underwater photography

i was in love with my coolpix 4300. it was a good affordable camera and part of my reason for purchasing it were the several options for underwater housings. for other brands and types there was either nothing available or only ikelite available. not that there is anything wrong with ikelite, it was just too pricey for me at the time.

i loved my coolpix 4300 so much that when i came back i resolved to buy another one, since i already had a fantastic housing that was compact and, well, FANTASTIC.

from fantasea.com . it was a reasonable price for the pro $180. The only downside to this was that you had to turn the camera on before putting it in the housing and you couldn't change the setting, say from auto to scene to movie.

well, when i came back last year, the 4300 was no longer available new. and i was sad. =(

so i started doing some research on other cameras and housings and the coolpix 5400 seemed like a good camera. it was a bit pricey $599 but then i saw an offer for a $200 rebate so i took the hit. the only problem is that i didn't have a housing and apparently the only one available is the ikelite. which is a good housing but, well, bulky. but the 5400 has several different movie modes and with the ikelite you can switch the camera on within the housing and you can change settings so i know i can go from macro (which is phenomenal - you can get as close as 2 cm away from the subject!) for cool things on the substrate and then switch to either movie or auto for when the grouper start spawning.


so here's the 5400 in the housing. i also have an ikelite substrobe DS50 which i got for the previous year. but it turned out the flash on the 4300 worked just fine for macro (except you did get a shadow from the lens if you got too close) and because the gulf is so productive the strobe only creates a snowstorm and obliterates any image. as you can see by the pepper shaker under the strobe that it's heavy and tips the whole thing over.


here it is from behind, as you can see you can control every aspect of the camera within the housing.


the ikelite housing blocks the flash from the 5400 so you need the strobe for macro. it has a flash jack to connect to the back of the housing. i realized while testing everything out that i didn't have a cord that would hook this to the strobe.


i have a TTL slave sensor and wasn't sure that it would work with this camera but it turns out the 5400 has a preflash so it will set off the slave sensor. the sensor is on the arm and you point it at the flash. the back has a switch so you can change the intensity of the flash by picking the appropriate f-stop. oops that's a bit blurry...

i'm a little nervous cuz the thing is so damn big. with the 4300 i could attach it to myself and not know it was there while i was doing my transects and then take pictures whenever i want.

we'll see if i can handle the monstrosity and whether the quality of the photos will be worth all that hassle.