Review Kraken KRH05/KRH06 Review

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

azstinger11

ScubaBoard Sponsor
ScubaBoard Sponsor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
1,266
Reaction score
1,302
Location
San Diego, CA
# of dives
500 - 999
In a sort of last-minute decision, I decided to get a kraken housing for an upcoming trip. I wish I had thought about it the LA Scuba show but didn't, oh well. I grew up as the kid of die-hard amateur landscape photographer so have always had some sort of dedicated camera but for some reason the underwater photography bug never has bit me, maybe since I don’t want to fork over the $$$ for a proper dive housing and strobes.



Buying Experience:

In stock inventory was quite low and resulted in a semi-frantic scramble to get one in time, but ultimately secured that and a TR08 kraken tray. The tray btw, it’s incredibly comfortable and probably one of the nicer trays I've used/felt. One thing to note that the KRH05 and KRH06 are both in the same generation but the KRH06 doesn’t have the depth sensor/temp sensor. Yes, some sites (including Kraken) say they do, but they don’t. It’s bad copy and pasting. This was an issue when trying to buy in store, the salespeople were frequently confused about which version between the KRH05 and KRH06 and earlier versions. I bought a KRH06 unit that was ultimately defective and returned in and sourced another KRH05 3 hours driving away.



Apps:



So I had heard that google had made a custom app for the kraken case and they indeed had, Dive Case Connector for Pixel - Apps on Google Play which works for Pixel 5s and below it sounds like? I was already planning on buying a phone to put in the case (it’s when cases flood not if, so didn't want to lose my daily phone) so scoured eBay and got a $200 Pixel 5 to put in the case. I ultimately also subscribed to Google Fi and used it as the primary hot spot instead of paying version $10/day/phone for our two iPhones. The android app is excellent, very clean and easy to use. Open the dive camera app, connect the case via Bluetooth, then open the camera app. It has the option to overly depth/temperature for the KRH05 which I really liked. Just helped make sure I wasn’t doing anything silly with my buoyancy as I was futzing around with the camera. Sadly, that info isn’t recorded in the file EXIF data. The app was quick to respond and let you shoot photo (with zoom options), portrait mode, video mode, and night mode. The interface is simple, but I did like it used the default camera app. Photos were geotagged with where the phone last GPS had so usually right above the dive site and were uploaded (both RAW and jpeg) to my google photos account after getting back on WIFI. The app let the display go to sleep with the shutter button quickly waking the screen back up saving battery life. The only minor annoyance was if you didn’t disconnect the case in the app, it was keep getting a notification up saying trying to connect or something.



As an iPhone owner I did try out the iPhone app Deep Photo. It seems okay, it was a bit clunkier and less streamlined to use. The most annoying part however is that it requires a subscription to use at all. It also didn’t record the depth/temp info being passed along to it. As I didn’t take an iPhone on an actual dive can’t comment on how it would work underwater.



Physical Case:



Very sturdy and quality feeling aluminum case. Buttons on the back are fine, they used stickers instead of printing the labels on them so I expect they will eventually fall off with continued use. My iPhone 11 Pro Max with a case didn’t fit but did without its case. The pixel 5 fit just fine with its case. I tended to sort of guess on the placement of the phone, instead of the recommended location in the corner, to maximize the screen being displayed. Luckily if it was off no big deal to fix on the dive boat before the dive. This generation of case just holds the phone with tension, they don’t have the holding clamps/springs found in older models. I didn’t notice the phone moving at all during our trip. Turning off the case was simply just holding a button down for a few seconds and off it goes. I would recommend a tray as I found without my hand naturally wanted to be where the lens was. Vacuum sealing was easy I tended to do it right upon boarding the boat and then leaving it be for the rest of the boat ride, only cracking it after I was done diving for the day. One minor annoyance is the case will only turn off when it’s closed (or you just remove the batteries). My unit developed a sort of oily sheen on the aluminum after about the 4 days of diving. It doesn’t appear to affect anything but sort of odd. I didn’t have any leaks but just have to see how that holds up.



Batteries:



On average I would leave a phone in the case and connected for about 4-5 hours per day. During that the case would drop about 6-10% of its 2 AAA batteries, depending on usage. Phone on airplane would drop about 35-40% from full. Getting the batteries out of the case is a bit annoying there isn’t much room to work so a nonconductive pry tool would be helpful.



In Water Usage:



I found a one tray arm, sola light, ball clamp, and the kraken to a very competent and compact package. It was easy enough to clip off onto a BCD when I needed hands free and didn’t destroy by trim, but I frequently found that I just held the handle and brough it against my chest for a streamlined profile and that was quite comfortable.



Images:



Overall, I’m very pleased with how everything came out. Keeping in mind the main camera is a dinky 12MP sensor. It struggled a bit on the night dive but think that was more the lighting placement, as I was getting tons of particulate in focus. For most other shots it was an excellent point and shoot type setup. I think I will investigate the optional wet lens kits and if the app ever supports the later Pixel phones with even better cameras will look at upgrading. Having them on the phone and automatically synced to the cloud is super handy.


Competition:



The main competition I see for this housing is Sealife housing. I played around with that in the store but ultimately didn’t like the plastic construction and lower depth rating (currently working on technical certifications). It also needed a moisture muncher pack and the kraken did not, which was appreciated. Sealife does develop their own apps in house, so maybe that’s better hard to say. You could argue GoPros and Paralenz also fall into this category. I would say not since they are video primary and photo secondary. I have used go pros in the past when diving and this felt better and I think got better images, but that’s all subjective. A used TG-5/6 and housing is probably the closet real camera setup, also what my wife uses. I think the TG series has a higher potential image quality; however it also appears to be a bit fiddlier. This setup is more about getting more “good-enough” shots than getting “the shot” if that makes any sense. Its pretty good jack of all trades and master of none setup.



Upgrades:



Well you can upgrade the main camera easily which I see as a major perk, just need a new phone to fit into the housing and I think outside of some the new folder phones or something comical they all should pretty easily fit (maybe without a case). You can get wet lens kits for a variety of lens like more high end options, which I think is interesting. I’ll potentially try one on the next trip and report back. There isn’t a strobe connection so you can’t fire them via the camera, which is probably one its major drawbacks and chief limitations.


Overall: I’d highly recommend it with a backup pixel 5 phone. I’m not sure how I’d feel using it with my day-to-day phone, however. You won't be winning any photography contests with this setup but its good for what it is.

I've attached some photos from the trip. These are straight out of google photos so room for improvement but overall very pleased, also wasn't too picky when grabbing images, just tried to get a range. There might even be betters ones of the same subject, like I said just a quick pick and grab.

PXL_20220612_202101805_Original.jpg
PXL_20220612_200803932.jpg
PXL_20220613_133448883.jpg
PXL_20220615_160339209.jpg
PXL_20220617_010200835.jpg
PXL_20220617_130911369.jpg
PXL_20220617_134633439.PORTRAIT.jpg
PXL_20220617_154920016.jpeg
 

Back
Top Bottom