Expedition to Spitsbergen with Sony Alpha 350 and BS Kinetics Gibson

In the midst of June I am transported to the airport of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. With envious glances I spot the many passengers travelling in their flip-flops and shorts and checking in their one and only suitcase. There's too big a difference between their outfits and luggage, and mine. I am trying to move around in jackboots, my heaviest pair of trousers, two sweaters and a winter coat. Furthermore, I am heavily packed with a large bag containing my diving gear, among which a dry suit, two sets of thermal underwear and two sets of scuba sets. A second bag holds lots of thick clothes, another set of jackboots, hats, gloves and scarves. And on top of that, two photo rucksacks with the Sony Alpha 350, an underwater housing for this camera, three underwater flash units, a wide angle lens, a large telephoto lens, two storage tanks, an extra camera, many batteries and a fistful of battery chargers inside. I think it is rather obvious that I am not on my way to Bonaire for a week. My destination is in the Far North. And although June means summer in Spitsbergen, the information of Waterproof Expeditions is unmistakable: it is cold on the water and diving will be even colder underwater; and therefore only safe with the right diving wear that is cold-resistant. My flight goes from Amsterdam to Oslo, Oslo to Tromso and finally from Tromso to Longyearbyen. Having to change flights is not easy at all with the two huge rucksacks, let alone with my two enormous bags that I have to drag from one plane to the other. I am not at all happy with this, and I am thus relieved to get to Longyearbyen and finally into the hotel. My arrival at midnight and the fact that there is no time-difference to overcome are still no guarantees for a good night’s sleep. The reason I cannot fall asleep is the daylight. It never gets dark in Spitsbergen in June and it is just as easy to do some sightseeing in the middle of the night as it is during daytime. And that is just what I do!

The expedition to Spitsbergen that I am joining is organized by Waterproof Expeditions (http://www.waterproof-expeditions.com). This company organizes expeditions to the Arctic as well as the Antarctic area. You will stay on a ship during the expedition. Don't picture a luxurious cruise ship, since our polar vessel should be able to withstand cold and, most of all, ice floes. The vessel however, does offer warm and comfortable cabins, a dining room and rooms for speeches. The group is always international. Binding factor is the passenger’s fascination for the nature of the polar regions. Emphasis lies on photographing this unique area. For part of this group, it is the underwater wildlife, but the non-divers are not left behind: when the divers are underwater, they are brought on land in a zodiac to explore life on land and search for other sea mammals and birds to capture with their cameras. The divers on the other hand, will also make a few visits to the land as part of the complete polar expedition. The information I received prior to the journey was extremely extensive and reliable. The destination is not like the usual holiday destinations and the cold circumstances make this trip a real expedition.

Diving in the polar region means diving in the most extreme circumstances, as you can imagine. The human body functions best with a body temperature between 36.6 and 37.3 degrees Celsius. Therefore, long-term exposure to cold is not too good because the body temperature drops. The road from chattering your teeth to becoming inactive and losing consciousness is a small road. Underwater the body cools down even faster than above water; for water conducts cold as much as seven times faster. The only way to be able to dive in water that is as cold as 0 degrees Celsius is to wear a dry-suit. And since diving in a dry suit requires different skills than diving in a wetsuit, Waterproof Expeditions demands that divers are experienced with diving in a dry-suit. They also strongly advise not to bring new diving gear. You are advised to use and try-out all diving gear at home, so you will not encounter unpleasant surprises during the expedition. An additional demand is to bring two scuba sets. In cold water there is a chance your scuba set will freeze as a result of which it blows a lot of air, which in turn causes your cylinder to empty very fast. Nor is breathing through a blowing scuba set very pleasant. Mounting two scuba sets to the cylinder will enable your buddy to close the blowing one, which will stop the blowing immediately. The second scuba set will let you breathe again normally. This situation however, makes you having to blow off the rest of the dive. Thankfully, my scuba sets were able to withstand the cold water. They really lived up to their names: Cressi Sub Alaska. Not only my own body, also the camera has to be handled with extra care. The main rule is to leave the camera out of the warmth once exposed to the cold. Large temperature differences cause condense and digital cameras do not like this. That is why I change batteries, lenses and memory cards outdoors. The cold is also a nuisance for the battery. During a polar expedition you can count on half the battery-life the manufacturer claims. Thankfully, the Sony Alpha 350 has a lifespan of approximately 720 pictures when using the optical viewfinder and 410 pictures using Life View, and the remaining capacity of the battery is constantly displayed. Even half of the battery's lifespan is sufficient to take pictures during a dive or an expedition on land. Capacity of the battery never was at stake or a limited factor during a dive; the low water temperature itself limited the diving time to 45 minutes per dive anyway.

It's time to go for a dive. I slide out of the zodiac and I can feel the cold water tingle on my forehead. This is the only part of my body that can be touched by the water. Other than that, it is strapped into a dry-suit that also has boots and gloves attached to it. The back of my dry-suit has a zipper to enable me to enter the suit, after which I pull a seal of flexible neoprene over my head. This seal is so tight around my neck, that it prevents water entering the suit. When a buddy closes the waterproof zip, my body remains completely dry. This is pleasant since the temperature of the water I just entered is below freezing point: minus 1 degree Celsius. When I turn around, I can see pieces of ice floating around where we will dive. In an instant, the cold is forgotten as I see the beautiful bluish floes. Every time I swim a little bit further underwater, the ice looks different again. During the briefing we had a clear warning not to swim beneath the ice because of the danger of the ice crashing down. Moreover, ice moves fast and the expedition leaders do not want us to get caught in between the floes. Safety first at all times! We are not able to see the bottom of the sea and therefore no anemones or starfish, but the ice is so fascinating I don't even think of it twice. I try to get as good a picture as I can of this bluish-white ice. After thirty minutes, my buddy and I are starting to feel the cold creep up so we decide to go back to the zodiac. I am not the only one who enjoyed this dive tremendously; my buddy is grinning from ear to ear. It is quite obvious he too, enjoyed this underwater adventure.

One morning I am quietly chatting away to the captain as a sudden noise surrounds us. There seem to be walruses on the ice. From where I stand, I can only see a brown blob on the ice, nothing that looks like a walrus. The captain skilfully manoeuvres the big vessel closer to the blob and slowly but surely the contours of the brown blob becomes visible. The walruses are nicely nestled against each other and seem to have just woken up from a deep sleep. They peer around curiously and question is: who is watching who? Finally, we are close enough to take some pictures. And close enough means, close enough for a telephoto lens. These colossal giants can weigh up to an incredible 1400 kilos; you definitely don’t want to disturb them and experience their rage. The 70-200mm lens focuses fast, very fast, also at 200mm. The lens offering a bright of f/2.8 throughout the entire zoom range is clearly noticeable. And the super sonic wave motor inside the lens performs greatly. Although the body of the Alpha 350 is not that big, the combination of housing and telephoto lens of 1340 grams is pleasant to hold. I took pictures without making use of a tripod which is very well possible since the Sony Alpha features an integrated stabilizer (SuperSteady Shot). Shooting in ice and snow conditions is usually awkward and it is difficult to get a correct exposure. The Sony Alpha A350 seems to be prepared since the camera responds strongly to the light areas in the picture. Pictures with snow in the background tended to be underexposed. Obviously Sony is trying to prevent light areas to be bleached at all cost. And to be honest, I appreciated this feature because it is easier to correct an underexposed picture than a picture with bleached areas.

The low water temperature and the use of dry-gloves are the most extreme test conditions for an underwater housing. The BS Kinetics passes with flying colours. The handgrips look a bit silly at first glance, however, they are extremely pleasant to hold. The distance between the right handgrip and the shutter release button seemed to have been hand-made for my hand! A flash arm can be attached to the outside of every handgrip which works perfectly. The buttons to operate the camera with are sufficiently large to press or turn with dry-gloves on. The underwater housing is made of (dark) carbon. This means that the camera itself is not visible once inside. To have a clue what you are doing, the buttons contain stickers as for what function they serve. Nearly all functions can be operated by the buttons of the underwater housing. One unpleasant factor is the on/off button that cannot be operated. I think that is a real miss. If you forget to turn on the camera before closing the underwater housing, you will have a dive without pictures. This is even more applicable to Spitsbergen where you cannot just take the camera out of the housing and in order to turn it on belatedly.

The original plan is to sail around Spitsbergen via the north side. The north namely provides the most chance to spot some polar bears. The day after the dive between the ice floes, we sail slightly northward. At one point we sail in the midst of the ice floes. The northern wind has blown pack ice from higher up north to the south. And at that point, the captain takes the decision that it is too dangerous to continue the journey further to the north. Although his vessel is able to withstand pack ice, the zodiacs will not be able to leave the vessel this way. And that means it will be impossible to dive or to explore the land. Unfortunately, it also means that the chance of spotting a polar bear has dropped drastically as well. Since this is a genuine expedition, the elements decide the route the vessel takes and not the humans. We are forced to sail to the south of Spitsbergen. There is no ice here. There should be a wall underwater though. And with the proper instructions we should be able to locate it although this also depends on the sight underwater. My buddy and I descend and we are pleasantly surprised by the view that reaches even more than 20 meters. We descend even further and we spot the surface at 19 meters. The surface is covered with sea anemones and other anemones. I immediately start shooting as I am very curious to see if Live View is as fast as Sony claim. I am not disappointed at all: the auto focus has no lag whatsoever. I predict that this feature will convince many users of compact cameras to make the step to a digital reflex camera. However, I have two complaints about Live View and these are; the limited reproduction of approximately 90% of the actual view and the darkening of the monitor when I want to underexpose a picture in manual mode. Of course, this darkening is a warning for the photographer to say: "Watch out! Your picture will be underexposed!", the thing is, it restricts the possibilities to work in manual mode. The camera is obviously not aware of the fact that there are two external flash units that help to correctly expose the picture. In the end, I have not swum more than around 25 meters this dive. There is so much to capture I completely forgot about the wall we were supposed to find. And as I turn around at the end of the dive, I spot the promised wall. Unfortunately, my diving computer and my cold hands tell me it's time to go up since I've been down for 45 minutes already.

Underwater I concentrate in taking pictures with an overview. The ice floes and underwater landscapes are that fascinating and colourful, I find it a pity to take macro shots. It's the 11-18 mm wide angle lens of Sony that I use. The dome port of the BS Kinetics closes by means of a bayonet mount on the underwater housing. Turning it a quarter to the right suffices to attach the port to the housing. The dome port is extremely compact. This is pleasant while travelling as well as underwater. The bigger the dome port, the more resistance while swimming. The combination of the underwater housing with the dome port and two Sea & Sea YS 110 flashes is almost neutral. Personally, I like the set to be somewhat negative. It is easier having to hold the camera up underwater than having to pull it down. Although a heavy negative would not be that pleasant either: it would soon turn into a game of weightlifting. At 11 mm the dome port shows some distortion, however, this decreases when zooming in.

Sony Alpha 350

The Sony Alpha 350, put in the market by Sony, is a digital reflex camera for the advanced photographer. Professionals will probably find the speed of 2.5 frames per second too slow. However, underwater photography does not require extreme speed since you nearly always make use of flashes and you also have to wait for the flash batteries to recharge before the next shot is enabled. Sony uses Carl Zeiss lenses for the Sony Alpha 350. The camera is light with its 582grams, as well as compact and has a pleasant hand-fit. The CCD sensor offers 14.2 effective megapixels. Pictures can be stored in RAW, JPEG as well as RAW + JPEG. The Alpha 350 supports various storage memory cards. Not only the Sony types (Memory Stick Duo, MS Pro Duo and MS Pro HG) are supported, also CF cards type I and II. To tackle the dust problem of dust sticking to the sensor, the Alpha 350 has been equipped with a dual anti-dust system. The sensor has an anti-static coating and a shake mechanism. This mechanism is activated automatically after changing the lens, giving dust no chance to stick to the sensor. The tilting LCD of 2.7inch can be folded out to 90 degrees upwards and tilted downwards at 45 degrees. It facilitates using the Live view. The Live view function of the Sony DSLR-A350 not only works at manual focus, also at auto focus. Focussing in Live View is carried out even faster than using the optical viewfinder!

BS Kinetics

BS Kinetics is a German company manufacturing underwater housings for photo cameras and video cameras. In addition, BS Kinetics also produce video lamps. The housing for the Sony Alpha 350 belongs to the Gibson models. This series of underwater housings of BS Kinetics is made in particular for digital reflex cameras that fit in the dimensions of this series (180 x 190 x 130 mm). Other series of underwater housings are available for larger reflex cameras and compact cameras. The underwater housing is compact and the small size of the Sony Alpha 350 benefits from this. The set as a whole remains pleasantly portable. BS Kinetics is one of few manufacturers that uses carbon fibre for their housings. This fibre is light and solid at the same time. Despite this, the underwater housing weighs 1900grams. This slightly surprised me, since I really expected a carbon fibre housing to be much lighter. However, this weight can easily be explained; the underwater housing has been tested to a depth of 80 meters. The pressure at a depth like that is of such height (9 bar) that a thicker layer of carbon fibre is required to withstand the pressure. Obviously BS Kinetics deliver a large amount of ports for wide angle as well as standard and macro lenses. The ports feature bayonet mounts.

Conclusion

The Live View of the Sony Alpha 350 is the fastest I have ever seen on a digital reflex camera, and can certainly be used underwater. I do regret the monitor not offering a 100% view. The dual anti-dust system is well thought-through because the shake mechanism is activated after every change of lens. And that is exactly when the highest risk of getting dust occurs. The underwater housing is extremely pleasant to hold and operate, also with large dry-gloves. Regrettably, the underwater housing does not offer an on/off button.

Pros

• ++ fast live view in auto focus
• ++ underwater housing also operable well with dry-gloves
• ++ dual anti-dust system

Cons

• -- no on/off button on the underwater housing
• -- live view offers approximately 90% view

More images...