By Heather Hammond

Equipment used

• DX 750g Camera & Housing
• Additional Supplementary Wide Angle lens
• Built in Macro lens YS 90 Strobe
• 1GB SD card
• 2300mAh rechargeable cells in both camera and strobe

The YS 90 Auto strobe was in my opinion overkill for the DX 750g unit but as I was restricted on my weight allowance and was also testing the Nikon D50 in the Sea & Sea DX- D50 Housing I needed to bring a strobe that would fit both units just by changing the fibre optic cable for a sync cord. My strobe preference to compliment the Sea & Sea DX 750g would be first choice the YS25 Auto followed by either the Sea & Sea YS15 Auto or the SS120 Fuji.

On my DX- 750g tests, I used a 1GB 60x fast speed SD card, which gave me 504 images on finest quality 7 million pixels. I also used a set of two 2300 mAh rechargeable batteries in the camera, providing me with approx 350 plus pictures before I changed them. I could have gone past that, but didn't want to get in the water with a half used set, so I made a point of changing them at the end of each diving day.

The battery life will obviously depend on the amount of screen action you use reviewing and zooming take even more power from the batteries as does cold water. The YS 15 flashgun also takes 2 x 2300 mAh rechargeable batteries and will give up to approx 500 flashes depending on the flash output called for.

The test was carried out on Angaga house reef in the Maldives and the viz was less than perfect as the water was very full of plankton owing to the season change making wide angle shots trying, as back scatter was constantly an issue but never the less I think that the images I achieved are of a good quality.

Day 1

I set the camera on auto everything on day one to see if Sea & Sea had programmed the Auto setting to my liking and found straight away that in my opinion it needed tweaking, as the pictures were all tending to be again, In my opinion over exposed leaving the strobe with no where to go, in fact I turned it off as it was making matters worse but the pictures then had little or restricted colour if I was using just the internal flash so the conclusion was a strobe was needed to get a good colour rendition. I had a few shots I was pleased “ ish ” with but I wanted a better-hit rate than Auto everything was giving me

Day 2

I had prepared a “set up guide” prior to leaving the UK, and decided that today I would work to this The guide consisted of many of the settings that I had previously used on the DX 5000 and 8000g and were already tried and trusted settings on these top of the range units, but the 750g does not have the same potential as the higher priced, top of the range DX 5000 / 8000g to alter all of the same settings and I found that in order to get images to my liking using the DX 750 g and the YS90 Auto strobe I needed to refine these settings to completely suit the DX 750g.

I conducted a series of tests with White Balance, Compensation and ISO settings using numerous combinations before I settled on my preferences and once I had found these I stuck to them religiously throughout the trip. I think you will agree that the small selection of images produced using these settings will re-enforce that the settings I settled on work very well.

Day 3 /4 / 5

Using my newly found settings over the next 3 days I set about trying to put together a selection of images both on land and underwater using the standard lens, built in macro lens and finally the optional wide angle lens. The wide-angle lens is a wet fit and can be taken on every dive just in case something big comes along. I found it very useful as like the DX 5000 and 8000g lens this lens will focus above and below water making it ideal for any eventuality, it will also focus at a less than 6/8 inches from the subject making it ideal for wide angle close up shots This lens very quickly became my chosen first option on a lot of subjects as it allowed me to obey the first rule of Underwater Photography, which is to reduce the column of water between you and your subject not always easy I know, but resorting to using the Telephoto or "Zooming In" underwater to achieve the same close up image only results in a very monochromic picture.

One of the first things, which became very evident, was the DX 750g with its built in Auto focus illuminator will focus in very very low light levels without the need of any extra focus/ spotting lights, making it ideal to use in bad viz, dark spaces and tiny crevices. It still focused without any problems, this is also ideal if you want to use it when night diving. I never used a spotting torch during the whole tests which is a very unusual situation and I was very impressed with the focusing capabilities even on the macro setting, which will focus to approx 4” close enough for a nudibranch or close fine detail.

Overall opinion

I found the DX 750g a really easy camera to use it was lightweight and compact but felt very rugged and certainly stood up to the challenging currents and high surf beach entries that we experienced during the first few days of testing this unit.

In my opinion it also produced great results, once I had modified the settings to my specifications. The shutter response time was not as fast as my 5000 and 8000g but I still managed a reasonable selection of fast moving fish pictures.
In the menu section I found the frames option a bit of a novelty but never the less we did have a bit of fun with the available frames. The games option I found of no interest to me but then I did spend most days testing equipment but maybe on a “REAL” holiday I may have had a chance to test these out as well. As stated at the beginning I also found the YS90 overkill but never the less it worked well but always on the lowest F-stop related setting.

If you have already purchased a DX 750g from us and would like to discuss my new findings please contact Heather on 0117 969 9988 E mail heather@marine-cameras.com

A full list of all of the settings that I used to obtain this portfolio of images accompanies every Sea & Sea DX 750g unit that we sell and also accompanying this we also supply a general set up guide to help you get the best from your New Sea & Sea DX 750g along with our vast experience in Underwater Photography. Alternatively your camera can be preset for you prior to leaving our shop if you would prefer.