I have a digital camera that I use for every day land pictures. I was thinking about getting an underwater digital camera, but noticed they make a housing for my camera, so I was wondering if it was feasable to take the camera in and out of the housing, depending on your needs or is that inviting disaster on the next dive?
Amphibious Digital Cameras?
- Thread starter Nodack
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Basically everyone takes their camera in and out of housings. You have to do that to change batteries and change cards etc. You have to do it very carefully - checking that the O-ring (rings) are clean etc when you close it back up. Housings come with detailed procedures on what to check and look for. That said - sometimes housings will fail (not so often but it does happen) - so it's normally best to PRESUME that sometime you might get a flooded camera - so you need a flood insurance policy! Depending on where you live this isn't really a problem and at least if you flood your camera - you get a new one! An underwater digital camera will also have faliure points too. You have to be able to change the batteries (one O-ring) - and change the memory cards (another one!). So really you still need the insurance!!Nodack:
Taking a camera out of a housing is a simple matter. And you really do not want to leave a camera in the housing as the main o-ring will get compressed over time and once it takes a set, it will leak.
I store my Olympus housing closed with either no o-ring or an old o-ring while the o-ring lives in a plastic bag where it stays clean and uncompressed until the next time it is used. My Nikonos camera is stored with a set of storage o-rings made for that purpose.
Some care and attention to detail is needed in putting the camera in the housing and installing the main o-ring, but with proper care to ensure the o-ring is properly lubricated and that the o-ring groove and o-ring are clean, they tend to be pretty reliable. Most housings use a dessicant to dry any moisture in the air in the housing itself and a clear housing is nice as it enables you to check and spot a small leak before it gets out of hand.
As a confidence builder, I'd recommend that you leave the camera topside and make an initial test dive with an empty housing while you operate all the controls and buttons. It will test the housing and all the smaller o-rings and at the same time will verify that you are properly prepping and closing the housing.
I store my Olympus housing closed with either no o-ring or an old o-ring while the o-ring lives in a plastic bag where it stays clean and uncompressed until the next time it is used. My Nikonos camera is stored with a set of storage o-rings made for that purpose.
Some care and attention to detail is needed in putting the camera in the housing and installing the main o-ring, but with proper care to ensure the o-ring is properly lubricated and that the o-ring groove and o-ring are clean, they tend to be pretty reliable. Most housings use a dessicant to dry any moisture in the air in the housing itself and a clear housing is nice as it enables you to check and spot a small leak before it gets out of hand.
As a confidence builder, I'd recommend that you leave the camera topside and make an initial test dive with an empty housing while you operate all the controls and buttons. It will test the housing and all the smaller o-rings and at the same time will verify that you are properly prepping and closing the housing.
Grajan
Contributor
Nodack:
I use a Canon S45 as a dual use camera and it works very well.
If I am on a dive trip (or just on a boat) I tend to leave it in the housing all the time and change the battery once a day. Otherwise it only goes in the housing for a dive.
Remember you are going to have to open the housing regularly anyway so it is no big deal. Personally I would LOVE to see an external connector to allow downloading and recharging in the housing. We (i'm in the underwater robotics business) leave stuff in 'O' ring sealed pressure vessels for years without 'O' ring problems. Our basic rule is never open a pressure vessel unless absolutely nessecary.
If you are going to put it in just for the dives I would recommend using silica gel packets and sealing up the camera at least two hours before the dive to give it time to dry out.
I use a Sony DSC-P1 with underwater housing as my dive/beach camera. The underwater housing is great, and the photo quality has always been good even in poor visibility/lighting conditions.
A light set can do wonders to the picture, but it is possible to achieve impressive (read: better than nothing) results using digital photo touch-up. I use MS Digital Image Suite (V9) to put the red back in the pictures (automatically), and the results are truely amazing... starfish that actually appear in the correct colors.
If I start diving more, I'm going to have to look at a real u/w setup. I definately would stay digital, though.
A light set can do wonders to the picture, but it is possible to achieve impressive (read: better than nothing) results using digital photo touch-up. I use MS Digital Image Suite (V9) to put the red back in the pictures (automatically), and the results are truely amazing... starfish that actually appear in the correct colors.
If I start diving more, I'm going to have to look at a real u/w setup. I definately would stay digital, though.
mavjax
Guest
I've seen a few posts talk about flood insurance. Where do you get such coverage.... can you get it from your normal home insurance carrier??
mavjax:
And a followup to this, for someone (me) who's researching a camera to purchase. If I were to flood a camera that is no longer made (oh, say, the Oly 5050), would I get sent a newer model (e.g.,5060) thereby making my housing useless? Makes me nervous to jump into this digital market!!
GoBlue!:
It depends on what which insurance company you use. DEPP has replacement policy, they don't pay you money. I have a C-5050. If it needed to be replaced, I could get a C-5060 and pay the difference in the amount of my item coverage and the new camera, or I can request a replacement. If DEPP cannot find any C-5050's but I know where one is, I can tell them and they will purchase it for me or I can buy it and DEPP will reimburse me the amount of my item coveage.
Dan's H20 insurance will send you a check for the amount of your item coverage and you do with it as you wish.
There are other differences to take into effect, however. Deductables for instance. I don;t have all the figures in front of me but if you do a search on either DEPP or Dan H2O, you should get several link to discussions we've had on this in recent history.
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