Economical options for Canon HG10?

[DeltaWardog]

I'm going on vacation to Bonaire next month and want to take some video. I own a Canon HG10 video camera. I went looking for housings for it and about had a heart attack. :eek5: The Ikelite housing for the HG10 costs twice as much as the camera did. I expected the opposite, like when I bought a housing last year for my still camera; that cost half what the camera cost.

Are there any other options, maybe with less control abilities? This thing can run forever so I have no problems turning it on 10 minutes before a dive and turning it off 10 minutes after a dive, with no control fiddling underwater. I'll edit it later. Don't need any external access really... I'm not going to be the next underwater F. Coppola, just want some cool video of my wife, some fish, and a coral or two, all at low depth, to show friends back home after the trip.

If I decide later to get serious with underwater video I have no problem shelling out for a decent setup, but $1400 for the equivalent of some moving polaroids is something I can't justify.

 

[diversteve]

AquaCam EX Underwater Video Housings
Atmo-Seal Engineering, Inc. Underwater Enclosures
Shellicam

No experience with any of them...

Set it to full wide-angle and leave autofocus enabled and you'll get decent results from a couple feet to infinity. I did that one trip when the electronics on a previous housing quit working there. Get a red correction filter for the camera and leave it on for anything below 15'. I saw a gradual falloff in light levels at about 70' in case you can't clearly see the viewfinder. (with the Shellicam you don't see it at all since the back is solid)

If you later find yourself addicted to u/w video Equinox also makes a housing that can be fit to your HG-10. Might be cheaper but it's likely bigger than the Ikelite.

 

[DeltaWardog]

Those look perfect, thank you very much!