Canon EOS 5D in Ikelite eTTL 2 Housing #6871.05
The Camera
The Canon EOS 5D truly is a revolutionary camera. Just as the Digital Rebel (300D) cut the price of digital SLR cameras below $1000 and put dSLR cameras in the hands of the average consumer, the EOS 5D cuts the price of full frame digital SLR camera by more than half and will make full frame digital no longer limited to working pros and wealthy hobbyists. At $3300 the 5D is a real bargain compared to the only other current full frame digital SLR camera, the Canon 1DS mark II, which sells for $8000.
For those who can afford the $3300 price tag the 5D is a dream come true. For people where a $3000 camera body is still out of reach, the 5D marks a big step forward in the development of full frame sensors.
This is not meant to be an in depth review of the camera. There is already plenty of information about this camera on the internet, and if you are reading this, you probably already know how cool the camera is. However I would like to point out a few key features which make this camera an excellent choice for use underwater.
First of all, it is full frame. Lenses developed for film cameras work as they were designed to. Smaller sensors reduce the angle of view you get out of a lens. This was initially a very big limitation, however both lens makers are helping to alleviate this issue by producing ultra wide angle lenses for small sensor dSLR's. There are still some holes in the crop-factor lens line-up. Most notable, there is no equivalent to the 15mm fisheye (one of the most useful lenses for underwater photography) currently available for Canon crop-factor cameras.
Canon 5D, Sigma 15mm Fisheye, f/14, 1/200s, ISO 100
In the future more and more of the lens line-up holes will be filled. However there is more to a larger sensor than just lens compatibility.
- Larger sensors do and will always produce better image quality. Higher resolution and greater sensitivity.
- Larger sensors, permit better control over the depth of field (DOF). Larger sensors allow greater DOF than smaller sensors as well as thinner DOF.
So there are theoretical advantages to the larger sensor. But what about real life? Well in a word, yes, the 5D's image quality is as good as you can currently get.
Currently most dSLR cameras are ~6-8 mega pixels. The 5D has 12.8MP. This is a very significant upgrade. However it is even more pronounced than the numbers would lead you to believe. Because the pixel sites on the sensor are physically larger, each of the 12.8 million pixels caries more information than the pixels found in cameras with smaller sensor cameras. 100% crops from the 5D are absolutely stunning. The 5D has 2x the pixels of the 6mp cameras by Canon and Nikon, but I would estimate that it resolves 3x the detail.
The other big plus for the 5D is that it is not big. Professional cameras both by Canon and Nikon are huge compared to the 5D. While the integrated vertical grip may be nice for photographers on land, underwater the increased size just gets in the way. Since the camera is half the size, housings for it can be half the size (as well as half of the cost).
So are there any drawbacks? Well there is one place where the 5D could have been improved: Auto Focus.
Do not get me wrong, the 5D's AF is no slouch, it is a noticeable step up from the AF in older non-pro cameras. But it is not as good as the AF found in the Canon's and Nikon's professional cameras (1DmkII or D2x)
The Housing
I was lucky enough to receive the first housing to first come off the production line. My initial review pointed out several areas where the housing could be improved. Ikelite tweaked their design based on some of the feedback from my first review. I have made note of these changes, this review now reflects the housings that are currently being shipped by Ikelite.
Ikelite is the first manufacturer to produce a housing for the 5D. And at $1400 + ports, the housing will end up costing less than half of the next cheapest housing for this camera when they all become available. At the time of writing, there are no other housings for the 5D to do any sort of direct comparison with other 5D housings. Instead I will focus on improvements from older Ikelite housings. If you don't want to read all of the details, I will sum it all up by saying that this is Ikelites best housing yet.
Like all Ikelite housings, the 5D housing is made of a very thick polycarbonate shell. The walls thickness (~1/2 inch thick) inspire confidence in the housing's durability. Most other brands of housings are made of aluminum. While aluminum housings may look more sleek, there are advantages to a clear housing.
- You can see that the o-rings are sealed properly and free of hairs or other debris.
- You can also visually confirm that there is no water in the housing so you can dive with this housing in confidence that your camera is safe inside.
- Being able to see the camera helps you learn which button does what.
My housing came equiped with a bright blue o-ring. The colour of the o-ring causes the whole housing to take on a blue tint. I really like it. It really makes the housing appear to glow. I'm not sure if Ikelite will continue to use blue o-rings as Ike mentioned that he very much disliked the look of them, but I hope they do.
The bolts that hold the base plate and arms on. Older designs had a problem where occasionally the bolts would come loose resulting in a flood. Rubber rings have been added on the inside of the bolts, presumably correcting this issue.
When a heavy lens was used on older Ikelite housings, the camera plate tended to bend down making some of the controls not work reliably. I had to have my old housing modified to add a support on the front of the camera plat. This is now standard. Two small knobs have been added to the bottom of the camera plate to support the front of the plate. The plate will no longer sag under the stress of a heavy lens.
On my housing, the placement of these pegs were poorly chosen. They collide with the rubber rings around the bottom bolt when you try to put the two halves of the housing together. Ikelite has since changed the location of the supports so this should no longer be an issue.
The 5D housing sports Ikelite's new 90 degree bulkhead to avoid damage to the sync cord when the housing is laying on it's back. You still must be careful with the sync cords as they are quite fragile, but this should help reduce the stress on them by quite a bit.
The viewfinder. Oh the viewfinder. The 5D really shines when it comes to the viewfinder. If you have only used crop-factor dSLR cameras you don't know what you are missing. The difference is night and day. Looking through the massive viewfinder is really a joy. The only down size of the larger viewfinder is that you really have to have your eye close to the viewfinder to see it all. This is not too big of a problem on the surface, but could be an issue underwater.
Ikelite's viewfinder optic does a reasonably good job giving you the most of the 5D's big viewfinder. With my mask on I can see about 75% of the width of the viewfinder. Vertically the entire height is visible including the exposure information on the bottom. You can move your head slightly to the right or left to see the corners, but I rarely find it necessary as all of the focus points are in the center.
Although the viewfinder optic is not perfect, it is perfectly usable the view through the finder is a big step up from what you get with a crop-factor camera. Of course, an external magnified viewfinder would be better, though would likely come close to doubling the cost of the housing.
The housing comes with zoom/focus gear and clamp and pads for use with small diameter lenses. Also included is a lead weight that can be placed in the base plate for added weight. Unlike other Ikelite housings I have seen, the 5D housing came with only half of the normal weight. Presumably with the heavier body, less weight was needed.
Also included was a set of Allen wrenches that can be used should you ever want to service the housing yourself, as well as a nice blue lens cloth.
Controls
All buttons except two are accessible inside the housing: the multi-directional joystick and the direct print button. The direct print button is useless even out of the water so this can not be considered a negative aspect. The joystick is used when reviewing images to pan up/down/left/right. It would be nice if this functionality was accessible but designing a button for the joystick is likely impossible and fortunately not critical. I would be very surprised if any housing manufacturer figures out a way to access this button.
Shutter and * buttons: The shutter and * buttons (the * button is used for many people to activate AF) are located on the left side of the housing. The shutter button is accessed by your index finger and the * button by your thumb just as you would on the camera out of the housing. Both knobs are both spring loaded which is an upgrade from previous housing where only the shutter button was spring loaded. Another change from previous Ikelite housings is that the * button now uses a much longer bar than on any other housing making it possible to use the button with your hand on the handles.
On my housing, the knob for the * button was very close to the housing. This made it more difficult to reach both the * button and the shutter at the same time than it could have been if a longer shaft had been used. This has been changed and a longer shaft is now used. Ikelite sent me the new version and I can confirm that it is easy to access both buttons simultaneously.
Digital cameras have all sorts of buttons. On this housing, Ikelite employed two types of buttons to access these pushbuttons.
The buttons on the back of the housings are accessed with a simple pushbutton, similar to what was used on the buttons on their other housings. Starting with Ikelite's Canon Digital Rebel 300D housing, the holes that the buttons were placed in had an opening on the side to make rinsing easier. It did make it easier to get the saltwater out, though according to Ikelite, the rinse channels were very time consuming to add and did not help enough to warrant the increased cost.
The buttons on the top of the housing are similar to the others but are a bit longer. This part of the housing is somewhat crowded and these buttons are easier to access than if they had used the style of buttons used on the back of the housing.
The aperture and shutter-speed dials are controlled via round knobs. They are easy enough to work. My only complaint regarding controlling aperture and shutter-speed does not have to do with the housing but the camera. There is an LCD on the top of the camera that displays the current camera settings. On many cameras this LCD is moved to or duplicated on the back of the camera. I much prefer the location on the back of the camera for use underwater. With the 5D, in order to see the settings you have to rotate the housing and look at it from the top. It is much easier to check settings when information is on the back of the camera.
The housing allows the user to zoom or manually focus. You can easily rotate the knob without removing hand from the handles. It is an either-or thing though. You must choose between manual focus or zoom control; you can not do both at the same time. I only use prime lenses so I would never need to do both, but if you routinely use zoom lenses and like to manual focus this may be a problem. Ikelite does offer flat ports with a focus knob on them, so it may be possible to access both focus and zoom in a few rare circumstances but do not count on.
Ikelite attempted to be clever and combine the lens release and depth of field preview button into one control. While this was a great idea in theory, it doesn't actually work out that well. While it is possible to activate the DOF preview, it requires a tricky maneuver, and is nearly impossible while looking through the viewfinder. I have never felt the desire to use the DOF preview button on land or in the water so I do not see this as a big issue but if this is a button you use commonly it may be a problem.
eTTL 2
Ikelite sets themselves apart from all other dSLR housing manufactures by including circuitry in their housings that allows TTL flash exposure with digital cameras. Ikelite's TTL system requires Ikelite DS substrobes are used. Currently the only two compatible strobes are DS-50 and DS-125. Next year Ikelite will be adding two more Digital strobes to the lineup, the DS-80 and the DS-200.
The TTL conversion circuitry is powered by the strobe. This is useful information to know because in my experience, occasionally the circuitry will crash and stop responding. Turning the strobes off and then back on will reboot the circuitry and everything will resume working as normal.
When you power the strobes on, the circuitry powers up and by default is set to TTL. There are two buttons to control the circuitry. Pushing the right button will dial in positive flash exposure compensation, the left - negative. FEC can be set from +2 to -2 in half stop steps. With the circuitry set to TTL, the strobe must be set to TTL or the strobes will not sync leaving your pictures underexposed.
There is also a way to dial in flash exposure compensation into the camera body itself. The setting in the camera is used when the setting on the housing circuitry is set to 0. If the housing circuitry is set to + or - FEC the housing setting will override the camera setting.
Although I got along fine without TTL, having it as an option is very nice. It does work quite well in many circumstances. I now use it almost all the time when shooting macro. For wide angle shooting, I use manual most of the time, though there are situations where I prefer TTL. In particular when there is a lot of sand in the foreground, I find TTL very useful.
If you press both the right and left buttons at the same time the circuitry switches to manual flash mode. Default is full power. By pressing the left and right buttons you can adjust the power by 3 stops in half stop steps. With the circuitry set to manual, you can leave the strobes in TTL mode and their power will be set by the setting on the housing, or you can set them to manual and control the power on the strobe. This is useful if you want to set the two strobes differently.
The 5D has a maximum sync speed of 1/200 second. You can set the camera to a faster speed, but when you press the shutter it will temporarily drop the shutter speed down to 1/200 before taking the picture. After you release the shutter button, the camera will return to the previously set setting. So it is easy to not realize this is happening until you get home and check the EXIF info. On some cameras (10D, 300D, and probably others) you could cheat the camera by setting the eTTL circuitry to manual and the camera would let you set shoot faster speeds. But not with the 5D. In some ways this is a negative consequence of the camera being smarter and working as it should. There is no high-speed sinc mode as is found on canon speedlights.
CF15 on the camera allows you to select first or second curtain sync. Setting this to second curtain has no effect when using strobes underwater. You can not shoot second curtain sync with the 5D in this housing.
Ports
The port is the only part of any housing that has the potential to have an influence on the quality of the final image. This makes the port a key component of the housing. In the past Ikelite has received a lot of grief about their port system but they are making an effort to curve this.
The most common complaint you will hear is that the Ikelite port system does not use extension rings so it may be necessary to buy a different port for each lens you want to use. At first this may be a negative point, Ikelite's ports cost lest than other manufactures extension rings. This system is actuallymore affordable and has one less o-ring so floods should be less likely.
Another common complaint is that Ikelite only offers a 6" dome port while other manufactures offer several sizes and larger 8" or even 9" domes.
Canon 5D and Sigma 15mm Fisheye behind 6" dome
Ikelite insists that their 6" domes are just as good optically as other manufacturers larger domes, but are giving in. Due to popular demand they are in the process of developing an 8" dome that will use extension rings so that the same dome can be used with different sized lenses. Time will tell if the larger dome makes a difference. There are also plans to make a series of flat ports which utilize the extension rings as well.
With the two most common complaints already addressed by Ikelite, there is really only one limitation to Ikelite's port system: the port opening on the housing is too narrow. Because of this many large lenses will not fit in the port. Lenses with diameter greater than 3.3" can not be used at all and lenses with a diameter greater than 2.8" can not be zoomed or manually focused. There are a few instances where dedicated ports specific to one lens have been created to push these limits slightly, 100mm macro and EFs 17-85mm come to mind permit manual focus and zoom even though they are larger than 2.8" but this is the exception rather than the rule.
The 5D introduced a very serious port incompatibility problem. There is currently NO port that is compatible with the very popular Sigma 15mm fisheye lens on the 5D. Port #5503.15 is too short and can not be mounted. The next shortest port, #5503 which is what is recommended by Ikelite for this lens, vignettes terribly on the 5D.
Canon 5D and Sigma 15mm Fisheye behind 8" dome
This is very disappointing as the big selling point of the 5D is its full frame sensor and the ability to allow one to take full advantage of wide angle lenses such as fisheye lenses. Ikelite's solution to this problem is their upcoming 8" dome. Ike promised me that the Sigma 15mm FE will work properly behind their upcoming 8" dome port. Update: I can confirm that issue is resolved, the Sigma 15mm Fisheye does not vignette at all behind the 8" dome which is now available.
Conclusion
After my initial look at the housing, I was quite disappointed (especially since I did not yet know that it was an early release). I was so excited about the chance to unleash the full potential of my fisheye lens and was very let down when I found out that I could not use it. Add the difficulty reaching both the * and several other design decisions left me questioning weather or not I had made a good decision going with the Ikelite housing.
Canon 5D, Sigma 150mm Macro, f/11, 1/30s, ISO 100
Ikelite is very good about listening to customers and improving their products based on the input they get. All housings shipped after mine included the recommendations I made. And after the release of their 8" dome, it is very hard to find something to complain about. Ikelite has produced the first and cheapest housing for the 5D with very few compromises. I can easily recommend this housing to someone looking to house their 5D and not spend $3000+ on the housing.
So I can jump in see what this camera was capable of underwater.
For images that I have taken with the 5D in the Ikelite housing see my Bonaire Gallery.