Affordable UW Stills camera recommendation 2018

[Marie13]

One solution I've just stumbled across is this: Kraken Sports

Universal smart phone housing. Fits my budget, and I do like my Samsung S8 picture quality. Definitely not a proper UW camera but will get the simple snaps done.

Anyone had any experience with it? If I get it I'll post a review.

I would only use an old phone for this. I wouldn’t trust my current phone which was expensive in something like this.

 

[DerekR]

The Kraken housing is fantastic! It is vacuum sealed and has a vacuum indicator. That, coupled with a waterproof phone, gives you a rig that you can't kill, even if you do have a seal failure. Remember that even if you have a leak in a housing, the actual pressure inside the housing will almost never reach 2ATA, so even nominally waterproof phones are safe.

 

[jerbee]

One solution I've just stumbled across is this: Kraken Sports

Universal smart phone housing. Fits my budget, and I do like my Samsung S8 picture quality. Definitely not a proper UW camera but will get the simple snaps done.

Anyone had any experience with it? If I get it I'll post a review.

In your first post you said shooting RAW was ideal - now you want to use a cell phone? JPG? With no real flash capability? No optical zoom? And spend over $300 for the ‘privilege’? Have at it, man.

 

[outofofficebrb]

I suggest the Olympus TG5. It will be slightly more than $500 for housing and camera but if you are firm on that budget, get a TG4 lightly used with a housing instead. If you are going to do your phone in a housing, I would suggest a GoPro instead.

 

[Twinnings]

In your first post you said shooting RAW was ideal - now you want to use a cell phone? JPG? With no real flash capability? No optical zoom? And spend over $300 for the ‘privilege’? Have at it, man.

Yes, my cellphone shoots RAW and has better resolution than the suggested Nikon cameras which is why I'm considering it.

The other restriction I didn't mention is that it can't be a large unit with tray, flashes, etc and will have to rely on ambient light since it's a system that will be secondary to our primary goals (I'm in wildlife filmmaking). Usually we bring down a spare A7rII in a nauticam housing with fixed nikonos lenses (no flashes since we already have tripods for lights) for personal behind the scenes shots, but as it's not available at the moment and buying one is beyond my budget I'm looking at anything that will be as simple but outperform a gopro.

 

[Barmaglot]

In your first post you said shooting RAW was ideal - now you want to use a cell phone? JPG? With no real flash capability? No optical zoom? And spend over $300 for the ‘privilege’? Have at it, man.

Technically, the Weefine housing allows one to sync external strobes to a phone using fiber optics. RAW capability is also common in higher-end phones these days. Lack of optical zoom is partially compensated by wet lenses.