primes or zooms?

[yanyewkay]

i'm thinking of building a u/w equipment.

I have 2 choices now. To get a u/w housing for my ancient PnS (Canon A200) (which has no zoom)

or

Get an expensive housing for my D70..

Thinking of the D70, there seem to be more options of lenses and lighting effect.

So, my question in here. Do you guys normally shoot with primes or zooms underwater be it DSLR or PnS.

I don't think we can zoom much farther than we can see right? I'm talking about wide-zooms.. not the 70-300 kind of zooms.

 

[ScoobaKev]

I only shoot with primes- 15mm & 20mm for wide-angle and 50mm & 100mm for macro.

 

[yanyewkay]

but you can't change them underwater.. so you still got to plan what you shooting before you go down right? So it's still primes

 

[ScoobaKev]

Yup, always plan what you are going to shoot underwater, or bring down 2 systems- 1 for macro & 1 for wide-angle...which is what i do on some trips.

If you want to have the flexibility of zooms, you need to buy zoom gears for your lenses.

And it's not possible to shoot both wide-angle & macro using 1 lens!

 

[h2o]

i am currently using an slr with a 20mm & 60mm prime.....

no doubt the zoom offers more flexibility, for me i find that a prime helps me to concentrate on the subject that is more suitable for the focal length......

 

[kthan]

yew kay, i find that your options are 2 extremes. one is a 2mp beginner DC, one a pro DSLR.

for DC (PnS in you definition), u can only use attachment wet lens u/w. u have the option of wide angle or macro, but u have to check if the lens can be attached to the housing.

for DSLR, your range will be more of course. Becos of the crop factor in DSLR, u need at least a 15mm for W.A. For macro, the 60 mm prime macro lens is the most versatile u/w lens u can find.

As for the debate between prime and zoom, prime gives better optics and it is much cheaper than zooms. Also, to use zooms, u have to ensure that the port has zoom gears/clamp for the zoom lens u are using. Or else, the zoom lens is only as good as a prime u/w. Also i presume u are thinking of the 12-24mm. at 24mm at 1.5 crop factor, what wide angle are u thinking of?

Whatever the case, there is no 1 zoom lens that i know of which allows u to shoot both WA and macro. that said, the interchangeability of lens u/w is one main advantage the DC has over DSLR.

To summarise, house the DSLR if you have the dough and buy the widest lens u can afford (even if it is the 12-24mm becos u will want to shoot at 12mm anyway). but the first piece of lens u should get is the 60mm macro

 

[ScoobaKev]

I agree with Eric.

I think you need to decide on your budget first because your choices are a little extreme. If budget is no object, then by all means, go for the DSLR set-up with all the ports, zoom gears, zoom lenses and primes!

 

[yanyewkay]

thanks for the input everyone. i know the options are a bit extreme..

but I don't want to waste money on buying a system where I'm going to change later.

eg: housing for DC then feel DSLR suits me or other way round.

 

[Goondoo]

thanks for the input everyone. i know the options are a bit extreme..

but I don't want to waste money on buying a system where I'm going to change later.

eg: housing for DC then feel DSLR suits me or other way round.

Not forgetting it is almost a must to get external strobe when you use DSLR. I don't think you can use internal flash with most of the housing. Your budget should include the Strobe, arms, cables etc....

 

[cat64fish]

thanks for the input everyone. i know the options are a bit extreme..

but I don't want to waste money on buying a system where I'm going to change later.

eg: housing for DC then feel DSLR suits me or other way round.

It is almost criminal the way camera makers change digitial tehnology these days. I am beginning to regret buying my D70 - not becuase it is a bad camera (I like the design a lot), but because the lastest 14 megapixel camera is out.

Stick with a good old film camera like the F90x and go for prime lens (ok, ok, I am biased). Nothing beats the pictures taken using Velvia 50 (anyone know what I am talking about?).

Cheers, Jeff

 

[kthan]

hey Jeff, my S2 can reproduce velvia like colors and it is put up for sale

Actually for mechanical cameras, I feel the Nikon F55-F90 can produce the same image if u use the same lens and film on the same settings. So you don't even have to get a F90x. F55 will suffice.

 

[akoh]

Stick with a good old film camera like the F90x and go for prime lens (ok, ok, I am biased). Nothing beats the pictures taken using Velvia 50 (anyone know what I am talking about?).

Cheers, Jeff

Sure ! read you loud and clear ! can't agree any lesser too ! . Been using Fuji Velvia for the last 10 yrs !

 

[cat64fish]

hey Jeff, my S2 can reproduce velvia like colors and it is put up for sale

Actually for mechanical cameras, I feel the Nikon F55-F90 can produce the same image if u use the same lens and film on the same settings. So you don't even have to get a F90x. F55 will suffice.

Not sure about the other cameras ... been using my F90 for more than 10 years now, and I don't have much to complain about.

My office has an S2 Pro .... which they bought against my protests. I have no doubt it is a good camera ( a good chip, at any rate). But I don't like it .... old habits die hard and you can't teach an old dog new tricks. :bsmilie:

I am looking forward to the day when you can FULLY customise your camera ... new 14 megapixel chip out? No problem - pull old 6 megapixel chip and switch .... all other accessories remain the same.

The ridiculous cycle of a new camera model every 3 to 6 months (just new, not necessarily better - look at the "progress" of the Olympus cameras from 5050 to 8080), is wasting our money and earth's resources.

Jeff

 

[kthan]

Not sure about the other cameras ... been using my F90 for more than 10 years now, and I don't have much to complain about.

My office has an S2 Pro .... which they bought against my protests. I have no doubt it is a good camera ( a good chip, at any rate). But I don't like it .... old habits die hard and you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

I am looking forward to the day when you can FULLY customise your camera ... new 14 megapixel chip out? No problem pull old 6 megapixel chip and switch .... all other accessories remain the same.

The ridiculous cycle of a new camera model every 3 to 6 months (just new, not necessarily better - look at the "progress" of the Olympus cameras from 5050 to 8080), is wasting our earth's resources.

Jeff

i agree. the pixel race is getting crazy. I know my S2 can go 12mp but I bot the cam for the velvia like colors and good old TTL, not the 12mp.

 

[Photosmart]

Stick with a good old film camera like the F90x and go for prime lens (ok, ok, I am biased). Nothing beats the pictures taken using Velvia 50 (anyone know what I am talking about?).

You mean that even if I load the velvia curve into the camera ???? Have you compare the results ??

 

[Luv4nature]

This is going to be a contraversial one but I'm going to share my view on this anyway. Best quality you can get from 35mm format camera system in terms of optics:

Best Close-up / Macro: Nikonos RS uw-SLR body with UW-R 50mm F2.8 lens

Best wide angle: Nikonos UW camera with UW 15mm f2.8 lens

Why? These are the 2 best lenses designed for direct water-contact optical path, engineered by Nikon's dedicated underwater optical division back then.

Everthing else is compromised one way or the other, e.g. shooting through an extra optical media (i.e. flat port) causing some extent of degradation, or in addition, altering the quality with another optical element (i.e. wide angle dome port).

The recording media has evolved from film to digital pixels but that's a separate arguement.

So in today's context to get the best quality uw pictures, one can only get the best available macro lens (e.g. nikon 105mm), or the best available wide angle lens (e.g. Nikon 14mm) with the best dSLR body (e.g. D2x) in a housing to get the best digital uw picture one can get. But it is still somewhat compromise in terms of optics.

Lets hope one day some manufacturer may develop true underwater lenses again.

 

[kthan]

KC, it's not contraversial. I agree totally.

For wet lens on mechanical cameras, light only passes thru the water, glass optics, then film. So the variable here is just film and glass optics. Assuming the best film for u/w photography is affordable to everyone, the only variable is really the glass optics.

For Digital cams, light travels thru water, ports, air, glass optics, then CCD or CMOS. So the variables are the ports, glass optics and CCD / CMOS. And becos we have such a wide selection of these variables for sale spread over different price categories, it is always a cost-benefit compromise.....

Eric

 

[Luv4nature]

Hey hey you know what, in high-fidelity after more than a decade of dominance by digital media (CD, MP3, etc), there's a major consensus that analog records still reproduce the best sound, so vinyl LPs are now making a big come back in the hi-end audio industry.

Same is to be expected in photography?

Don't ditch your film camera too fast

 

[Photosmart]

Hey hey you know what, in high-fidelity after more than a decade of dominance by digital media (CD, MP3, etc), there's a major consensus that analog records still reproduce the best sound, so vinyl LPs are now making a big come back in the hi-end audio industry.

Same is to be expected in photography?

Don't ditch your film camera too fast

I second that....

I am also lookin for Nikono V for wide angle

 

[kthan]

I second that....

I am also lookin for Nikono V for wide angle

isn't someone here selling?