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

[Pedro Meirelles]

Dear Dimitar,
I am a undergraduate studant in Brazil and I work with benthic ecology with
photographic sampling and we use CPCe. We used a DSLR Canon 300D with a
18-55mm lens in the first two years, but we choose to change the equipment
to a compact camera.
Theres some advantages work with compact cameras:
It's Cheaper
The maintenance is easier and faster
The kit needs less space (in the boat for instance)
You can take great pictures with high definition using a Canon G9/G10.
I think the most important thing is the lighting. If you have 2 strobes your
sampling and the quality of you data will be very good.
Of course the quality of the pictures of a DSLR are much better. If you have
plains to make other kind of photography DSLR are the better choice, but if
you want the equipment only for your project sampling a compact camera will
supply your demand very well.
For my personal work (as photographer) I use a Canon 400D with Ikelite
housing and strobe.
Regards
Pedro




>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:18:38 +0200
> From: Dimitar Berov <dimitar.berov at googlemail.com>
> Subject: [Coral-List] advice on lens for DSLR benthic photography
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Message-ID:
>        <e70cfd570901200418k1ac0452nf41530620d13f742 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> 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
>
>
>

-- 
_________________________________________
Pedro Milet Meirelles
Estudante de Ciências Biológicas
Grupo de Pesquisas em Recifes de Corais e Mudanças Globais
Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA)
www.flickr.com/pedromeirelles
Tel.:(71)3337-1502/(71)8834-5055