Digital Photography - New Camera and Housing - Page 21

In December of 2005, I purchased a new digital camera. I have been waiting for Nikon to introduce a successor to the D100. I looked long and hard at the D2X but had some reservations. First was the $5000 price tag for the body only. The thought of having a housing flood and loosing a $5000 body was frightening but still I considered. The second problem that I had with the D2X was it's size. It was much bigger than the D100 or the D70. The third problem was related to the second. I would have to buy a new camera housing for the D2X. I was leaning towards Subal as they have an incredible add-on viewfinder that my tired old eyes would really appreciate. I had the opportunity to see the housing with the viewfinder at Beneath the Sea in March of 2005. The viewfinder was everything that I expected it to be. What really got me was the weight of the camera and housing. I used to have a Canon F-1 in an Aquatica housing which I lovingly called "My Cinder block" because it was so big and heavy. I am getting older and I don't want to carry that extra weight. My wife, Veronica, was getting tennis elbow from handing me the housing over the side of the boat and retrieving it at the end of the dive.

Of course, there was also a price consideration. A new housing with a couple of ports and gears would set me back another $6000. When I weighed the pluses and minuses, I just couldn't do it. At the time, there were no other choices. I could put my D70 in a housing, or continue using my D100 and wait for Nikon. I came very close to getting a Subal housing for my D70 but at the end of July, my son had a terrible accident and that ended my diving for many months. He is slowing recovering but it will be a long road before he is able to resume a normal life. Fortunately, the company that I ordered my housing from was very understandable and cancelled my order and put me at the top of their list for the next new Nikon digital camera, the D200, even though it had only been rumored and not announced yet.

The D200 body is about the same size as the D100. It has a 10.2 megapixel sensor compared to 6.1 on the D100. The viewfinder is much larger and the LCD screen is huge. The D100 has a 1.9" LCD and the D200 has a 2.5" LCD. You need to see the LCD on the D200 to appreciate it's size. The D200 has a buffer that will allow 37 jpeg frames or 22 raw frames before it is full. The D100 allowed 6 jpeg frames and 4 raw frames before the buffer was full. When the buffer fills, you have to wait for it to write to the compact flash card before you can shoot again. A friend just wrote me about his D100 have intermittent problems where it wouldn't focus and after a short period of time, it would focus again. I asked if he was shooting one shot after another. He said that he was photographing sharks. I explained that it was a buffer problem and that nothing was wrong with the camera. The same thing happened to me when I was shooting dolphins while snorkeling in the Bahamas. Another friend with a D70 camera in a housing didn't have the same problems that I did. His camera has a larger buffer.

It seemed to be everything that I was looking for in a DSLR. The pricing was attractive at $1699.00. I preordered my camera from a local photo shop that I had dealt with for nearly twenty years. I ordered it two days before it was announced. I had rum ours on dpreview.com and decided to get my order in. I waited patiently (not too patiently). My wife, Veronica, checked from time to time and were told not to worry, that we were at the top of the list. Well, the camera's started shipping and when Veronica called about mine, she was told by the owner that the people who had put deposits down first got the first shipment.

If I had been asked for a deposit, I would have given them one. This made me boil and I called the owner and told him how I felt. He wasn't too concerned about keeping a twenty year customer. So I cancelled my order and told him that I would buy it from someone else. I knew that if my name wasn't on somebody's list, I wasn't getting one of these cameras because they were in demand. Surfing the dpreview site one night, I saw that Circuit City was selling the camera body and that they had them in stock. I couldn't believe it. I also read that if you ordered by phone, you could get a 10% discount. I picked up the phone and lo and behold, the person was right. Even with sales tax and next day shipping, I got the camera body for less that I would have spent at my local dealer. Since then, he has lost a sale on a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR lens and the new Nikon 18-200 VR lens.

My initial feelings about the camera is that I love it. It has everything that I think that I will need in a DSLR. The camera feels good in my hands, the controls are in the right places for me, the menu is large and easy to read and I like the larger view finder. Next, it was time to think about the housing. I talked to Ryan at Reef Photo & Video (he is the guy that was so nice about canceling my order after my son's accident and putting me at the top of the D200 housing list). He said that the housings should start shipping in April of 2006.

The housing looked great. It has access to all the controls. The LCD display seems to be shaded for good viewing and the optional view finder should give my tired old eyes a good view of my subjects.

I have tentatively ordered the housing with grand view finder, an FP-90 port to use with my Nikon 60mm f2.8 and my Sigma 28-80 macro lens. I have also ordered the DP-FE2 dome port and an extension ring for my Nikon 12-24mm lens. There are also zoom gears and port covers. All said and done, the housing order should be in the $6000 range. I would have considered another Nexus housing (as I already have ports and gears, etc.) but their housing isn't due until August and I don't know what they are going to do (if anything) about an enlarged view finder. Although the D200 housing is very close in price to the D2X, the difference in the camera body's cost will allow me to buy a second body and still spend less money than buying the D2X with the Subal housing.

My next decision is a new macro zoom lens. I am not happy with the quality of photos from my Sigma 28-80 and want to replace it. I will expand on that in the next session.

Coming Soon - Macro Zoom Lens for the Digital SLR