Review of Seacam Canon EOS 5D underwater housing by Phil Simha

As Canon stated it in their marketing material, the EOS 5D does mark a new era in digital photography. For details on the features of the 5D, please refer to the digideep.com review here. In this article, I’d rather concentrate on how these features benefit the underwater photographer.

The 5D has a very ergonomic design and feels great in your hands. All controls are easily accessible and whether you’re already familiar with Canon bodies or not, it’s easy to get used to the logic applied in the menus and under menus. Which ever your housing, you will find these commands just as accessible, providing you take the time to get acquainted with your housed camera on land first. For the travelling underwater photographer, combining the 5D with a polycarbonate housing would be a good compromise to carry a professional system, with a reasonable weight.

The number one feature of the 5D underwater, is the full size captor: with this achievement from Canon, a 17mm lens does result in a 17mm angle –compromises are gone and you’re back to a good old 24x36 slide format. The 5D has a capacity of 3 frames/second and no shutter delay, making it a good tool for action photography both on land and underwater. The various focus modes allow up to 9-point TTL assisted by 6 "invisible assist AF points", guaranteeing good depth for wide-angle pictures and rendering split shots more convenient.

Considering the features and with weight in mind, some of the best choices include the 17-40mm, a 50 or 100mm macro lens and a 70-300mm zoom for land work. A wider angle, such as a 14mm fish eye is great for water work, but does also require an additional super dome... And here goes your weight limit!!!

The 5D has a choice of white balance modes to play with. It’s nice to work with pre-programmed modes when little time is available to make adjustments, but also with more personal settings when working on a composition with less time pressure. Under picture style, one finds other classics such as the ”standard” “landscape”, “portrait”, etc. modes, including 3 custom types. 21 functions are user programmable, as well as WB and EV settings. The format setting that allows to save the picture in RAW and in a choice of jpg sizes is a welcome addition and a real time saver in the workflow. Finally, note for land and indoor photography that the 5D does not have a pop-up flash. The Sigma EF-500, which is slightly cheaper than Canon’s, works just fine with all the 5D features.

Used in fully automatic mode, P mode, or under more personal settings, the 5D is incredibly versatile: whether a professional sport photographer or a creative artist, there’s enough room for everyone to play!

Seacam does not need any introduction. The fact that this top of the line manufacturer has created a dedicated housing for the 5D reflects the interest that this camera presents for the underwater photographer.

Altogether, the Seacam Silver housing for the EOS 5D is very compact. Sit it next to a Nikon D2X and you’ll see right away what I mean... The inside of the housing has been fitted with black fibre coating acting as humidity absorbent; the “water breach” alarm sensor is extremely sensible and reacts even to a dry finger. The knobs are big and easy to manipulate even with dry gloves. Various viewfinders are available. Altogether, combined to the 5D, this housing makes you feel like you’re investing wisely and for the long term: the robustness and the precision of the mechanic are obvious even to the eye of a layman and fully justify the Silver’s position as a leading high end product.

Aluminium lightweight precision-cast, double hardened and hard anodized. Black fibre coating inside; all materials used of stainless steel, anodized aluminium and high-grade plastic. Threaded connections with helical insert thread; interchangeable port system with screw thread connection. Housing lock with two spring-mounted and secured quick-clasps. Main seal of the housing with 3.5 mm safety O-ring and all moving parts double O-ring sealed.

Display window, N5 flash connection, 2 tee(s) for flash arm, integrated and detachable hand grip(s), thread protection caps for housing and ports, spare O-ring set in neoprene bag including O-ring grease and contact oil for flash socket, Allen key set as well as nylon rope and operating instructions. Second flash connection, audible leak detector, flash connections with robust S6 plug system or original Nikonos V-type socket, AF/MF changeover for AF 100 2.8 (EOS 5).

Shutter release button, zoom or manual focus, aperture, clearly visible program wheel with ON/OFF switch, adjusting wheel at front and quick adjusting wheel at back, data memory, AF measuring field selector, exposure metering mode, function key, +/- flash adjustment.

Port system with screw thread. Plane port, macro port, manual focus macro port, dome port, wide port, fisheye port and superdome of high-grade optical glass, precisely ground, most finely polished and optical coating upon request.

The most skilled part of the process is to open the housing without breaking a finger. Well, concentrate hard the 20 first times and it will eventually become an automatism. Rest assured if you forget to position your fingers properly, the ensuing pain guarantees that you don’t forget again. Notice that after releasing the quick clasps, you can lock them in the upper position so they don’t dangle on the sides while you’re manipulating the housing.

Passed that point, everything else is a true piece of cake! Mount the zoom ring on your lens, remove the rubber around the viewer, check batteries and card, and basically just insert the camera in the housing. It will come to rest gently just where it should and all that is left is to screw the camera to the housing platform and connect the hot shoe cable.

Before closing the housing, a quick check of zoom and other functions can obviously not hurt. Then, just make sure the ON/OFF switch know is positioned correctly on the back panel before to gently close it.

In order to keep a low profile system, I’ve chosen the Galilei "pro G " viewfinder, embedded in the housing, with brilliant view. It reduces the viewfinder image a little bit, but shows the entire viewfinder image and all the camera information despite diving mask. The camera dioptre adjustment remains fully effective.

split shot coral/sunset

reef & fish counterlight

soft coral under diver's light

Some dislike the shutter release button positioning, arguing that they don’t use their thumbs to shoot. This can be mentioned when ordering a housing and the people at Seacam can offer a more “index like” trigger. But actually, the original positioning does not pose any problem used with the index finger as well: it takes just a little bit of getting used to it. On the other hand, if you chose to use the swivelling 45° sports viewfinder, you may find the thumb release more practical…

According to the port used, the system is pretty much neutrally buoyant and easy to handle and position. The only manipulation that is difficult with gloves is with the upper set of push buttons. In dark environments in particular, where the backlight display comes handy, you often end up pushing both the light switch and the WB setting button at the same time. But Seacam had no better way to deal with the camera construction, so they still did a good job!

Mirror effect on the lago maggiore

Silhouette divers in river canyon

Mirror effect below surface in the verzasca river

The Seaflash 250 Digital mounted on Seacam strobe arms is very versatile and easy to position. The “brake disc technology” is convincing both above and below water. The tight screwing allows to hand a compact but firm system to a crew on board; when diving, loosening the screw is sufficient to easily orient the strobe and hold it there.

Finally, note that a couple issues may require being slightly more than a plug-and-play photographer. First of all, with the 17-40mm lens, there may be an issue of reflections on the port when shooting wide-angle against the light (see picture “verzasca ponte dei salti 01”). Stephen Frink had the same issue with his EOS 1D and addresses it very cleverly in “A low-tech solution for a high-tec problem”, on wetpixel.com. Then, if using the Seacam Seaflash strobe, the TTL mode does not function at the time of writing (06.2006). This is not a major drag for the underwater photographer, as most of us privilege manual modes anyway. But Harald Hordosch is working on the issue and will update the Seaflash when the software is ready.

Combined with a single Seacam Seaflash, the results achieved are quite convincing, under all kinds of conditions. For a professional photographer, the system remains compact and reasonably lightweight, while still allowing very creative photography. The general feeling of this system is that of high end, well-priced and long-term investment.

• HD-camcorders are getting DSLR-competitors
• Ikelite - New strobe announced
• Hugyfot HFC-40D Housing Review
• Canon announces EOS 1000D / Rebel XS
• Ikelite housing EOS 450D