Ewa housings

[Far_X]

Hi y'all. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the Ewa housings. I am heading down to the Flower Gardens in a month and won't be able to afford a housing and strobes for the Digital Rebel before then and so my choice is either take the SeaLife Reefmaster or get an Ewa-Marine housing for the Rebel. Any thoughts from you good folks?

 

[Dee]

Stick with the Reefmaster. The Ewa bags are just that....a plastic bag with a port for your lens. IF you decide to trust your Rebel to a plastic bag, the pressure pressing the bag against the camera can make the camera controls either useless or not work correctly.

 

[chippy]

I agree with Dee.

I had an EWA with my Oly E20. For diving it was rubbish, for snorkelling or surface water sports it was just about bearable.

 

[MarkH]

Hi y'all. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the Ewa housings. I am heading down to the Flower Gardens in a month and won't be able to afford a housing and strobes for the Digital Rebel before then and so my choice is either take the SeaLife Reefmaster or get an Ewa-Marine housing for the Rebel. Any thoughts from you good folks?

I used one years ago with an old SLR. I used it down to 80 feet in British Columbia with no problem. It only lasted for about 50 dives though, before the welded (plastic) seams started to leak a bit. The benefit was low cost (I paid about 100$ CAD for mine on sale about 5 years ago. Don't know what they charge now). The drawbacks are that it's pretty bouyant on the surface and you have to stick your hand in the "glove" before diving and you can't take it out underwater (if you do, good luck putting it back in). This means that you only have one hand to use underwater for other things. You can't wear a neoprene glove in the housing glove (it's too small). This isn't a problem in the warm tropical water, but up here it was pretty painful. I think it's more durable than people give it credit for, but you still don't want to go dragging it across barnacles. I wouldn't have put a 1000 dollar camera in it, but it worked fine with my all-manual 50$ pawnshop special.

 

[Far_X]

Thanks for the advice - I'll think I'll stick with the Reefmaster. I hope to get some decent pics if the visibility is good which it most certainly isn't on Long Island. Hopefully there will be some good enough to post. Now the Reefmaster is buoyant which on a beach dive is bearable but on a deep dive I imagine it is going to be a pain. Are there any weights that you can slip over the strobe as that looks the securest place to put one?