We just took a trip to Bonaire to teach a digital photo class and test Sea & Sea's new DX 3000 camera. Well, guess what? The world of underwater digital photography just got a whole lot easier. This extremely compact point-and-shoot camera enables the diver to create professional-looking images on the first dive.
The reason is simple the camera and housing are easy to use. Just load two NiMH AA batteries and an SD Multi Media Memory card into the 3.24 megapixel Ricoh RR30 camera body. Insert the camera into the snug-fitting clear acrylic housing and you are ready to go diving.
Images can be taken with available light, the internal camera flash or with auxiliary Sea & Sea digital-ready strobes such as the YS-25, YS-90DX or the YS-90 Auto. These strobes easily attach to a DX baseplate and flexible strobe arm and are controlled by a unique fiber-optic sync cord.
There are more than a dozen camera controls on the back and top of the housing, but you really only need three to get you started. The power button is on the top of the housing, the flash selection button is on the back of the housing, and the shutter button is positioned just where your index finger fits when you hold the compact housing.
Best of all, the camera system takes care of the rest. When you press the shutter, the camera calculates the necessary shutter speed and f-stop to achieve a perfect balance between flash and available light. There is even a light baffle, so you can see the LCD screen in bright sunlight. You can get great reef shots or use the 3x zoom to move in on your subject without scaring it away.
To capture the smaller reef creatures, you can press the macro button (flower icon), set the zoom lens to wide angle and then focus as close as 1 centimeter. The camera will stop down the lens for more depth of field and increase the flash output for optimum exposure.
The DX 3000?s lens has a bayonet that accepts all the wet-mount lenses for the MX-10 system. The 20 mm wide conversion lens enables you to photograph everything from wide angle to close macro, all in one dive.
The DX-3000 lists at $899.95, and its companion DX-25 flash lists at $395.
Just when we were putting the finishing touches to this article, Sea & Sea announced another Ricoh camera (G3S) for the DX 3000 housing. Maybe if we're lucky, we'll get to go diving and give it a test run, so stay tuned.
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