posted by Dr. Alex Mustard on 08/24/2004
A review of the Subal ND70 housing for the Nikon D70
Arnold Stepanek made his first underwater camera housing in 1952 and still designs the entire Subal range today. The underwater photography grapevine informs me that the Subal ND70 was designed on Arnold's laptop while he was away on vacation earlier in the year. So how does his holiday work measure up?
Content
First it seems fair that I lay my cards on the table. I am a confessed Subalophile – my name is Alex and I believe Subal make the best underwater housings and I currently own 4 (for Nikon F100, D100 and two F801s (called N8008 in the States)). The Subal D70, that is the subject of this review, has just been bought by my friend Steve Broadbelt, co-owner of Grand Cayman's Ocean Frontiers (http://www.oceanfrontiers.com), from Herb at Cathy Church's (http://www.cathychurch.com) who has both Subal and Sea and Sea D70 housings in stock and available today.
I own a Subal D10 for the Nikon D100 and this review has a strong focus comparing the Subal D70 with the D100. I have limited experience of the other D70 housings currently on the market and do not feel qualified to objectively compare these with the Subal ND70. The Subal ND70 works very well and is an excellent tool for underwater photography. This review is intended as a detailed critique of the system to help potential users and I will comment in more detail on negative features of the housing more than the things that work perfectly.
I own a Subal D10 for the Nikon D100 and this review has a strong focus comparing the Subal D70 with the D100. I have limited experience of the other D70 housings currently on the market and do not feel qualified to objectively compare these with the Subal ND70. The Subal ND70 works very well and is an excellent tool for underwater photography. This review is intended as a detailed critique of the system to help potential users and I will comment in more detail on negative features of the housing more than the things that work perfectly.
I think that the D70 is probably the current best choice for most people who want to use a DSLR underwater*. First it is a fine camera – and this month was named the European DSLR of the year. Nikon's cropped sensor lens range is currently better than Canon's for wide angle (with the 10.5mm Fisheye and the 12-24mm) and macro (with the 60mm, 105mm and 70-180mm), which are the main lenses used underwater. The D70 is cheaper than all other F mount (Nikon's lens mount also used by Fuji and Kodak) digital cameras, yet writes RAW files faster than the D100 and to my eyes these files are noticeably sharper at 100% from the D70 than the D100. Arguably, the most important advantage compared with nearly all other DSLRs is that the D70 is capable of flash synch up to 1/500 th of a second, which is useful both in achieving black backgrounds in Macro images and also controlling sunbursts in wide angle photography (the D100 synchs at 1/180 th and the S2 at 1/125 th ). The camera is actually capable of even faster flash synch than this (up to 1/8000 th ) because it has a virtual shutter (rather than mechanical) see http://www.wetpixel.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-6169.phtml for a discussion and example photos.
*I'm sure others disagree, but if we all had the same opinion on things then Wetpixel discussion forums would have no purpose!
*I'm sure others disagree, but if we all had the same opinion on things then Wetpixel discussion forums would have no purpose!
First impression of the Subal housing is that it is very compact. It is smaller than the Subal D100 housing in width, height and depth. It is much smaller than the Sea and Sea D70 housing and much, much smaller than the Sea and Sea D100 housing! The camera slotted straight in to the housing straight out of the box. The housing looks strong, tough and there is good weight saving machining on the inside. Steve delegated the first dive with the empty housing (to test that it was waterproof) to one of his dive staff, Dan the Captain of Ocean Frontier's Nauticat. Rather extravagant, but nice if you can! It didn't leak!
One noticeable change from the D100 is the locking mechanism, that is similar to Subal Canon G5 housing – with a clip on one side and locking catch on the other (see the rear view of the housing). In all my dives with Subals I have never had a flood – and feel confident enough about the future to put that in writing. I must say that this new mechanism does not automatically inspire the level of confidence that it should. But I am sure it is fine.
The D70 housing has 24 controls for the camera that access all the camera functions apart from MF-AF switch. All these controls lined up and worked well straight out of the box. Below are my detailed critical comments:
Despite the physical similarities of the D70 and D100 (both were born from the F80/N80 film camera) Subal have changed several of the controls for the D70 housing. The new lens release knob (that allows you to quickly change the camera lens without taking the camera out of the housing) is much more reliable than the old one, which occasionally would get bent and would require the user to bend it back. Subal have moved the Mode control dial from on top of the housing to the back, mainly to provide a more compact package. This control worked well before, but with this new design, a small window allows the photographer to see where it is set (A). This is an improvement. The on-off switch has changed from a lever switch to circular knob (B). I prefer the old switch. The new design is more fiddly and requires both the camera and the switch to be “ON” when pushing the camera into the housing to ensure that they line up. I am nitpicking here, because both work fine.
The aperture control dial (front control dial) has also been changed (C). This is a crucial control for underwater photography. The gearing of this control has been greatly improved from the D100 where you had to rotate it seemingly endlessly between f-stops! Now it is one click per f-stop (or whatever graduation in aperture settings you have set on the camera). The downside of the new control is that it is no longer right under your finger, which was one of the D100's best features, instead you have to reach beyond the shutter to adjust it. It still falls intuitively to hand, and the first time I used it my finger found it straight away without taking my eye from the viewfinder. So I guess that position is neither better nor worse, just different – probably just an old dog moaning about having to learn new tricks! A final point is that when the housing is fitted with the Fisheye port the gap between the port and the aperture control might be quite tight for a photographer wearing dry gloves.
The other main controls are excellent – although little changed from the D100. My favourite is the shutter release. The feel in this control of the “biting point” for the autofocus is almost amazing and this feature alone makes it worth buying this housing (I need to get out more)!! All the other push buttons line up perfectly and work perfectly, as you'd expect from a Subal. Nothing else to say there. The LCD screen is well shaded, recessed in the aluminium housing, which makes it easy to evaluate images.
The main absentee in the controls is the MSC switch (or M-AF switch as it is on the D70). The Subal housing does not allow you to switch the camera between manual and autofocus underwater from the camera body. You can only change to manual focus if you have a switchable lens and manual focus port – which are only available for the 60mm and 105mm macro lenses from Subal – as far as I know. Personally I do not recommend using Manual focus with the small viewfinders on cropped sensor DSLRs. I prefer to use the whole viewfinder for composition and trust the AF to do the focussing – especially as it is 5 area AF. I know many others disagree. The camera's menus, accessed through the LCD screen, allow you to switch between Continuous Servo (AF-C) and Single Servo (AF-S) modes underwater.
The final control I would like to comment on is the AF/MF knob on the left hand side of the housing. I usually use this control for zooming lenses (e.g. 12-24mm, 17-35mm, 28-70mm). The positioning of this control is not in the same place as on all the other Subal housings, Subal have moved it back from the lens so that they can make the housing more compact. This means that the zoom gears on my lenses do not connect with this control, and need to be repositioned. No great stress, and this would only be a problem for a photographer who was swapping lenses between older Subal housings.
Steve's housing does not have Subal's new optional magnified viewfinder. During the test dives I was perfectly happy with the standard viewfinder. But I do not wear glasses and have young eyes. The D70's viewfinder is smaller than the D100 and I recommend taking your facemask to the shop when choosing your housing and viewfinder. For what it is worth I would not buy the optional viewfinder.
Despite the physical similarities of the D70 and D100 (both were born from the F80/N80 film camera) Subal have changed several of the controls for the D70 housing. The new lens release knob (that allows you to quickly change the camera lens without taking the camera out of the housing) is much more reliable than the old one, which occasionally would get bent and would require the user to bend it back. Subal have moved the Mode control dial from on top of the housing to the back, mainly to provide a more compact package. This control worked well before, but with this new design, a small window allows the photographer to see where it is set (A). This is an improvement. The on-off switch has changed from a lever switch to circular knob (B). I prefer the old switch. The new design is more fiddly and requires both the camera and the switch to be “ON” when pushing the camera into the housing to ensure that they line up. I am nitpicking here, because both work fine.
The aperture control dial (front control dial) has also been changed (C). This is a crucial control for underwater photography. The gearing of this control has been greatly improved from the D100 where you had to rotate it seemingly endlessly between f-stops! Now it is one click per f-stop (or whatever graduation in aperture settings you have set on the camera). The downside of the new control is that it is no longer right under your finger, which was one of the D100's best features, instead you have to reach beyond the shutter to adjust it. It still falls intuitively to hand, and the first time I used it my finger found it straight away without taking my eye from the viewfinder. So I guess that position is neither better nor worse, just different – probably just an old dog moaning about having to learn new tricks! A final point is that when the housing is fitted with the Fisheye port the gap between the port and the aperture control might be quite tight for a photographer wearing dry gloves.
The other main controls are excellent – although little changed from the D100. My favourite is the shutter release. The feel in this control of the “biting point” for the autofocus is almost amazing and this feature alone makes it worth buying this housing (I need to get out more)!! All the other push buttons line up perfectly and work perfectly, as you'd expect from a Subal. Nothing else to say there. The LCD screen is well shaded, recessed in the aluminium housing, which makes it easy to evaluate images.
The main absentee in the controls is the MSC switch (or M-AF switch as it is on the D70). The Subal housing does not allow you to switch the camera between manual and autofocus underwater from the camera body. You can only change to manual focus if you have a switchable lens and manual focus port – which are only available for the 60mm and 105mm macro lenses from Subal – as far as I know. Personally I do not recommend using Manual focus with the small viewfinders on cropped sensor DSLRs. I prefer to use the whole viewfinder for composition and trust the AF to do the focussing – especially as it is 5 area AF. I know many others disagree. The camera's menus, accessed through the LCD screen, allow you to switch between Continuous Servo (AF-C) and Single Servo (AF-S) modes underwater.
The final control I would like to comment on is the AF/MF knob on the left hand side of the housing. I usually use this control for zooming lenses (e.g. 12-24mm, 17-35mm, 28-70mm). The positioning of this control is not in the same place as on all the other Subal housings, Subal have moved it back from the lens so that they can make the housing more compact. This means that the zoom gears on my lenses do not connect with this control, and need to be repositioned. No great stress, and this would only be a problem for a photographer who was swapping lenses between older Subal housings.
Steve's housing does not have Subal's new optional magnified viewfinder. During the test dives I was perfectly happy with the standard viewfinder. But I do not wear glasses and have young eyes. The D70's viewfinder is smaller than the D100 and I recommend taking your facemask to the shop when choosing your housing and viewfinder. For what it is worth I would not buy the optional viewfinder.
My main gripe with this housing is that it only has one flash synch socket and one strobe arm attachment point. I think that most photographers prefer using two strobes and prefer to have both wired to the camera to be certain that both fire rather than relying on slave flashes. Furthermore, in my experience flash synch sockets are the most unreliable part of a housing and having a second synch socket seems like a very good idea to me.
There are obvious solutions to this problem. The first is to shoot just one flash, or to use a ring flash or other port mounted strobes – such as Espen Rekdal's system. But these solutions are not ideal for all shots and are pretty limiting. The more sensible solution is to use a Y junction synch cord (although these are not available for all strobes) and create a second strobe mounting point. According to Herb at Cathy Church's Subal recommend replacing their right hand handle with an Ultralight handle with a Ultralight ball on top. This works, but you have to buy it, and I prefer the contoured Subal handle to the cylinder shaped Ultralight handle.
With Steve's Subal we are using another solution. We have mounting an Ultralight ball on top of right hand Subal handle. We did not think that the plastic Subal handles would be able to take this but fortunately I have my Subal F100 housing here which has metal handles, very strong and ideal for mounting a ball on. Clearly this solution is not available to everyone, unless you have a friend with an older Subal with metal handles who doesn't mind swapping!
I do not understand why Subal only put one synch socket and one flash attachment point on the housing. I presume that this decision was made to save money and keep the cost of the housing down. And I further presume that they made this decision because they felt that serious photographers will go for the D100 over the D70. In actual fact I think that D70 is the better camera for underwater photography and Subal has misjudged the market. Subal may be planning a more expensive version of ND70 as they did with the N90 housing, which had a similar problem in it's early guise. Or the D200/D90 might be exactly the same shape as the D100 and may slot straight into the existing D100 housing immediately making it the more superior system to the D70. These fantasies apart, I think this is the only major flaw in the housing.
There are obvious solutions to this problem. The first is to shoot just one flash, or to use a ring flash or other port mounted strobes – such as Espen Rekdal's system. But these solutions are not ideal for all shots and are pretty limiting. The more sensible solution is to use a Y junction synch cord (although these are not available for all strobes) and create a second strobe mounting point. According to Herb at Cathy Church's Subal recommend replacing their right hand handle with an Ultralight handle with a Ultralight ball on top. This works, but you have to buy it, and I prefer the contoured Subal handle to the cylinder shaped Ultralight handle.
With Steve's Subal we are using another solution. We have mounting an Ultralight ball on top of right hand Subal handle. We did not think that the plastic Subal handles would be able to take this but fortunately I have my Subal F100 housing here which has metal handles, very strong and ideal for mounting a ball on. Clearly this solution is not available to everyone, unless you have a friend with an older Subal with metal handles who doesn't mind swapping!
I do not understand why Subal only put one synch socket and one flash attachment point on the housing. I presume that this decision was made to save money and keep the cost of the housing down. And I further presume that they made this decision because they felt that serious photographers will go for the D100 over the D70. In actual fact I think that D70 is the better camera for underwater photography and Subal has misjudged the market. Subal may be planning a more expensive version of ND70 as they did with the N90 housing, which had a similar problem in it's early guise. Or the D200/D90 might be exactly the same shape as the D100 and may slot straight into the existing D100 housing immediately making it the more superior system to the D70. These fantasies apart, I think this is the only major flaw in the housing.
In conclusion I think that this is a better housing than Subal D100. Most of the controls are the same and a few have been noticeably improved. The D70 is a better camera than the D100 for underwater use. And this is therefore a better system.
My only main criticism is that this housing only has one synch socket and one strobe arm mounting point. This problem can be rectified if the user buys additional accessories – but I think that this problem should not be the user's to solve.
I feel that this review reads a little negatively, because I have focussed on features I do not like, rather than waxing on lyrically about all the things that work perfectly on the housing. The Subal ND70 is arguably the best DSLR solution for many underwater photographers available today. It is a delight to use underwater. During the last couple of years I have dived with a number of photographers struggling with unwieldy systems – and seen them miss shots that I have bagged with my Subal. The superb ergonomics of the Subal D70, born from half a century of Arnold Stepanek's experience in underwater photography housings, insures that this gem of a housing will let you get the shots that others won't. I fully recommend this system to anyone.
Should I trade in a D100 housing for the D70?
I do not think that the improvements justify the costs. I will stick with the D100 and wait of the next generation of cameras.
Should I get the D100 or D70 in a Subal?
D70 every time. Even if you already own a D100 camera but no housing. Trade it and get a D70!
My only main criticism is that this housing only has one synch socket and one strobe arm mounting point. This problem can be rectified if the user buys additional accessories – but I think that this problem should not be the user's to solve.
I feel that this review reads a little negatively, because I have focussed on features I do not like, rather than waxing on lyrically about all the things that work perfectly on the housing. The Subal ND70 is arguably the best DSLR solution for many underwater photographers available today. It is a delight to use underwater. During the last couple of years I have dived with a number of photographers struggling with unwieldy systems – and seen them miss shots that I have bagged with my Subal. The superb ergonomics of the Subal D70, born from half a century of Arnold Stepanek's experience in underwater photography housings, insures that this gem of a housing will let you get the shots that others won't. I fully recommend this system to anyone.
Should I trade in a D100 housing for the D70?
I do not think that the improvements justify the costs. I will stick with the D100 and wait of the next generation of cameras.
Should I get the D100 or D70 in a Subal?
D70 every time. Even if you already own a D100 camera but no housing. Trade it and get a D70!
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comments
Will a Subal housing work well with my Canon1DS Mark2?
I will be using a 17-40mm f4 and 100mm Macro f2.8 Canon lenses...I'm not sure what strobe I will be purchasing. Do you have any advise for a strobe system?
Thanks...
Tom...
posted by on 07/05/2006
