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A stroke of genius! |
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Accepts all RS and Nikon land lenses! |
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Fantastic power manual focus! |
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Kiss your lens gears GOOD-BYE! |
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The best macro camera of all time! |
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Blessedly basic! |
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Mis-spent youth |
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Gets it's act together |
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Superior shooting angles! |
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Get on the wait list now! |
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A few years ago at DEMA we saw the prototype of a unique new underwater camera designed and being manufactured in Switzerland and called the Subeye Reflex. I was hooked the moment I saw it. The Subeye was a fully featured SLR, yet small -- not that much larger than a Nikonos V -- and lightweight. It was simple in design and had a large angled viewfinder providing a big, bright image. The angled configuration permits those dramatic low-to-the-bottom perspectives. All controls were easily accessible and smartly placed. This was not a camera housing, but rather an original camera permanently integrated into a compact cylindrical waterproof body. It featured a Nikon lens mount, so the camera could accept Nikon land lenses. Appropriate flat or dome ports would then be mounted to the body, which, at 4.5 inches, was no larger in diameter than the flat port itself. |
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At that very same DEMA, I was presenting the prototype of the German 18mm rectilinear wide angle lens for the Nikonos RS which we would be importing. I became intrigued with the idea of being able to mount this lens on the Subeye. I invited the inventor of the Subeye to our booth to see the prototype lens, and to discuss the concept of making an adapter to allow the attachment of this lens |
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(or any RS lens for that matter) to the Subeye body. He arrived with the Subeye, and we played around with the prototype lens. The inner mount attached without problem, and all lens functions worked without a hitch. All that remained was designing the outer, watertight mount which the inventor assured me he could. And sure enough he did.
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This resulted in the most optically versatile underwater camera ever made. Think about it: The Subeye can take any Nikon land lens (again, with use of the correct port), as well as all Nikon RS lenses which of course require no ports. There is not now, nor has there ever been, another camera which allows such a extensive and creative lens choice. And that, after all, is what it comes down to in photography: lenses. Everything else is just a support system for the lens or non-essential window dressing
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But wait, it gets better: the Subeye is strictly a manually focused camera, using a thumb activated motor driven power focus control located on the handle. Slide the button to the right and the lens power focuses toward closest focus. Move the button to the left and the lens focuses toward infinity. The focus motor is variable speed, so the further you push the focus button, the faster the lens focuses. This is far and away the best focusing system I have ever used. It is fast, quiet, can be accomplished single handed, and requires no subject disturbing knob cranking as with manual focusing housings, plus it allows the precision of composition and placement of point of focus demanded by creative photographers, and impossible to achieve consistently with auto focus cameras. Mercifully, it also eliminates the dreaded autofocus ``searching" which drives autofocus macro photographers to the brink of madness. It puts the photographer in total control of composition, point of focus and, of ultimate importance, the ``decisive moment" of shutter release, all of which are largely lost with autofocus. Can there be anything more important to the serious photographer? One more bonus: no lens focus gears are required!
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And it still gets better yet: not only are no focus gears required, but no aperture gears are required either. The aperture is controlled by a dial built into the camera body. At first I felt this merely meant greater convenience, speed and efficiency when setting up the camera at the beginning of a trip. Only after our first season did the significance of this finally hit me like a ton of bricks. Since there are no lens gears of any type to align with corresponding camera housing control gears, it means that there is no limit to the magnification enhancement accessories one can add to a macro lens to achieve longer focal lengths and/or greater magnification. Bingo! Extension tubes, close-up accessory lenses (often referred to erroneously as ``diopters") or teleconverters -- or combinations of these -- can be added or stacked to your heart's content. All that is required is that port extension rings be added as necessary to accommodate the increased lens length. The gives the Subeye not merely the most extensive lens options available on any underwater camera, it gives the Subeye user the most creative lens options ever possible for underwater macro photography.
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Thus, the Subeye user alone enjoys the best of both worlds. The Nikon RS underwater wide angle lenses are the finest ever made, and if you are lucky enough to additionally have the German RS 18mm rectilinear lens, you have an array of wide angle optics that cannot be matched by housing users, owing to the inherent optical incompatibility (translated: image quality compromise) of wide angle lenses designed for use on land placed behind a dome port and taken underwater. As the RS lenses were designed for underwater use behind their respective dome ports, no such compromises are necessary. But it is in the realm of macro photography where the Subeye truly towers above any other system, as one can choose among the Nikon 60mm, 105mm or 200mm AF macro lenses, and further combine these with teleconverters, extension tubes and accessory close-up lenses. The results can be nothing short of spectacular. It is the most exciting system I have ever used.
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But make no mistake, this is a very basic camera with but a few grudging concessions to modern technology. If you feel you actually need the infinite array of bells and whistles found on today's electronic miracle cameras in order to take a good picture, this camera is not for you. But consider this: my observations of underwater photographers at work is that most never use but a fraction of the clever tricks their techno marvel cameras are capable of, since 90% of these features are entirely impractical underwater. At best, these options and the controls to activate the ones that are useable mostly serve to confuse and confound photographers trying to work at depth, and in the end they actually get in the way of good photography. In addition to the fantastic aforementioned power focus, the Subeye features a TTL ambient light meter, TTL strobe exposure control and power wind / rewind. That's it for the modern world. Viewfinder information is minimal, limited to a film counter, TTL meter indicator, and a strobe confirmation symbol. An ISO / TTL exposure compensation dial, aperture control dial, shutter speed control dial and shutter release constitutes the remaining user functions. But, what more does one need? Trust me on this: when it comes to underwater photography, the simpler the better. This is a ``photographer's" camera in the truest sense of the phrase. |
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The Subeye had a difficult birth and a troubled childhood. It was released into the market place before any legitimate field testing was done. As we bought some of the very first cameras imported into the U.S., I can attest to the endless problems we had from the very start. In spite of the frustrations, not to mention countless lost photos, we hung in there because the potential of the camera was so great. We effectively became the involuntary Beta testers for this camera, uncovering and troubleshooting a long list of problems or design faults. Some were amazing oversights in design, others were just bad design to begin with. We developed a new trigger release for the camera, for instance. The original was erratic, with no well defined ``release point". It looked cool, but I hated it. Our new trigger provides the Subeye with the finest release point feel of any underwater camera made. (And it still looks cool.) The most universally disliked feature of the camera concerned the location of the rewind activation lever: it was located on the front face of the camera, behind the lens port, requiring that one remove the lens port with each film change in order to access the rewind lever. In practice, we got pretty good at this, and our film changes were as fast and efficient as most housing users. But it was still an overly complicated process. So we designed an alternative solution which they have now manufactured. Our design places the rewind activation lever externally, in the back plate of the camera. To initiate the film rewind now, you simply lift a locking tab and rotate the control without ever opening the camera back. That's it. No more removing ports. The Subeye was transformed from one of the most awkward cameras to change film to now being the easiest and fastest system available. Our average film change time, from start to finish, is now about 60 seconds.
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There is another superior feature of this camera that is typically overlooked, but one of considerable importance when it comes to making dramatic macro photos of marine life. That is, the distance from the bottom of the camera to the center of the lens. With the Subeye, this is a mere 2 1/4" as opposed to 4" to 5" for most housings, allowing the center of the lens to get 50% closer to the bottom than a typical housing. And why exactly is this so important? As I often tell students: remember, your lens is the eye of the viewer. If you place your lens -- therefore your viewer's eye -- on the same level as your subject so the viewer is seeing the world from the same perspective as the subject, you will nearly always produce a photo with greater impact, drama, and viewer to subject intimacy. The housing user will need to angle the housing considerably more downward for close focus subjects, producing a more overhead, less intriguing view. |
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There are still a few other enhancements I would like to see, but I don't expect any action on those in the immediate future. With the new trigger, the new rewind back, and the many bugs and flaws corrected, I can now recommend this camera highly, and don't hesitate to say it is the best tool for advanced underwater photography I have ever used. Bar none. No camera will make you a better photographer, but this camera will give you more freedom of expression and freedom to explore your subjects optically than any other. While we have no association with the company who makes it, we are so enthusiastic about this camera we are making them available to the public. This is the underwater camera I have dreamed about, and I'm more excited about underwater photography than I have been in years. With the Subeye, we are now doing the best photographic work of our lives. |
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If you are interested in obtaining one, give me a call directly at: 603-764-5905 (EST). There is a pretty good waiting list, so plan ahead. |
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