New a6xxx housing from Meikon

[Screwball]

Just curious, when did you buy the housing? The early models had an issue where the back panel button cluster leaked slightly between 5 and 10 meters, see this post - Meikon replaced the affected parts very quickly. You might be running into that issue or something similar.

Thanks Barmaglot, I had no idea about this. I bought mine from a local camera store in June 2018 which is after that post, but who knows how long they held that stock so it's a possibility. I have had some issues with the 10-18 zoom ring slipping which could be a clue. On the other hand based on the description of the issue it seems odd that I haven't encountered it till now, given I've been using it for freediving. In any case I'll contact them and report back.

 

[Hector1959]

I have used my Camera+Housing 3 times underwater plus some other tests above.
I find a little difficult to put the camera inside the housing. With both the camera and housing being set to OFF most of the times the on/off swicth of the camera does not coincide with the housing lever and I have to repeat the operation. In fact, it works better setting both to ON, which does not seem to be normal.
Are you having same difficulty?

 

[Barmaglot]

In the older universal housing, the on/off lever is a little flexible, and the camera on/off switch clicks past it while in the 'off' position. In the Salted Line housing, the lever is stiff, so that no longer works - when inserting the camera, turn the camera on, put the housing lever in the 'on' position, insert the camera, then turn it off.

 

[Hector1959]

Thanks, I had noticed it worked better when camera /housing set to ON, but I had thought it could not be right.
Regards

 

[crapwheresmyreg]

Hello All,
I am receiving a Salted Line housing today with the 4" dome. I am going to be using an A6XXX with a 16mm f2.8 and the fisheye adapter. I already purchased the tray from Seafrogs, but I now need to get some strobes. I am new to this, so what will I need to purchase to attach two strobes? Any recommendations?

 

[Hector1959]

For strobes, there are some choices. For me, the best ratio quality-price would be Sea and Sea YS-01 and Inon S-2000. Both are around $350 in Divervision.com. There are cheeper, but less perfomants and better performants but more expensive.
You would need a tray with 2 grips. It should have at least about 12 in (30 cm) between grips. Then, you would need arms and clamps. With these strobes I would not buy them to long, I' d suggest 8 in (20 CM).
With strobe YS-01 I would use with each, 1 arm and 1 long Ball to YS adapter (160 mm in Divervision). This configuration would save you 1 clamp on each strobe.
For the S-2000 you would need to buy/decide for an adapter compatible with the arms (Ball / YS) If YS sme configuration as for Inon YS-01 is possible.
And finally you will need fiber optics cables with the compatible plugs.
regards

 

[mtoyama]

FYI for those who care, here's a summary of what I've been doing with the SeaFrogs housing.

Usage:
I bought the Salted Line as my first underwater housing. I'm new to water photography and diving, but I'm an experienced bodysurfer. My goal is to use this regularly for both surf and dive photography.

I currently own...

• Housing/port: Salted Line (White) + Pistol Grip + 6" dome port.
• Camera/lens: a6000 + Samyang 8mm f3.5 fisheye
• Accessories: VPS-100, aluminium tray verX, 5" strobe arm, 8" strobe arm, clamps
• Strobes: Still in the market!
• Projects / experiments:
  • Aperture control on 8mm fisheye: I bought the 18-135 zoom ring and I'm working on adapting it to get aperture control with the fisheye lens. So far I've filed down the inner ring of the plastic so that it slides past the aperture ring. Next step is to add some kind of rubber pad to the outer ring at the aperture ring location to get purchase. I'm pretty hopeful this will work.
    
  • Trigger grip extension: Ordered this today to see if it can be adapted to the Salted Line: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JFBW39S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  • Brackets / plates for buoyancy: Because I'm using the 6" dome port for surf photography too, I don't want to add weights to it to balance the rig. I'm going to look into adding a series of brackets to the tray and mount the weights there.

Pictures from surfing -- diving coming soon!

See-through by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

Selfie by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

 

[mtoyama]

OK, another first for me with this housing. Camera while diving!

Some notes:

• My shutter button got stuck during the dive, which has happened on land before too. There's a lot of gunk under there from shooting shorebreak and I could hear it crunching. Water + gunk overwhelmed the spring and it wouldn't pop back up. I could only shoot after turning the camera off, then on -- once the camera came on it'd take a shot immediately and I'd lose control again.
• I was able to get aperture control on the 8mm f3.5 fisheye using the 18-135 zoom ring, a little filing, and some small furniture rubber feet.
• I solved the weight-on-dome-port issue by putting the shade back on to the dome, and putting the weight there. When I switch over to surf photography, I swap out the shade for the ring and voila, weight is gone.
• I filed down the corners of the ball adapters on the SeaFrogs aluminum tray. They were very sharp and I was afraid of slicing open my soft cooler or my finger.

Oh also, underwater photography is HARD. I didn't get my hands on any strobes in time. YS-01 and D200s sold out everywhere.

Nina by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

Untitled by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

Untitled by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

Chuck by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

Fin selfie, with weight belt photo bomb by Instagram: @mptoyama, on Flickr

 

[Water_Seeker]

Leeparrish, Thks for sharing you experience. I now think that while it should have been good to keep the valve on and use it as alerm, there is not too much risk of flooding when the cap is screwed again into the housing. In case of bad sealing of the cap, several threads plus O-rings would just allow a few drops of water after some time and leak detector would light and sound.

Be VERY careful. I had a DROP or two of water hit the uncovered flash shoe (I had left a plastic cover off it thereby exposing the shoe/pins) on a A6300 and it fried the electronics in both the camera AND my 10-18 lens. Camera was not repairable and the lens cost me $375 Canadian to replace a board. Was insured. Sea Frogs case was only 6 months old. They sent me a FREE replacement back and some spare o-rings. Good comms during discussions. Bought a VT-100 vaccumm kit.

 

[mtoyama]

Be VERY careful. I had a DROP or two of water hit the uncovered flash shoe (I had left a plastic cover off it thereby exposing the shoe/pins) on a A6300 and it fried the electronics in both the camera AND my 10-18 lens. Camera was not repairable and the lens cost me $375 Canadian to replace a board. Was insured. Sea Frogs case was only 6 months old. They sent me a FREE replacement back and some spare o-rings. Good comms during discussions. Bought a VT-100 vaccumm kit.

Damn, that really sucks. Where did the leak come from?