

André

The images look stunning...I cant wait to see what you will produce with this set up!

I'm looking forward to receiving my Canon UW housing for my new S95 from Amazon. I'll have to see how much I use it before justifying a rig for DSLR. I found this little device which looks interesting. I wonder if anyone has used one? ATJ??

muzz wrote:I found this little device which looks interesting. I wonder if anyone has used one? ATJ??

I think I remember Andrew mentioning that he was using a leak detector in his UW housing, not sure if it is this one.

muzz wrote:I found this little device which looks interesting. I wonder if anyone has used one? ATJ??

That's what I use with my D300. Let me tell you it is quite a shock for it to start flashing while at 18m but I'm glad it did as it very likely saved the camera.

It won't always detect a leak, though. A few weeks ago I had a small amount of water leak through the top of the join between the port and the housing. Fortunately there were only a few drops of water and from what a suppose happened they hit the zoom sleeve and then flowed to the port and no water got on the lens at all. There was a tiny bit of water between the bottom of the camera and the camera tray. None made it to the leak detector and so no warning. No damage was done.

I'm confident the leak was caused by me pushing the rig forward against solid surface while photographing a fish. It was shallow water (around 5m) so there wasn't a lot of pressure holding the port in place so pressure on the bottom of the port would have caused the upper edge of the port to pull away slightly from the O ring. I was so confident that was the cause my very next dive was to more than 30m.

I got taught to think of any housed camera as "the most expensive disposable camera you have ever purchased". I have seen someones leak detector go off and cause a diver to make an incredibly dangerous ascent from about 12m, luckily very early in the dive. On the other hand I have seen a diver at 30m basically shrug, clip off his camera and finish the dive. The camera was toast and would have been anyway after a safe ascent.

Ant wrote:I got taught to think of any housed camera as "the most expensive disposable camera you have ever purchased". I have seen someones leak detector go off and cause a diver to make an incredibly dangerous ascent from about 12m, luckily very early in the dive. On the other hand I have seen a diver at 30m basically shrug, clip off his camera and finish the dive. The camera was toast and would have been anyway after a safe ascent.

It is an interesting dilemma, but getting compression sickness would not be worth the price of any camera so what you have been taught is probably very good advice!

If people are going to ignore their dive training and do stupid things, they can do it perfectly well without a camera.

ATJ wrote:If people are going to ignore their dive training and do stupid things, they can do it perfectly well without a camera.

But they do it so much better with a camera... I have even been hit in the back of the head by a camera because someone was diving through the viewfinder... Makes you want to turn some peoples air off.