What Camera Should I Buy?

"For your first 30-40 dives, just enjoy your diving …. you will not have them anymore once you’ve started diving with a camera"

Me floating with my wide angle camera setup. Experimenting with 3 strobes.

One of the most asked question on my twitter ( @pinneng ) is : “I want to start taking underwater photograph, what camera should I have?”

Ever heard people say: “The important thing is the man behind the gun (camera)”? Well, that is not totally correct, in underwater photography : the man (photography skills), diving skills, and the camera off course are 3 important things that can not be separated. Although I’ve won a Grand Prize using my old pocket camera (read),  I still believe a DSLR would make a lot of differences. So, this is how I would answer if someone ask me an advice on how to choose his/her first underwater camera (which I’ll start with some questions) :

1. How good is your diving skills? If you are not ready please DO NOT take a DSLR underwater. Always put the “diving” first, making underwater photographs later. A good diver using a compact camera will surpass a non diver with the best DSLR camera.
2. How about your budget? A pocket camera setup will cost you around USD500 - USD1,500 , a DSLR setup will be around USD2,000 up to who knows, and there is another option: the four thirds cameras that will cost you USD800-USD3,000. Off course there are some other options like: GoPro-like system or the waterproof pocket cameras (ok, lets put them also as an option).
3. Are you going to use your camera for professional purposes? If yes, then you need a DSLR. If not, please consider the point 2 above.

Ok, since you’ve answered those 3 questions above, you are supposed to have your choice by now. But now let’s see the plus and minus of each option:

A. Pocket camera

I remember those days when I was looking at the options to buy a pocket camera. These are my considerations: 

1. It has the ability to record files in RAW. This is very important since most of the time you need to fine adjust (at least) the white balance of your underwater photographs. With RAW you can do that without ruining your original files. Nowadays RAW format is common in pocket cameras.
2. When you are using pocket camera, most of the time you will use it for macro shots since in the water the effective distance to the object is only about 1m (with 2 strong strobes) unless you have a camera with minimal focal length equal to about 20mm on 35mm film standard. Some pocket camera has it’s ability to do super macro shots, that would help a lot. 
3. Look at the options of  underwater housings for the camera. Some housings has options to modify the port. Port is the part of the housing where the lens of the camera is. A dome port can help the quality of your wide angle photo. Some ports has the ability to attach wet lenses for wide angle or (super) macro. Make sure you know the possibilities you can get before you buy a camera. A non-OEM housing will provide extra options with extra cost off course.
4. Make sure the housing available can access all the function buttons you need on your camera.

If you already have a pocket camera, just use it. It is more important for you to buy strobes than to replace your old camera.

B. DSLR camera

Whoa, when you look for this option, you really want to get serious in underwater photography uh? Or, money is really not a problem for you:)

When I said USD2,000, I was talking about buying a second hand camera, one lens, one (maybe used) underwater housing for the camera. :)) …. if you plan to do so, I would suggest you to just buy a complete pocket camera setup.

To answer your question directly: “what DSLR should I buy?”, my answer: depends on the budget you have. Buy the best you can have. Consider it as an investment, a re-investment will cost you too much. 

Next question will be: “what brand?”. If you already have some lenses, buy a camera which can use them. If you are new to DSLR, buy the brand that your (diving) friends use. The “community” is more important than the tech in your camera because more or less they are almost on par with each other.

Roughly cost for a standard DLSR setup: 1 camera body, 1 macro lens , 1 fisheye lens, (please check the price yourself), 1 housing (I recommend the aluminium body USD2,000+), 1 macro port (USD300+), 1 dome port (USD600+), 2 strobes (@USD450+), 1 arm system (USD300). 

I also recommend you to use optic cable system for your strobes rather than TTL cable system.

As all considerations for underwater system, check the availability of the housing first. I will explain about underwater housing for DSLR later on my next blog.

Housing with different port setup (photo taken from www.uwphotographyguide.com).
Left for wide angle, Rigth for macro

C. Four thirds system camera

If I was not doing underwater photography professionally, this type of camera would be my best choice. Dragging all my 50kg+ equipment (incl. dive gear) everytime I have a dive trip is a “piece of art” itself :( . 

The most important part in a camera system (to me) is the “eye” itself : the lens. Many four thirds camera has big range of lens options. Basically you can have a “DLSR” in a smaller body. 

The big minus in this system is: the housing options are not as many as DSLRs. So, again make sure you do some research on the housings (as the DSLR’s above)  before you make a decision.

D. GoPro-like cameras or the waterproof cameras

Consider to buy this kind of cameras if you just want to record your experience underwater for your own and don’t want to get hassled by big bulky camera in your bag. GoPro is made for video, to take it for underwater photography I would categorise it as “why not”. 

Waterproof camera is very simple system for underwater. You don’t have to worry much about the maintenance of the housing, etc. But, most of them are effective above 20m deep.

Here are some links you might want to visit to get some ideas about the gadgets you are dreaming of:

Fun-In Underwater Photographic Equipment

Backscatter Underwater Video & Photo

Also visit my website : pinneng.me

If you need any further informations or ideas on the items you see in their website, just drop me a message or twit:  @pinneng 

Happy hunting!

How Small Do I Go?

"Thanks to digital camera era, underwater photographers don't have to hesitate to make mistakes in taking photographs. "


Around the year 2009, some new gadgets in underwater photography allowed us to make super macro photos, and that was about the time when I got my first underwater DSLR. It was one of my dream: make photo of plankton. I just want to see them with my eyes, underwater. I bought my first +10 diopter/close-up wet-lens to add on my 105mm macro lens, and it was in Kupang waters when I did my first plankton photo session.

Hatched fish larvae

Amphipod and Copepod 

                 

To photograph plankton need some extra patience and stamina. They always move around and.... yes they are small. They are attracted to light, use an extra torch will help you to "call" them in. Sometime you need to turn the torch off for awhile if there were too many of them. 

Attracted to the light

Krill and Copepod

With a diopter added, the Depth of Field will reduce a lot. That makes it harder to focus on the subject. Normally, I turn off the autofocus on my camera when I use diopter. 

Some of nudibranch are just too small to see with bare eyes

Diopter narrows the DOF

Sometime I use the "disadvantage" of the diopter to make photos I like: NDOF. 

Not "too" small Pigmy Pipefish

Using the "disadvantage" of diopter: the eye of Pigmy Pipefish

For sure, with diopter you are able to make un-cropped photo of small objects. Normally this is one of the rule you have to obey in submitting your photographs in international underwater photo competitions.

More of my photographs, click here.

Luck? I don't think so

"There is no luck in photography, those lucky shots you think they are, their photographers just do more shots than you."

A common jellyfish with an uncommon passenger

I always remember what my underwater photography senior/mentor William Tan said: "Never throw away bad pictures, keep them for awhile. You might want to use them for a reason."

In my journey, I've made some shots that I almost throw them away until I saw the details on a bigger screen (and, yes I meant BIG screen for my -not so- old eyes :p ). 

First photo above I made in Kakaban stingless jellyfish lake (one of 3 in the world). I took so many shots that day and this one just looked so common. I almost delete it when I saw that little isopod attached to the jellyfish. I zoomed it in, and I got in on focus! Was I lucky?

Yes, Your Highness

I can hear you, LOUDLY

I was so happy when first time I met the cutest nudibranch: the "Pikachu" (Thecacera pacifica). It was on a night dive in Kupang. This one was so small and has very interesting colors. I took tens of photograph of it, and that is when I got these two photos of the Pikachu with a friend.

The one above is the pikachu bows to a fish embryo. And the one on the right is the pikachu with an isopod on its tentacle.

Hovering 

The photo on the left I have when I tried to make photograph of a nudibranch with focus only on its tentacles. I saw that little "bug" hovering around the tentacles, I positioned myself for a right angle and waited for the bug to "place himself". I got it!

This last photo (right) also one of the photos that was almost went into my Trash bin. To photograph a Pontohi pigmy seahorse (Hippocampus pontohi) really needs patience. It is very small (less than 2cm) and very shy to the light. To have them facing your lens will take tens of minutes. I will be happy enough to be able to photograph it on one side and get one eye in focus. On this photo, I got it on one side... but NOT focused on its eye. "Lucky" I got it focus on an embryo of a shrimp that was playing on the seahorses eye.

So, was I lucky? Or I just did so many shots that allows me to have these "lucky" photographs? 

Ah, never mind... I will just do more and more shots .... to get lucky :D

Where do I begin 

“Where do I begin 

To tell the story of how great a love can be 

The sweet love story that is older than the sea 

The simple truth about the love she brings to me 

Where do I start “

I build this story based on the old time famous song of Andy Williams:  Where Do I Begin (Love Story) because I found the structure of the song help me in telling how I fell in love with underwater photography.

Rare fish I found in Alor. Using my old time pocket camera

With her first hello….

It was not the love at the first sight. Few first dives I was still busy with controlling myself well underwater. I had no “time” nor “eyes” to see those little things or big pelagic swimming in the dark of the sea pointed by my instructor. But at least I know that it is not as scary as I thought. Slowly but sure, I got more acquainted with the underwater beauty. I fell in love…..

She fills my heart with very special things…

Scuba Diving Grand Prize Winner - USA

I bought my first pocket camera with underwater housing because I want to memorise those special things I met underwater. Then I realised that an underwater strobe is essential for underwater photography. I bought one, and another one a year later. With limited tools, I started making photographs and joining some competitions. One day in 2008 one of my photographs won a Grand Prize in a competition then I bought my first DSLR and its housing using the prize money I earned.

Pocket Camera vs DSLR Camera+Diopter

With angels' songs , with wild imaginings…

With a DSLR camera I have more options in creating photographs. Make better wide angle photos which was a lot more limited with pocket camera, photographs small objects, or creating more interesting photographs like the NDOF photo (read my previous blog).

I think it is a journey that will never end as long as I am alive.

Flamboyant cuttlefish 

“How long does it last 

Can love be measured by the hours in a day 

I have no answers now but this much I can say 

I know I'll need her till the stars all burn away 

And she'll be there”

Narrow Depth of Field

“Photograph to express, not to impress- unless you are paid” 

When it started, when our elders were still using film cameras, underwater photography was meant for underwater creature identification. With limitation of about 36 exposures per-dive and there was no way to evaluate the photo until you got them printed, photographers in that era normally set their camera in small apertures which allows the camera to capture wider Depth of Field and reduces the failure rate of unfocused photographs.

A dancing shrimp where I focused only on its eye.

Nowadays most of underwater photographers are using Digital Cameras, where trial and error are possible in creating photographs underwater. You can have hundreds of exposures and check the result on the spot.

Few years ago, I started creating my underwater photographs in big apertures which I call it NDOF (Narrow Depth of Field) photographs. Although it is more challenging where the range of focus is narrowed down to a few millimetre, but it also makes the object more stands out, or sometime makes the object looks  mysterious.

f/5.0

f/40

What I like most from the NDOF photos is we can still get the ambience colour. To me, the pastel colours on the background make the whole picture looks more interesting rather than just black background. That also makes you as the photographer is challenged to be more creative in angling  your lens to get more interesting background colour and also more creative in composition of the photograph. Later I found out that the non-diver “audience” are more acceptable to the NDOF photos rather that the black background, maybe because it keeps them out of the thought of the creepy deep of the Ocean.

Limited focus from forehead to its tip of the mouth with f/32

Limited focus only on its eyes f/4.5

More NDOF picture on my website.