Anyone taken their Sea&Sea housing below 200 ft?

[scubanimal]

Hi all,
For a D200 Sea&Sea housing, has anyone had it work at say 240-250' ?

I was told by the rep the housing would be ok, but they were not sure if the controls would work.

May have an opportunity to dive a rare site and would like to take pictures.

Thanks,
Ian

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

The deepest I've had my Canon 300D Sea&Sea housing was about 220 fsw. Everything (thankfully!) worked fine. Where are you headed?

 

[scubanimal]

I hoping to dive a WWI sub off the Calif coast. I believe there have been very few divers on it and I thought it would be nice to get a few pics. This dive is a post RB Trimix Class capstone dive. The sub was sunk by 55mm gun fire, but has been on the bottom since 1921. May be a bust but lets hope not. Should be interesting given the crush depth of those old boats was near 200 ft.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm a bit nervous taking my new D200 in a new housing past its rated depth.

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

I don't blame you for being nervous. Regardless of what you decide, have a great trip. It sounds really interesting.

 

[fisheyeview]

Yeah, we will want pictures.

 

[jjoeldm]

I asked a similar question a few years ago online somewhere about my Nikonos V which is depth rated to 160'. I've had it to 185' and it worked fine. It was suggested by a "knowledgeable" source that they are engineered to withstand 1.5x their rated depth. Are housings engineered like that? I would think most good one are, but it's always a crap shoot, isn't it? But I would certainly think that a housing should do at least 25-30% deeper than rated, so a housing rated at 200' might go much deeper, say to 250-260 without failing. I think 300' would be pushing it. And as the other poster indicated, your controls might be very sticky or not work at all.

And one housing of a brand might do 280' and another fail at 240' or shallower, so caveat emptor!

Insure the camera, maintain your O-rings and hope for the best and have a safe dive!

JoeL

 

[bigfrog23]

i think you should be fine taking it to 20-30 past the MOD of the camera housing but you will most likely have problems with the buttens on the housing if it fails and want a new housing get an aquatica housing they are rated to 100m or 328 feet. i have had it in a test chamber to 425 feet and every thing was OK but this was an aquatica housing and not a sea and sea housing. one other thing about these hosing they are designed to seal better as u get deeper because the o-ring will press into the grove more and more were u will run into a problem is if the back half of the housing warps under the pressure or is the dome port warps under the pressure these are the two places leek are most likely to accrue . as said above insure the housing then you don't have to worry about it as much but it would still be painful to sit at deco stop and look at a housing half full of water.:bawling: although a D200 would make a nice paper weight though being i am a canon guy my self :bawling::bawling::bawling:

 

[scubanimal]

If we find the wreck, if the camera works and if the operator takes a worthy picture or two I'd be happy to post. Still trying to find get the numbers......

 

[caymaniac]

A friend of mine took one of those point and shoot underwater cameras that you buy in the drug store (rated to 20ft.) down to 90 ft. On the ascent he had it in his BC pocket.....it blew up! :>)

 

[victor]

A friend of mine took one of those point and shoot underwater cameras that you buy in the drug store (rated to 20ft.) down to 90 ft. On the ascent he had it in his BC pocket.....it blew up! :>)

Technically I think it imploded, however I suspect the end result was very similar.