Dessicant pacs for underwater housing

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cruiser

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Scuba Instructor
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Dallas, Texas
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Last week I was in Roatan scuba diving. After taking many underwater pictures, my underwater housing lens kept fogging up on the inside. If I turned the camera off for a while, the condensation cleared.

I assembled the camera and housing in an air conditioned room to decrease the amount of moisture getting trapped inside. This didn't eliminate all the moisture of course, but was better than assembling it outdoors.

Do I need to put dessicant pacs in the underwater housing? Is this a Canon product or do camera stores carry these?
 
I get dessicant packs in the packaging with lots of things I buy. I save them. I stick them in my camera housing. I never have problems with fogging any more.
 
Thanks for the info. I've thrown lots of those away.
 
If you buy them, get the ones with an indicator which changes colors. You can bake at 150F for 20 minutes and re-use them. The indicator makes it obvious when they need baking, and when they are ready.
 
Hi cruiser, how was your trip? I was there in Febuary. I used to have fogging issues also and if you read some of the blogs about moisture munchers you'll find that this should solve your problem. I us the little blue moisture munchers although they came in my camera pink. When they're pink they are spent and must be reguvenated. You can do this in two ways, one way is to bake them in an oven as skynscuba suggests, I do not like this method as you run the risk of distorting your munchers. What I like to do is put a sponge in the bottom of a canning goods jar (approximately 1" thick) then pour in DAMP RID to the top ( you can purchase this at Walmart, Home depot, Rona Cashway etc.) then bury the munchers in the damp rid and in a couple of days presto they have gone from pink to deep purple!!! I store mine that way, that way they are always ready to use. I use a plastic container if I know that I'm going on a boat. Did you know that if you use a Mr. clean Magic erasor on your slate , wet or dry you'll clean it like brand new with no pencil residue left over. I love scuba board for all the little tricks you can pick up!!! Good luck and safe, happy diving!!!<o)))><:eyebrow:
 
Hi cruiser, how was your trip? I was there in Febuary. I used to have fogging issues also and if you read some of the blogs about moisture munchers you'll find that this should solve your problem. I us the little blue moisture munchers although they came in my camera pink. When they're pink they are spent and must be reguvenated. You can do this in two ways, one way is to bake them in an oven as skynscuba suggests, I do not like this method as you run the risk of distorting your munchers. What I like to do is put a sponge in the bottom of a canning goods jar (approximately 1" thick) then pour in DAMP RID to the top ( you can purchase this at Walmart, Home depot, Rona Cashway etc.) then bury the munchers in the damp rid and in a couple of days presto they have gone from pink to deep purple!!! I store mine that way, that way they are always ready to use. I use a plastic container if I know that I'm going on a boat. Did you know that if you use a Mr. clean Magic erasor on your slate , wet or dry you'll clean it like brand new with no pencil residue left over. I love scuba board for all the little tricks you can pick up!!! Good luck and safe, happy diving!!!<o)))><:eyebrow:

Trip to Roatan was awesome. Stayed a CocoView and did shore diving all week. The shallow areas with eel grass are teeming with juvenile critters. Venturing a little further brings you to the reef and reef walls that drop off to ? feet.

This is the first time I've noticed my camera fogging up on me, probably because of all the pictures I took. I'll give the magic eraser a try too. If my slate doesn't get cleaned at home I'm out of luck because my usual dive spot is a mud-bottomed quarry, and that doesn't work so well on a slate :)
 
Just back from Bonaire and I had fogging for the first time ever with my 700sd and canon housing. I've had the same setup for like 4 years or so. Same drill, I never open the housing outside of the hotel room. Now we did not run the ac at night so the room did get a little humid. Not sure if that is enough to cause the fogging. Same scenario as cruiser - turn it off, drop it in the camera bucket and its ready for the next dive. The only change this time was a new main oring. Of course the damn thing fogged whenever there was a seahorse or frogfish around :) Miserable camera week for me - fogging and a sticky shutter button! I'll save some desiccants for the next trip... Anyone had a canon housing serviced?
 
You have to use the desiccate packs, they are not optional. How you got away with it before beats me.

The sticking button, yep, that is what the OEM housings do. You can learn to service it yourself or send it back to Canon. I suspect that it simply needs some food grade silicone fed to it. The springs are weak, that is the real issue and in general camera housings must be rinsed carefully.

I would not leave a camera in the "rinse" bucket regardless of what others do or say. It is a rinse bucket, not a storage bucket.

N
 

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