Best time to put camera in housing?

[Dee]

I always load my housing the night before when I have plenty of time to pay attention to what I'm doing. Clean and grease the o-rings, fresh batteries in camera and strobe, other sets put into the chargers for the aternoon dives. If my batteries won't keep a fresh charge until morning, I need new batteries!

I keep my silica packs in an air tight zip-lock bag to keep them fresh. Our vacations lately have been to Florida and Roatan where it's very humid. In Roatan we don't have A/C which I like better as far as the cameras go. All I have to worry about is the humidity. With A/C, I'm lucky if the condensation is only on the outside. I use 2-3 silica packs at a time.

 

[annie]

The thing about the Canon s30 is that you can't switch it off once it's in the casing because you have to manually slide the cover over the lens to do that.
I've set the auto power off so that it just dies by itself if I haven't touched it in a while, like on the boat before a dive, during surface interval, during a dive if I'm not using it etc. It helps with the battery. If you do that and resist the tempation to flick through photos during the surface interval it might last the 2 dives depending on how much usage it's getting.

 

[rakjar]

Do the moister capsels really work enough to benifit their use?

 

[Groundhog246]

I've been having some success with a recent idea. Mine is an inexpensive film camera, but many of the same issues. For example, it has to be turned on before you close up the housing.

Anyway, on to my "idea". Working with the notion that the air in our cylinders is very dry. I bought a lightproof nylon bag designed for loading film without a darkroom. I used to have a b/w darkrom set up and used one of these bags to open a 35mm canister and load it into the developing reel/drum, without having to close up the darkroom and turn the lights out.
I load the batteries and film in the camera. Turn it on. Put the enclosure and the camera in the bag and zip it shut. Put an elastic around one arm hole (they've a not too tight elatic cuff, but I close it tighter to hold air). Squeeze as much air out as I can, then using my second stage and purge valve, inflate through the arm hole. Remove the second stage and hold it shut for a while. On a really hot/humid day, I've squeezed the air out after a few minutes and inflated again. The I remove the elastic band, put both hands/arm in, put camera in the housing and close it up.

I've only tried this method a few times, but so far it has prevented any fogging. The one time I tried skipping it, as I was rushing a bit between dives, it fogged. I got the bag at Henry's for a bit over $30 Can, probably be just over $20 US. Almost any place that sells darkroom supplies will have them.

Clive, I really wanted to say that but resisited.

 

[ReyeR]

Anyway, on to my "idea". Working with the notion that the air in our cylinders is very dry. I bought a lightproof nylon bag designed for loading film without a darkroom.

There's a nozzle you can buy that fits on the end of your BC inflator hose the uses the same priniciple - blow the dry air from you tank into the housing just before shutting it.
The only problem was the area we prepared the camera was too far from where the tanks were stored/filled.
Also my buddies camera flooded when we started using it - it could be coincidence, or hair or sand blew on the o-ring, we'll never know. We stopped using it since then.

 

[Groundhog246]

I can't see trying to blow air over the camera and housing using a nozzle. I just don't think it would have enough effect. Certainly not the same as having everything in a sealed "bag", filling it with dry (and cool) air, then sealing the enclosure.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Nice idea using the relatively dry air from the tank to purge the camera housing so to speak. I agree with the bag idea and am much less enamored with trying to blow the air out of the housing. there are too many variables in air flow with that approach and it creates the potential to contaminate the o-ring or sealing surfaces with dust. lint, etc.

Dessicant works well provided it is actually dry and unused. It is reusable if you bake it in an oven but it needs to then be immediately stored in an airtight bag until used. The small ziplock bags used to sell things like fishing lures etc work well are available cheap at larger bait and tackle shops.

The amount of air in the housing is also an issue. I have never had a problem with condensation in my Nikonos, but then the volume of air inside the camera is very small. Some housings have a lot of internal air space and all other things being equal have much more moisture to potentially condense.

 

[Meddler]

I do mine the night before in the hotel room and stuff in a desicant.

I also pack my camera in a cool bag with a couple of gel packs from the freezer, then when I get in the water the camera is already cool and it wont get condensation.

 

[Hory]

I microwave small desicant packs for about 20-30 seconds before I put 3 of them in my Ikelite housing. Never had any fogging problems. Make sure the desicant packs though are cool before putting them in the housing and before closing the housing.

Hope this helps.

Hory

 

[Sergik]

Close your housing under the cold and dry air stream from an air conditioner