Fog between lens port windows

[MacHeath]

Hi

I'm not talking about fogging inside the housing, but my Sony MPK housing has (I think!) a double-glazed lens port. The port seems to be slightly cloudy on at least one of the internal surfaces between the two panes of glass.

Has anyone taken the port on one of these housings apart and cleaned it?
More importantly, have they done so and come back from diving with a dry camera?

The fogging does seem to be getting slowly worse over time, but does not change with the day-to-day conditions.

Thanks in advance

 

[Gilligan]

Housings that have twin lensports may have a vacuum seal between the two lenses. If so then you will not be able to dismantle them and re-assemble them.

If there is no vacuum seal there simply may be O-ring seals between the lenses. I dismantled my Olympus PT-010 lens port (single lens) in order to clean some unknown film off the lens. I re-assembled it, tested it empty, and had no leakage problems.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer to determine if there is a vacuum sealed lensport setup before doing anything. Another issue you may have if you choose to dismantle it is the ability to get the lens back in place. There is an O-ring around mine that was difficult to re-assemble. I tried to help a fellow Scubaboarder with her 5050 housing and was unable to get the lens back in because of the tight fit of the O-ring around the glasss lens.

 

[RonFrank]

Looking at the housing online, it's obvious that this is NOT something that has been designed to come apart.

If the housing is under warranty, than send it back to Sony or the retailer to have it repaired. If the housing is NOT under warranty, than contact your retailer to determine if it's something that can be repaired, and for how much.

If this is not impacting image quality, then I'd just keep shooting unless you can get it repaired under warranty or inexpensively. If it is impacting the images, then you will have to decide if you want to pay for a repair, or mess with it yourself. In either event, I'd take it UW at depth before putting a camera back into the housing if a repair is made.

My guess is that you have some moisture between the lensports, and it's slowly getting worst. If it was vacuum sealed, it's not anymore. Taking the housing from a cold environment into a hot environment will likely accelerate the problem.