Equipment Reviews

Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?

Although I had a lot of high-priced cameras along on my Solomon Islands trip, I also decided to take along the less expensive and friendly Canon G7X compact and the Fantasea G7X housing. The Canon G7X has had a lot of play in photo news sources as a “G16 replacement” and answer to the popular Sony RX-100.

The Canon G7X sports the same sort of 24mm (35mm equivalent) f/1.8 lens, and large 1” sensor that should give it the image quality of m4/3rds cameras, and a competitor to the the Panasonic LX-100 and other similar high-end compact cameras. I wanted to get a feel for how it stacked up.

One Camera, One Lens -
An Ascent from Desperation.

I’m just back from a 10 day live aboard dive trip to the Solomon Islands. I had packed 5 different cameras and systems to do a round table of testing and comparing in order to write some practical reviews.

As usual, I spent time going over each camera system making sure I had packed all the necessary batteries, chargers, lenses and attachments. All was reasonably packed into two cases. One was carried aboard and my Seahorse hard case and dive bag/clothes checked. With everything spread out the day before, I tried to balance their weights, airline requirements for lith-ion batteries, etc. What I didn’t do was to make sure that essential chargers, batteries and mounts were all packed together with each camera. Oops.

Ring lights have long been a popular way for macro photographers to get bright, even light directly onto small subjects.

Due to the magnification involved, macro photos can consume a lot of light. Underwater photographers have long struggled to get their camera housings with two strobes into tight spaces, or get the lights positioned close enough to the front of the lens without creating lens flare or shadows from the port.

Video options have come a long way! Chances are, you might already have a camera that is capable of shooting video – so where does your camera fit in? Or maybe you are looking to upgrade and you’d like to know your options?

We've researched some current offerings and have listed several in each product range. Let’s take a look at what’s out there…

On our recent shop trip to The Sea of Cortez, I left behind my trusty, but large, D800 Nauticam rig and decided to try a new mirrorless camera: The Sony a7 full-frame camera in a NA-A7 Nauticam housing. The Sony a7 (and a7r, a7s) are very impressive; the first full-frame camera in a mirrorless body! With it being much smaller and lighter than the D800, it was easy to carry around. Performance was very good, the camera is very comfortable and solid to shoot...

Fourteen brave folks came along on our first shop trip to Taveuni, Fiji this October. The long flights from LAX through Nadi to The Garden Island Resort went smoothly, and the friendly staff greeted us with warm welcomes and traditional songs. Our rooms were spacious, with fresh tropical flowers, and spa style bathrooms...

Rainbow Reef, in the Somosomo Straits between Taveuni and Viti Levu was a short 20 min run out, and had a great variety of dive sites, from top-of-the-reef hard corals, sandy slots, to short/deep walls and caves. Currents were up and down, and really took the experienced guides to figure out.

By Bill Van Antwerp.
One of the more common questions we get asked, particularly from newer underwater photographers is “I am going to shoot some photos and some video; do I really need a strobe and a focus/video light or can I get buy with just a light?
To answer the question I set up some tests both in the studio and while diving...