First impression: Nikon D200 and Ikelite

[Jonathan Bird]

I know all you digital guys that have been shooting digital for years are going to think this post is nothing new, but I have just done my first couple of dives with a digital camera.

First thing to note....I shot 80 pictures without even thinking about it on the first dive. No more rationing film!

I love the Ikelite TTL exposure compensation knob. What an awesome feature! For macro, you shoot, with TTL, and the camera gets you within a stop of perfect. All my TTL exposures were "keepers." But using the histograms you can immediately see the effect of slightly different subject reflectivity. With a turn of the TTL compensation knob on the back of the housing you can put the exposure perfectly right in the sweet spot! It allows you from +1 to -1 exposure compensation, plus a manual mode, right at your fingertips. WAY COOL.

The D200 does not have a large enough viewfinder. I am used to the N90 viewfinder which is barely adequate. The D200 is smaller and even with Ike's very good super-eye viewfinder adapter, you cannot see the entire frame at once through the D200. Not Ikelite's fault. Nikon's viewfinder is too small. It's workable, but you have to get used to scanning your eye around the frame a little before you push the shutter button.

What I don't like is the complicated process to dump the camera to the computer. You have to open up the housing, which seems simple enough, but because the strobe connector is on the back of the housing, you need to disconnect that too, because the camera is connected to the back. (Otherwise you would need to bring the whole rig inside to the computer). If you are using the Nikon 12-24 lens, it is too large for the zoom ring to go around it from the front. So to put the system together, it's complicated:

1. Install the camera body in the housing back.
2. Install the back of the housing in the main housing.
3. Install the zoom ring on the zoom lens.
4. Install the zoom lens on the camera through the port hole in the front of the housing.
5. Install the dome port.

So to "dump" the pics out of the camera, you have to do all that stuff in reverse. Egads.

Of course if you are using a non-zoom lens, you don't need to do all that. You can just put the lens on the camera, and install the camera in the housing with the port already on there.

Here's my idea: why not put a USB connector on the housing with a waterproof cap? In Ikelite's case, they already have a waterproof connector that has 5 pins for the strobes. You only need 4 pins for USB. Bring the USB port to the outside of the camera so all you need to do it pull the cap off the camera, hook up the computer, download the pics, erase the card, and put the cap back on. The D200 battery will run at least 1,000 images when you are not using the pop-up strobe. So if you don't need to open the housing to swap batteries, there is really no reason to open the housing at all. You don't need to take a chance on compromising the o-ring, and it saves tons of time.

Any other manufacturer done this?

Jonathan

[Ryan]

One of my customers has done this w/ his Ikelite for Canon 20d.

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/adding-usb-connectivity-to-your-u-w-housing/

[Jonathan Bird]

I knew this was too obvious that someone wouldn't have already thought of it!

I just talked to Ike about it and he says that the issue is to find a USB plug for the cameras that will fit in the housing. They need a right angle plug. Anyone know a source of a right angle (i.e. low profile) USB plug for the jack on the D200? This would be an easy retrofit for any housing at that point.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

I just talked to Ike again. He says if we can find a source for a low-profile miniUSB connector that will fit in the housing, this would be a feature they would love to add to their housings. Unfortunately, they have not been able to find a source for them. Ideas?

Jonathan

[Jonathan Bird]

I found a source for a low-profile 90 degree miniUSB plug and Brett the SLR guru at Ikelite has ordered one to test it. If it fits in the housing, the external USB connector will be available on Ike housings! Not sure if it will be standard or an option though. Stand by for more info as it becomes available.

Jonathan:D

[Jonathan Bird]

Just a follow up. I have done three trips shooting digital now and I can say for sure that I LOVE IT and I will never go back to film. Digital is addictive. But I have a new saying:

"Digital is great because you no longer have to wait weeks to be disappointed in your shots."

Meaning, you can still take perfectly crappy pictures with digital, you just know about it soon enough to do something about it! :D

Seriously though, the almost unlimited number of pictures per dive, the lack of concern over x-ray machines, the instant feedback....they all combine to make digital so much more convenient than film photography. I am also amazed at how much detail can be pulled from the RAW file, as long as you don't overexpose it. Film might beat digital on resolution right now, but I think you can actually make a better image on a good digital camera.

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Exciting news, Jonathan. I'm interested in your expeiences with overexposure. I've not taken my digital cameras underwater yet, but I've found that mine have a tendency to underexpose in any "program" or TTL mode, and I usually shoot with a compensation of +.3 or +.7. How are you shooting your D200 with the 125's? -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

Well, honestly, the TTL on the Ike system is amazing, so I mostly use the TTL with the compensation knob on the housing. The knob gives you up to +1/-1 exposure stop of TTL compensation conveniently located right on the back. I leave the camera display showing the image as a tiny thumbnail with the rest of the display devoted to histograms. You shoot, peek at the histograms to be sure the exposure is right, then blast away for composition, secure in the knowledge that the exposure is right. With the push of a button, I can then have the image occupy the whole display to really check lighting angles and composition. If I shoot and the histograms are too hot or too low, I just tweak the compensation knob. Very rarely do I need the whole +/- 1 stop. Usually not more than 2/3 of a stop. In certain instances where I want to outsmart the TTL for one reason or another (reflective schools of fish for example, or where I want just a touch of fill, not a lot of fill) I just turn the same knob around 180 degrees to manual mode. The strobes stay in TTL so you never have to touch them, and the magic knob puts the whole system in manual and even shuts off the preflash so you can use a slave unit or two (for backlighting for example). I love the fact that I never have to twiddle the settings on the strobes themselves. The thing RULES!

Jonathan

[solanaboy]

hahahaha,im glad you finally got your housing man:) so have you been able to attach the usb port to your housing already?

adrien:cool:

[Jonathan Bird]

Not yet! I'm waiting for word back from Ikelite about the right angle USB plug. Thanks for reminding me...I owe them am e-mail.

How are you Adrien!?? What's new? Send me an e-mail. I got Philippines questions for ya...

Jonathan

[tarczy]

As I'm working off my insomnia by reading through literature from my new Canon 5D, it strikes me that this whole USB-to-Housing thing may not do much at all for convenience.

While a good idea, consider this . . .

1) CF card speeds and capacities are getting faster and larger - at a rate exceeding Moore's Law.

2) Battery technology is advancing to the point where you could shoot underwater the whole day without ever having to change out the camera battery.

Hence, by combining new 16gb Ultra IV Compact Flash Cards with new high-capacity 1550mAH NiMH batteries, one can shoot 1,000 to 1,300 RAW shots before having to crack open the housing.

If you're on a liveaboard and diving aggressively, you'll most likely do 5 dives a day - 6 if you're Superman. At 5 dives per day, you'd have to shoot 240 pics per dive, for 5 dives, before maxing-out battery life and CF storage capacities. If your dives last 60 minutes, that means you're shooting 4 shots per minute throughout the whole dive - for 5 dives! The most shots I've ever done on one dive was 228, and that's because I stayed with a rather cooperative turtle snapping away like crazy. Usually, I'm shooting around 100 shots per dive. Also, the Substrobe DS125's only deliver 250 cycles at full power, so the chances of a diver firing off 1,200 shots in 5 or 6 dives is next to impossible.

Where am I going with all this?

Well, it seems to me that, given today's technology, an underwater photographer can shoot all day without ever having to crack his/her housing to download his pics and recharge batteries. I personally prefer to leave everything alone until I'm finished with my last dive of the day (except for charging strobe batteries). That way, I run less risk of flooded housings, incomplete connections, etc. because I'm theoretically opening the housing only once for every day on my dive trip.

Bottom line . . . I wonder if the luxury of a direct connection to the camera's USB port via the housing is really that much of a convenience. You need to crack the housing at least once a day to change out the camera battery anyway. So, what more does it take to pull the CF card and download it while you're replacing the camera battery? Also, when one considers that download times directly from the camera's USB2 port are around 2.5MB/sec vs. 11MB/sec for a CardBus 32 PCMCIA adapter, I wonder if direct-to-housing USB is really worth it.

Now, if someone can come up with a way to externally charge the battery AND download the CF card without ever having to open the housing . . . THAT would be an invention to patent and collect royalties from!!

I dunno. Just my two cents. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I'm gonna go and try to get some shut-eye!

[Jonathan Bird]

I guess that's true. My point is that with a battery capacity/flash card that large, you can go DAYS without needing to open the housing. But you really want to see your pics each night, so if you could get them without cracking the housing, you could download pics to look at during lunch or overnight without needing to crack the housing. Sure, with a huge card and a big battery, you could go days without opening the housing, but you couldn't see your pictures.

Jonathan

[Warren_L]

That would be nice, but not such a big deal to me. Chances are, I'll have to charge my strobes anyway, so unless I buy spare strobe battery packs, I'm gonna have to stop diving for a little while anyway.

[Jonathan Bird]

That would be nice, but not such a big deal to me. Chances are, I'll have to charge my strobes anyway, so unless I buy spare strobe battery packs, I'm gonna have to stop diving for a little while anyway.

That's exactly what I just did....bought spare batteries for my strobes so I can always have a set on the chargers and a set on the strobes!

Jonathan

[redkane]

What about just removing the CF from the camera, hooking it up to a USB CF card reader connected directly to your computer, having the CF card mount as as disk drive and then transferring the pictures from the card to your computer?

Once this is done, you could just delete the images from the CF card and put it back in the camera. You would not have to remove the camera from the back of the housing and you don't need to worry about the USB port on the camera.

I use this method to transfer them to my iPod so I don't even need to bring a computer with me. I have a 60GB iPod so have tons of room on it. Granted an iPod cannot display RAW images, but I have so much space I don't need to worry about that while on my dive trip. I just delete them when I get home and transfer them to my computer. Sometimes I will go through and delete the bad shots while still in the camera before I transfer them to my iPod, but space has not yet been a problem. I just charge up my iPod between dives as this does tend to drain the iPod battery.

I do bring along another CF card so I can continue to dive while downloading pictures from 1 card to my iPod in case it looks like it is going to take a while.

This way I take my music, videos, TV shows, etc. with me on a trip (good for very long plane rides), don't have to lug along a computer with its attendant power supplies and other stuff, and save some weight in my luggage and my carryon by not having to take a computer.

Of course, if you are trying to avoid opening the housing to get to the camera, this method does not work, but it does reduce what you have to carry on a trip.

Just my $.02

[redkane]

Looks like someone posted something similar to what I suggested.

Didn't mean to be redundant so I apologize for that.

Mine was just a variant of the earlier post using an iPod vs a computer to download the images from the CF card.

[Jonathan Bird]

Clever, I have never heard of using an ipod! But the issue to me still is opening the housing. When I open it to hook up the USB or open it to pull the card is functionally the same. I still want a port on the housing!

Jonathan