AF underwater is certainly a challenge for all cameras. I’ve been hearing from Nikon friends that the AF is faster than Canon now. I was sceptical, until I played around with a D700 on land, in a room (so not with bright outdoor light). The AF was pretty darn fast. Faster than I’m used to with Canon.

Plus, having shot the same subjects in the same water over many years with Nikon first (film days) and Canon more recently (digital), I can’t help but feel that Nikon AF is better under lower EV than Canon.

I guess the only way to really figure it out is to do an apples-to-apples comparison with two housed cameras in the same conditions at the same time.

And ISO 320 was definitely not by choice! But it worked just fine, so I guess I’ll be less reluctant to turn up that ISO dial in the future. The best way to avoid using high ISO, of course, is to avoid murky green Dutch waters

Cheers,

Tony

I’m a Nikon shooter (D70s, D80 and D90) but I believe all DSLR’s have trouble with AF underwater. Those cameramakers just don’t take us U/W photographers into to equation (-;
What has helped me tremendously was the addition of a seperate pilotlight. Not sure if you use one or the pilot light in the Inon, but without a lightsource both Nikon and Canon can’t focus in darker / unclear waters.
As far as squid and sepia go they don’t like to “do it” with the light on, so keep that pilot light as far away as possible. Just enough in order to let your camera AF.. in order to get natural behaviour.
I was happy to read you usung ISO320, because that’s what I use a lot in our murky green Dutch waters (-;

Thanks for you post and your vote of confidence on the 5DmkII. What I am not going to thank you for is adding to my confusion about housing options! I nearly purchased one option based on technical research and then I made the mistake of asking for opinions! So, still no housing yet!

… Robert