Sony A5000 review for underwater photography

Upgrading from a Canon G-series compact camera

By Renee Capozzola

The decision process

I recently purchased the Sony A5000 camera along with the Nauticam A5000 housing, fisheye dome port, 16mm pancake lens, and fisheye conversion lens (I already had two YS-01 strobes). I decided to get the Sony A5000 as an upgrade from my Canon G10 system and liked the fact that this new mirrorless system was also more affordable. In fact, it is the best priced mirrorless setup in the market right now imho.

Sony A5000 Focus speed underwater

Upon my first use of the camera, I was immediately impressed with the increased focusing speed and ability to shoot more pictures in a faster period of time. In the past, I would miss a lot of shots with my Canon G10 - basically when a shark swam overhead I'd only get one chance for the shot. Now I am only limited by the recycle time of my strobes. It focuses a lot faster than the Canon G10.

I quickly adapted to the easy-to-use menu on the camera and buttons on the housing. I also was able to easily adjust my camera settings in manual mode to get the blue color of the water I wanted. The cameras shutter speed is limited to 1/160 with the flash.

I am using YS-01 strobes, and I still have to wait a couple of seconds for the strobes to recycle. I may eventually upgrade to Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobes to get faster strobe recycle times.

Blacktip reef shark, Sony A5000 + 16mm pancake lens, F8, 1/160th, ISO 100

Image quality

Image resolution looks sharp and detailed. It looks a little better then the G10 quality. I still haven't blown up one of my images to a large size (like 16x24 or 20x24) to compare the resolution to my old camera but think it will be improved.

The video capability is also fantastic. Unlike my stills, I just shoot video on "auto" -- and it still looks amazing with this camera!

The only issue I've had so far with about 15 dives and this camera is trying to review some of my pictures underwater with the zoom lever. Unfortunately, this action caused my camera to get stuck in the "panoramic" mode and I couldn't resolve this issue until I took the camera out of the housing. I'll be sending the camera in to get this checked out.

Gray reef shark, Sony A5000 + 16mm pancake lens, F8, 1/125, ISO 100

Nauticam Sony A5000 housing - size and ergonomics

The ergonomics of the housing are very good, and the controls are easy to use. The size is similar to the aluminum housing that I had for my Canon G10, and the Nauticam A5000 housing is actually much lighter. The Nauticam housing is also much easier to open and close. Overall I am very happy with the housing.

Sony A5000 lens selection

Lens selection seems to be OK for me - I have the 16-50mm kit lens, the 16mm F2.8 pancake lens , and the Sony fisheye conversion lens-- and I plan to get the Sony 10-18mm wide angle zoom lens. I do think the fisheye is almost too wide for shooting sharks up close, and I fared better with just the 16mm F2.8 pancake lens. Since you can't zoom with either the pancake or the fisheye, I think getting the Sony 10-18 wide-angle lens will be great. One other note is that you can use the kit lens with the dome port - so there is no need to get the flat port (unless you are into macro, I believe).

Grouper in Fakarava, fisheye conversion lens, F8, 1/160th, ISO 200

Conclusion

Overall this was a very easy upgrade. The camera was easy to shoot, and easy to learn. It was also easy to shoot in manual with strobes on TTL, because with the Canon G10 I had to shoot TTL in Av or Tv mode. There is also great video on AUTO. I think this setup is a great bridge between a compact and a dSLR setup for underwater photography.