Nikon D7000 with Aquatica AD7000

The D7000 was introduced by Nikon in September 2010. Rapidly this camera became the favorite tool for underwater photographers for good reasons. Most important is the good low light performance, which allows to use this camera up to ISO 800 without much increase of noise and up to ISO 3200 still usable. This allows to use smaller apertures and still get well exposed pictures with ambient light or under mixed flash/ambient light conditions. In addition, pictures taken with 14 BIT in the NEF (RAW) formate are more likely to be still usable when underexposed. The 16.2 "good" mega pixels also allow some more cropping without sacrificing the picture quality too much.

There are many more features of the D7000 to like for underwater photography. One is the better autofocus system compared to the older cameras (especially the D80). In particular useful for macro and fish photography is the new 3D tracking. In this mode the active focus sensor can be selected as in single point autofocus. Once focus is locked, it follows a moving object and calculates where the focus should be (in three dimensions!) at the time the picture will actually be taken. This works great e. g. for fast moving fish in blue water. Amazingly, almost every shot is in focus. The D7000 is a quite complex instrument. An excellent Guide with detailled explanations and lots of tips is Thom Hogan's "Complete Guide to the Nikon D7000".

Right from the beginning it was clear that this camera would be a great success in underwater photography, and within a couple of months several underwater housings came on the market. I selected the Aquatica housing, which is made of aluminum and quite compact and robust. The housing has a smooth, black coating and is machined on a 5-axis CNC machine to fit the D7000 precisely. The downside of the small volume is that the weight is quite negative, and some buoyancy compensation should be attached to the housing (I use Stix Floats with my U.L.C.S. arms). Basically all camera controls can be used underwater, and all work amazingly smooth and precise. This housing is by far better than any other housing I used before.

Table 1. Lenses and port/extension combinations I use with the Aquatica AD7000 housing. The product numbers in parenthesis refer to the Aquatica catalogue.

		Tokina 10-17	Tokina 10-17+ TC	Nikon 40	Nikon 60	Nikon 105	Nikon 105 + TC
Macro Port (18428)	no Extension			x	x
	+ 28.5 mm Ext. (18453)					x
	+ 39.5 mm Ext. (18462)						x
8'' Dome (Ikelite)	custom made adaptor	x	x
4'' Dome (18410)	+ 16.5 mm Ext. (18456)	x		x
	+ 28.5 mm Ext. (18453)		x
	+ 39.5 mm Ext. (18462)				x

 

 

Table 2. D7000 settings I use for underwater photography and videography. The settings are loaded as user settings U1 and U2, and esily accessible with the mode dial. This is just to quickly start, everything can be adjusted underwater.

Menue		Custom Setting	U1 (UW Photo)	U2 (UW Video)
Autofocus	A1	AF-C Priority	Release	Focus
	A2	AF-S Priority	Focus	Focus
	A3	Focus Lock-On	2	3
	A4	Focus Area Illumination	Auto	Auto
	A5	Focus Point Wrap	Off	Off
	A6	Number of Focus Points	AF39	AF39
	A7	AF Assist	Off	Off
	A8	AF Live View/Video	AF-S	AF-S
Metering/exposure	B1	ISO Increment	1/3	1/3
	B2	EV Increment	1/3	1/3
	B3	Exposure Comp	Off	Off
	B4	Center Weight	8	8
	B5	Fine tune Exp	Off	0
Timers/AE lock	C1	AE Lock	Off	Off
	C2	Auto Meter Off	16s	30m
	C3	Self Timer	10s, 1, 0.5s	10s, 1, 0.5s
	C4	Monitor Off	20s, 20s, 1m, 10s, 10m	20s, 20s, 1m, 10s, 10m
	C5	Remote On	5m	1m
Shooting/display	D1	Beep	Off	Off
	D2	Grid Lines	On	On
	D3	ISO Display	ISO	ISO
	D4	Viewfinder Warning	On	On
	D5	Screen Tips	On	On
	D6	CL Shooting Speed	2 fps	3 fps
	D7	Max Cont Release	100	100
	D8	File No Seq	On	On
	D9	Shooting info display	Auto	Auto
	D10	LCD Illumination	Off	Off
	D11	Exp Delay Mode	Off	Off
	D12	Flash Warning	On	On
	D13	MB-D11 Battery	LR6	LR6
	D14	Battery order	MB-D11	MB-D11
Bracketing/flash	E1	Flash Sync Speed	1/320	1/320
	E2	Flash Shutter Speed	1/30	1/30
	E3	Built-in Flash Mode	TTL	TTL
	E4	Modeling Flash	Off	Off
	E5	Auto BKT Set	AE/flash	AE/flash
	E6	Bracketing order	N	N
Controls	F1	Power Switch	Info	Info
	F2	Center Button	Reset	Reset
	F3	Fn Button	Flash lock	Flash lock
	F4	Preview Button	DOF	DOF
	F5	AE-L/AF-L Button	AF-On	AF-On
	F6	Command Dials	Off, Off, On, Off	Off, Off, On, Off
	F7	Buttons and Dials	On	On
	F8	No Carrd	Lock	Lock
	F9	Reverse indicators	Default	Default
	F10	MB-D11 AE-L/AF-L	Default	Default
Other Settings		Storage Folder	107	107
		File naming	DSC	DSC
		Slot 2	Overflow	Overflow
		Image quality	NEF + JPG Basic	NEF + JPG Basic
		Image size	Large	Large
		JPEG compression	Optimal Quality	Optimal Quality
		NEF recording type	lossless	lossless
		NEF recording bit depth	14 BIT	14 BIT
		White balance	Auto	PRE
		Set Picture Control	Standard	Standard
		Color space	sRGB	sRGB
		Active D-Lighting	Off	Off
		Long exp. NR	On	On
		High ISO NR	Off	Off
		ISO sensitivity value	200	400
		ISO sensitivity auto control	Off	Off
		Movie Settings	1080, 24, high, A, 2, ON	1080, 24, high, A, 2, ON
		Remote	2s	2s