My interest in underwater photography coincided with Julie and I starting to dive again in 2009. After an 8 year hiatus, we traveled to the Cayman Islands for a week aboard one of the Aggressor fleet’s liveaboards. During our weeklong re-introduction to scuba diving, amongst some of the Caribbean’s nicest walls and reefs, I became fascinated with the pictures one of our fellow divers was taking. The guy was shooting a Canon 50d within an Ikelite housing, using double strobes. In spite of what then seemed like an unwieldy rig, I began to wonder what it might take to get my recently acquired Canon 40d into the water for photographic greatness!
So there I am, at my local dive shop, jaw on the floor, as I digested the news that getting into underwater photography was a $10-15K venture. Holy crap, that’s not happening! Naturally, I had to price it out to satisfy my curiosity. Sure enough…the housing, lenses and ports (to support macro and wide angle), added up to $7K! And I’d still need strobes, arms, and who knows what else. Besides the steep entry price, I was also concerned about spending money on the 40d housing since that model was getting older by the minute.
I don’t remember there being many options outside of DSLR’s in those days, the mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras (MILC) weren’t widely available, and I don’t recall much underwater support for them back then. Sea & Sea did have some nice compact systems, but they were still over $1000. The Sea & Sea DX-1G utilized a Ricoh point and shoot camera. I didn’t think much of the Sea & Sea camera…admittedly I had a bias towards the Canon PowerShot cameras I’d been using for years. My compact camera at the time was a Canon SD870 IS…it was feature rich and had a great little lens. What I didn’t appreciate, through sheer ignorance, was the manual exposure mode offered by the Sea & Sea, which I now know is essential for successful underwater photography.
Ahead of our next dive trip to Belize in 2010, I discovered that Ikelite made a housing for my SD870…and it was only $280! And so my journey began…
It all started with the Canon SD870 IS
In addition to needing full control of aperture and shutter speed, any underwater photography 101 article/book starts with the importance of light! My experience with the SD870 (using its built in flash) certainly drove these concepts home. And while the price for entry was very reasonable, my inexperience, coupled with this equipment, made for few satisfying photos. However, like my golf game, I made just enough decent shots to stay interested in playing more.
In the midst of my time with the SD870, Julie expressed interest in trying underwater shooting. She had a Canon G12 at the time, which had the requisite manual mode, so we started hunting for a housing. Based on cost and availability, we settled on another Ikelite housing with a single DS160 strobe. This was an unfortunately short experiment, as the housing suffered a partial flood on it’s 3rd time in the water during a 2012 Maui trip. The leak was noticed quickly enough to prevent any damage to the housing…but we lost the camera.
The short life of the Canon G12
In the limited time we had the G12 underwater, we got some nice shots. I still wasn’t ready to take the plunge on a DSLR, especially since I’d need a new camera, with the 40d well past it’s prime. Given our successful, albeit short, attempts with the G12 I was still focused on a compact camera solution. Julie had replaced her flood damaged camera with a Canon S110. This looked like the perfect candidate for my next set up.
After considerable browsing and speaking with fellow photographers, I decided to work with Backscatter of Monterey, CA for my next purchase. Nice, patient folks and great customer service. Naturally, this was rewarded with lots of our money! I headed into the conversation set on the S110, but after a lengthy discussion I settled on their recommendation of the new Sony RX100. This was Sony’s new 20 mega pixel, compact camera on steroids. I was also introduced to Nauticam housings…I can’t say enough good things about these. On top of breaking away from my long trusted Canon’s…I decided to take the plunge on a set of Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobes with Ultralight aluminum arms and clamps. The logic being the strobe/arm set up could be transitioned to most any camera/housing setup down the road. Afterall, I still had that DSLR dream in the back of my mind.
I ended up also buying a Nauticam housing and single YS-D1 strobe for the S110, but we never did get that one underwater.
The even shorter life of the Canon S110
Now we’re getting somewhere! Introducing the Sony RX100
The RX100’s first trip to Bonaire in 2013 produced some really solid shots. The sleek, compact Nauticam housing, with easy to add wide angle & macro peripherals, along with the dual Sea & Sea YS-D1’s, finally gave me the tools necessary to compensate for my fledgling skills. That, combined with some essential help from my friend Bryan, made for my first consistently positive underwater photography experience! It only took 3 years!!
Another (unintended) consequence of this trip was the minor “arms” race it started with my friend Andrew (more on this later). After seeing the shots Bryan and I were getting, Andrew started giving serious thought to moving beyond his GoPro.
We did two more trips in 2013 to Turks & Caicos and Roatan, and then Socorro in 2014. I experienced mixed results, more from what I still needed to learn than the equipment. Overall, though, I was still having fun and getting some good photos. And then there was Bimini…
In January of 2015, we traveled to Bimini with Andrew and Stacey, mainly to see the Great Hammerheads. Upon arrival, Andrew unpacked his new Panasonic GH4, a micro four thirds mirrorless that can also shoot 4K video. I did my best not to drool all over it. He got the Nauticam housing, Sea & Sea strobes, and some really cool Fix NEO flood lights. And his housing had this really cool vacuum seal feature to help ensure your camera stays dry (or at least gives you a few precious seconds before everything goes horribly wrong). All this, and interchangeable lenses in a fairly compact form factor. I could sense my RX100 getting nervous.
I took some decent pictures on this trip, but percentage-wise, my success was way off…I probably didn’t like 95% of what I shot. My main frustration centered around not being able to move the settings in the right direction once I saw that a shot didn’t come out well. It seemed like no matter which direction I moved things (f-stop, shutter speed, ISO), I couldn’t find the sweet spot. Looking back i was still working on getting my head around the whole aperture, depth of field and distance relationship. And seeing the quality of pictures Andrew was turning out with his new camera didn’t help!
Maybe my RX100 was acting out in a jealous rage. Perhaps I was subconsciously taking crappy photos to justify a new system. What if Andrew didn’t even like taking pictures, and he just wanted to see if he could get me to buy a new camera? I thought getting a new camera would be the best way to find out…you know, to be sure.
Sometime after I got my RX100, Sony came out with their Alpha 7 series full frame, mirrorless cameras. They initially had 3 versions, one was high resolution (A7R), one was really good in low light (A7S), and one was a balance between the two (A7). For underwater I’d definitely need the A7S, but at only 12MP, I wasn’t too excited about making the investment. Sony changed that a year later, when they announced the A7RII…it’s low light performance was almost as good as the A7S, and it cranked out 42MP images!
Another benefit of Andrew’s GH4 purchase was that he got it through a local shop that I’d only just heard about, Optical Ocean Sales on Westlake in Seattle. He had a good experience and I was eager to give them a visit. Not long before our November ’15 trip to the Philippines, I met with the owner Jack Connick to talk about a new system. What a great place! I found Jack to be a wealth of knowledge as he patiently guided me through several options, with zero pressure to buy. Optical Ocean keeps an impressive array of equipment on hand, or can quickly order something if necessary. You should go there…now, Jack is awesome!
Given my experience with the Sony RX100, I was pretty confident I’d go with the A7RII. Although, as I also now have a Canon 5d mkIII, I did look at getting a housing and ports for it. It was tempting, but the more compact, mirrorless A7RII was too good to pass up. You can read my initial thoughts in a review Jack and I did here.
It almost looks like I know what I’m doing with the Sony A7rII