D90 Ikelite Housing prob: what's going on?

[UW_again]

Follow-up on shutter control lever... Dove the U352 yesterday. Glued the rubber end piece in place and it worked fine. Shot a few frames on the way down as test shots. Hit the bottom at ~105', settled in to take a couple of lionfish photos and the shutter would not fire. Went back through the routine of clearing all knobs and levers, confirmed that the shutter lever was hitting squarely on the camera's shutter release (it was) - camera still would not fire. Turned camera off and back on. Frame counter showed -E-. I took 6 photos in the room the night before the dive and at least three photos on the way down to the wreck! No way it could be -E-. Packed it in and continued with the dive.

Back on the boat, checked and there was an 8Gb card in the slot. Pulled out the card and reinserted. Worked fine. Standard procedure is to use the camera to reformat the memory card rather than delete - did that after the last trip. Images from the room and descent were on the stick. ????? Reformatted again, reloaded, and took on the next dive. Rattled off 105 shots - max depth 100'. Not sure what to make of all this...

Had a similar problem whilst diving on Aug 29. First dive went ok and I took about 30 some odd photos down to depths of 99'. The only problem I had was that the camera focused on other than the intended subject. One shot was fairly close and no apparent crud floating in front of the lens and it was still out of focus. The camera is set to auto area, normal center focus point.
Can't remember if the camera was on or off when I entered the water giant stride fashion with camera in hand - I think it was off but wouldn't swear to it.
Second dive was a different matter. First waist belt on my rig came undone after giant stride, so just went down to the bottom at 80' (different location than 1st dive) and got my self put back together and was ready to shoot. Thought I'd 'save time' this time by turning camera on before entering the water and this may have been a mistake because when I went to shoot there was no display on the top LCD - not even the number of pics left on the card, which as you know is normal when the camera is turned off and when the camera is turned on there's all kinds of info in the top LCD - but nothing, it was completely blank! Seemed as if the shutter lever and the on/off lever were at odds with each other or something. FINALLY got the camera to indicate that it was on, BUT then no post view, no preview, no live view, NONE of the buttons on the back of the housing produced any result. So I shot without the benefit of the post view, then about half way through the dive the post view started working intermittently and then full time. I thought may be the shutter was depressed when I turned the camera on or some such thing, but topside out of the housing when the shutter is depressed and you turn the camera on the shutter trips.
Guess I'll be paying more attention to what's what during my upcoming dives the next two Saturdays! I'm sure that I won't be turning the camera on before entering the water, no matter what style entry I use!
As to the focus, it has been suggested to me that I use a wider focus instead of the single point and also that I contact Ikelite with the problem, but I'm not sure that it's entirely a problem with the housing, may be an electronic one with the camera.
I bought my D90 as a 'demo', wonder if that has anything to do with it?
The saga continues here in about a week!

 

[Katamuki]

UW_again, by any chance is the camera set to AF-S and not AF-C ? Sometimes this will hang a camera shutter button. You also have the focus button set to the thumb actuator on the Ikelite?

 

[WetLens]

Can't remember if the camera was on or off when I entered the water giant stride fashion with camera in hand - I think it was off but wouldn't swear to it.

Wow... Can't say as I'd do that (stride entry) with any housing let alone an Ike with a known weak port connection. Really do not believe this has anything to do with how the camera works at depth - just think this creates a serious leak risk.

Thought I'd 'save time' this time by turning camera on before entering the water and this may have been a mistake because when I went to shoot there was no display on the top LCD - not even the number of pics left on the card, which as you know is normal when the camera is turned off and when the camera is turned on there's all kinds of info in the top LCD - but nothing, it was completely blank! Seemed as if the shutter lever and the on/off lever were at odds with each other or something.

I believe the blank screen is caused by the bracketing and/or AF button immediately to the right of the top LCD screen. Try this out of the housing - depress one of the buttons and see what happens to camera functions, then press the other and do the same. Both blank out the top LCD - except for the specific function of the respective button - both inhibit anything on the rear screen, yet both allow the shutter to function.

I really think this is what is happening and somewhat confirmed it yesterday - again on the U352. I was making up for lost shots from 2 weeks ago and part way into the dive, the top LCD went blank. Fiddled with the two controls (Brkt & AF) by moving them well off the camera buttons and everything came back.

 

[UW_again]

UW_again, by any chance is the camera set to AF-S and not AF-C ? Sometimes this will hang a camera shutter button. You also have the focus button set to the thumb actuator on the Ikelite?

Camera is set to AF-C

"You also have the focus button set to the thumb actuator on the Ikelite?"

Didn't understand the above - I do know that you have to select from AF-A / AF-S / AF-C by using the thumbwheel on the D90 whilst pushing on the AF button located on top of the camera by the top LCD

 

[UW_again]

Wow... Can't say as I'd do that (stride entry) with any housing let alone an Ike with a known weak port connection. Really do not believe this has anything to do with how the camera works at depth - just think this creates a serious leak risk.
I believe the blank screen is caused by the bracketing and/or AF button immediately to the right of the top LCD screen. Try this out of the housing - depress one of the buttons and see what happens to camera functions, then press the other and do the same. Both blank out the top LCD - except for the specific function of the respective button - both inhibit anything on the rear screen, yet both allow the shutter to function.

I really think this is what is happening and somewhat confirmed it yesterday - again on the U352. I was making up for lost shots from 2 weeks ago and part way into the dive, the top LCD went blank. Fiddled with the two controls (Brkt & AF) by moving them well off the camera buttons and everything came back.

I did not know about the known 'weak port connection' - needless to say I WON'T be doing that entry with camera in hand again!!! (guess it's a hold over from the Nikonos days).
I tried your suggestion about the AF button, but nothing made the top LCD go totally blank - altho with low light and trying to see throught the correct part of my prescription mask, I could see how having the AF button pushed and it only showing the very small letters of what mode it is in could be seen (or not seen as the case may be ) as a 'blank' top LCD screen.

Dove last week - had the camera HANDED to me and turned it on after I got into the water. Everything went well and I shot 97 pictures at 53' (20+ some odd on the second dive). What I noticed was that the post view won't come up if the shutter button is depressed - like the Ike control rod comes out of it's spring holder (sometimes it was in the spring, but still stayed depressed instead of coming up off the shutter release button). Focusing continued to be a problem tho, got no feeling for the shutter release button on the camera through the control rod, so I don't know when it's partially depressed to focus and it trips the shutter before it is focused. Like it needs a 'sweep' on the control rod end which depresses the shutter button that millimeter or whatever just to focus and then more movement of the control rod would trip the shutter.

Both dives I made sure all housing controls were 'cleared' before the thing went into the water. And am shooting in Manual mode too.

More 'testing' this weekend at deeper depths. So more 'education' on the idiosyncrancies of the system.

I think it's just a matter of learning.

So how about those of you out there who have already learned all this stuff to give us your experiences?

 

[UW_again]

Hey all, check out this link to my posting with Ikelite

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ikelite/302622-tech-question.html

 

[Merphotog]

Greetings,

While I'm shooting a D70 in an Ikelite housing I'll throw in my 6 cents worth. [ 3 thoughts times 2 cents ]

One of the options on the D70 is a user controllable setting where the shutter will not release unless the camera's "in-focus" indicator is on. [default is on] I use this feature because I often shoot 'from the hip'. The catch here is that the camera has to be able to focus. You need to be aware of two needs. (1) are you within the operating range of the lens? I tend to get too close. (2) do you have enough light to focus? On the D70 the "focus assist light" can be turned on or off. Depending on water conditions the amount of lighting at any depth can get problematic. I have had occasions where I turned on either one or both "modeling" lights on the strobes. The extra light enabled focusing which was real flaky without it.

On a dive I had a 7ft reef shark swim between me and another diver who was less than 10 ft away. I decided that I should really get a few photos while I was also redecorating the inside of my wetsuit [just kidding]. Shutter would not release for anything. When I got back to the boat I carefully examined my camera and housing and found that the shutter control arm could extend the rubber tip far enough to actually catch on the far side of the shutter release well. At home I took off the shutter release lever, placed a plastic washer on the shaft and reinstalled the lever. This prevented the shaft from traveling too far across the camera.

In regards to the 'weak port issue'....... Some things you are not told until it is to late. I was told that you should never let someone else leave your camera in a rinse tank on a boat. Of course I was advised of this after a crewmember who was being very helpful, placed my rig in the rinse tank as I was getting out of the water. Another camera was put in the tank and apparently it's arm got between the 8" dome port and body and tripped/forced the port release open. With only two catches it was a near instantaneous flood. The camera was totaled and then there was $750 of other damage.
The Good News......... although too late for me.... Ikelite has as of Nov. 2009 gone to a FOUR lock system on their DSLR ports. If one gets opened you still have 3 holding the port in place. If you bought the housing in Oct or later there is a no charge replacement. Others can have their housing upgraded for $150.
You will get a new front housing. In my opinion anyone would be foolish not to upgrade.

Best of luck.