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SUBMERGED · 02-08-2003, 11:20 AM,

I've decided to get e digatal camera and housing. There are a lot of choices out there.
I read the other postings and the Sony DSC cameras looks like a good choice.
Has anyone experienced any leakage problems with the Sony Underwater Housing?
How about a stobe for theses cameras?
Also I see someone had an Olympus 4040, how is that working out?

LKunze · 02-08-2003, 01:48 PM,

Jerry, I have a Sony DSC camera with the housing. I used it on several dives last year and worked out great for me. I had no leakage at all with it and o-ring maintenance is a breeze. The only problem I had was using it in Lake Superior on a hot day back in August because of the extreme temperature difference between the air and water. The lens on the inside of the housing fogged up. This is most likely a problem you'd run into with any camera/housing setup. I think to prevent it again I will try putting in a silica gel packet inside of the housing and submerge the camera in a bucket of cold ice water prior to diving. As far as strobes go you can add a strobe to pretty much any camera, I personally don't use one at this time though. I didn't find a strobe to be necessary down to depths of 30 feet or so but deeper than that it becomes too dark for the built in flash alone unless you are diving in real clear water like Superior. I managed to snap a couple shots on the Madeira last year down to a depth of around 90 feet and despite the fogging problem, the pictures were actually pretty good...just blurry because of the fogged up lens. Also, I found backscatter can be eliminated by moving the camera around at various angles and finding the sweet spot. It's easy to do with a digital camera because you have the LCD display to look at which is great. The Sony's are a little more affordable than the Olympus cameras. The only con with the Sony's are that they don't use regular alkaline batteries. They have their own battery pack. I actually bought an extra battery pack for doing multiple dives but I found one battery pack lasted a couple dives which I found to be sufficient. Hope this helps. Smile

tbrown · 02-17-2003, 11:21 PM,

I have a 4040 but I have not gotten a housing for it yet. Topside works great, and hopefully this spring I'll get a PT 10. One of the reasons I went with the Oly (aside from the fact it's virtually idiot proof), is the housings can be purchased reletively cheap.

LKunze · 02-18-2003, 06:23 AM,

If you are looking for a housing do a search online. There are several places that sell housings real cheap. I got my Sony housing for like $160 and they normally sell for $250 at most places.

tbrown · 02-27-2003, 10:55 PM,

an interesting article on digital. It's by Cannon, but seems to be generally applied.

Freedive WI · 03-07-2003, 05:16 PM,

I've recently picked up an Olympus C-5050 with an Olympus PT-015 housing. It has been great so far and offers me a lot more versitility than my old film cameras. It has 5 megapixles and with a 512mb card will do almost a 1/2 hour of video.

Jon

huisende · 04-22-2003, 09:53 PM,

Does anybody know if there are underwater enclosures for the the HP Photosmart series. I have a 320, and would love to bring it under water, but can't find and enclousure.

I found the little bags, do they work?

DanL · 04-23-2003, 12:16 AM,

The bag will work to maybe 40ft. Leakage isn't the big risk, but pressure on the camera can activate buttons, maybe even damage the camera.
I used a EWA bag on an Olympus E10 down to 40ft. Great fun, but a pain. Need to inflate bag to compensate for compression at depth, wt. the bag to get it down, and fight with controls on the "shrink-wrapped" camera. Keeping bouyancy controlled with that large a weighted/inflated bag was a pain too.
Got some decent shots, but a solid housing is the way to go.

RogueDiver · (This post was last modified: 05-23-2003, 05:40 PM by RogueDiver.)

I've got a Canon S-40 with the associated UW housing made by Canon. I think the housing fits many Canon cameras in the same form factor. There is a very similar housing for the G-2 (and similar) as well.

I picked the camera because it had a relatively inexpensive UW option. I think the housing was under $200 and rated to 100 feet. Bought mine at National Camera Exchange in Edina.

It has only seen the pool so far. It worked fine for snapshot but it uses the internal flash is way to close to the lens so there was often backscatter even in the pool.

You can control just about everything on the camera. Frankly, I'd rather seem them remove some of the buttons and lower cost and risk of flooding from all those o-rings. It was even functional with gloves.

Other than that I thought the pictures were pretty darn nice. If I can find a solution for an additional flash, I think the pics will improve even more.

Just looking to trying it someplace without chlorine.

RogueDiver