[Coral-List] advice on lens for DSLR benthic photography

Dimitar Berov dimitar.berov at googlemail.com
Tue Jan 20 07:18:38 EST 2009


Dear coral-listers,
I am a graduate student working at the marine ecology lab of the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and I am currently starting a PhD
project on the ecology of benthic macroalgae in the Black sea region.
I am looking into the possible uses of benthic photography as a means
of quantifying the percentage coverage of the benthos by dominant
macroalgal species. The idea is to use the methodologies developed for
tropical coral reef studies ( CPCE and field methods for photo
sampling) and combine that with destructive sampling and visual
transects. So far I haven't come across any macroalgal benthic studies
that use these methodologies and I am eager to see if good results
could come out with this approach.
 We are currently planning to purchase a Canon D450  underwater camera
system ( the sea&sea box/strobes) and I need some advice on the most
suitable camera lens for such studies. I assume that many of the
members of this list have a lot of experience with such studies and
equipment.. Would the 'kit' lens of the canon d450 system be suitable
for such studies ( 18-55 mm), or the quality of this 'cheaper' lens
would affect the quality of the data acquired. Is it worth investing
in higher quality lens for such a system, which models would you
recommend?
Thanks in advance,
Dimitar Berov



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