HI all

I just got a nikon d80 and would like to buy under water housing for it . Can any one help me with this as their seam to be quit a few out their . Also the camera has a af-5 nikkor 18-135 lens on it .

Thanks for your help
jay

Hi Jay

There certainly will be a wide range of housings available for the D80.

Factors that might affect your choice are:
- budget:  the cost of the different housings varies to a surprising extent.  You may well be able to eliminate a fair few of the available housings this way.  When considering budget, don’t forget to price in the relevant ports for the lens or lenses that you want to use, and also, unless you are diving only in particularly clear and bright conditions, you are going to need a strobe or two.
- local suppliers:  If you have nearby suppliers that carry a particular brand of housings, you may be well advised to consider those brands.  Having local after sales support can be a huge benefit, compared to having to ship your housing back to a foreign manufacturer in the event of a warranty issue.
- international travel:  If you are going to do alot of international travel with your rig, you may want to look at housings that are smaller, to save luggage space / weight, although that said, the difference in the various housing sizes is relatively small.
- glass ports vs perspex / polycarbonate ports:  some manufacturers supply glass ports (usually more expensive), which are supposed to be optically better than perspex/polycarbonate ports.  Whether this is a factor for you is a personal choice.
- aluminium vs plastic housings:  Many housings are made of aluminium, some are made from polycarbonate or similar plastics.  There are slightly different maintenance requirements for the different materials, and there is an impact from wall thickness and relative size/bouyancy on how they are to use underwater.
- depth rating:  if you are a technical diver or go deeper than 60m, you will need to pick a housing rated for your desired depths.  Generally, the deeper rated housings are more expensive.
- viewfinder:  Some housings allow you to select different viewfinders e.g. angle viewfinders, or magnifying viewfinders to assist in the use of the camera’s viewfinder.  Others limit you to what comes built in to the housing.

A final note is that the 18-135mm lens you have is probably not the ideal lens for underwater use.  It will give you moderate wide angle at the 18mm end, but nothing spectactular.  The 135mm end is likely to be only useful for macro work, if at all.  You may also have some difficulty finding a port suitable for that lens.  Most underwater photographers that shoot wide angle have much wider lenses (I believe the 12-24mm is popular, but a search of this site will reveal a good straw poll of what people are using), and for macro work, the 60mm and 105mm macro lenses are often used.

There’s loads of resources on the net regarding real life experiences with the various housings available - searching this site, as well as http://www.wetpixel.com should get you started.

Good luck!