Jim S.
Registered
I have a Top Dog housing made by Light & Motion, designed and sold by Backscatter in Monterey, California. Can be reached on the web at http://www.backscatter.com.
I purchased the kit in a Pelican case with custom cut foam, it has two 20 watt, 7.2 volt NiCad lights. I purchased the 2.5 inch Color Monitorback which gives much steadier balance & composure underwater (as opposed to looking through my mask into a pinhole of a viewfinder). Depth rating on the housing to 150 fsw. Total travel weight is about 21 lbs with a spare pair of NoCads (excluding the camera). Same batteries used in 7.2 volt Makita cordless drills. There are magnetic slide switches that control on/off/record/standby, zoom, manual focus & manual white balance. Price when I last checked without monitor back was about $1600. Aluminum cylindar with plexiglass front and back w/o monitorback. Fits & controls most Sony & Cannon Camcorders.
I use a Sony TRV9 Mini-DV camcorder with a .5x Kenko wide angle lense. The housing has a LanC cable that plugs into the camera for controls. This camera is about 2.5 years old and is not made any longer. The replacement camcorders are the Sony DCR TRV10,11 or 20. Price when I purchased the TRV9 was $1600, price for the replacements are about $900-$1500 mail order without accessories and they have Carl Zeiss lenses and the top two have still shot capabilities on a memory stick.
I took the route of purchase the housing then find a camera I like that fit it. I fit the camera at Good Guys and mail ordered it and a list of accessories through http://www.CameraWorld.com (probably not cool for Good Guys but it worked for me). Don't forget a wide angle lense, additional batteries & MiniDV tapes (cheaper by the 10). The fortunate thing about this housing is it will fit all three of the replacement cameras that I mentioned above. I'm just waiting for a 3 CCD camera small enough to fit by housing with a wide angle lense before I think about upgrading. I'll be keeping the housing for many, many years.
I'm planning to purchase a new PC to do Digital Editing in the next couple of months. So far I've put together 3 dive trip videos each getting progressively better but all through two thumb editing from Camcorder to S-VHS VCR. Then audio dubbing music on the underwater shots.
I love the housing and camera setup. I'll be taking it to Cozumel beginning of April for a week. Just got back from Beqa, Fiji over last Thankgiving Week and shot the video for the dive shop I signed up with. Post trip party was last Sunday, everyone really enjoyed the video and wanted to purchase copies of it.
Anyone else have good setups they are willing to share? How do you edit your video? I'm looking to purchase a new computer & software for DV Editing.
I purchased the kit in a Pelican case with custom cut foam, it has two 20 watt, 7.2 volt NiCad lights. I purchased the 2.5 inch Color Monitorback which gives much steadier balance & composure underwater (as opposed to looking through my mask into a pinhole of a viewfinder). Depth rating on the housing to 150 fsw. Total travel weight is about 21 lbs with a spare pair of NoCads (excluding the camera). Same batteries used in 7.2 volt Makita cordless drills. There are magnetic slide switches that control on/off/record/standby, zoom, manual focus & manual white balance. Price when I last checked without monitor back was about $1600. Aluminum cylindar with plexiglass front and back w/o monitorback. Fits & controls most Sony & Cannon Camcorders.
I use a Sony TRV9 Mini-DV camcorder with a .5x Kenko wide angle lense. The housing has a LanC cable that plugs into the camera for controls. This camera is about 2.5 years old and is not made any longer. The replacement camcorders are the Sony DCR TRV10,11 or 20. Price when I purchased the TRV9 was $1600, price for the replacements are about $900-$1500 mail order without accessories and they have Carl Zeiss lenses and the top two have still shot capabilities on a memory stick.
I took the route of purchase the housing then find a camera I like that fit it. I fit the camera at Good Guys and mail ordered it and a list of accessories through http://www.CameraWorld.com (probably not cool for Good Guys but it worked for me). Don't forget a wide angle lense, additional batteries & MiniDV tapes (cheaper by the 10). The fortunate thing about this housing is it will fit all three of the replacement cameras that I mentioned above. I'm just waiting for a 3 CCD camera small enough to fit by housing with a wide angle lense before I think about upgrading. I'll be keeping the housing for many, many years.
I'm planning to purchase a new PC to do Digital Editing in the next couple of months. So far I've put together 3 dive trip videos each getting progressively better but all through two thumb editing from Camcorder to S-VHS VCR. Then audio dubbing music on the underwater shots.
I love the housing and camera setup. I'll be taking it to Cozumel beginning of April for a week. Just got back from Beqa, Fiji over last Thankgiving Week and shot the video for the dive shop I signed up with. Post trip party was last Sunday, everyone really enjoyed the video and wanted to purchase copies of it.
Anyone else have good setups they are willing to share? How do you edit your video? I'm looking to purchase a new computer & software for DV Editing.
