No PEN housings from Ikelite

[Prop Joe]

Press Releases

:depressed::depressed::depressed:

 

[under water]

I wonder what their rationale was.
I had Ike strobes and very much wanted them to provide a housing for the PEN early on so that I could re-use my strobes (and the TTL cables). I waited for 6 months while they kept bumping back the availability date. I never could figure out the issue.
Anyway, this should be liberating (as well as dissapointing) for many who want to move to a 21st century camera design but had an investment in IKE gear.

 

[emoreira]

I understand the IKE people. There is such a wide spectre of camera brands and models, that they must choose which one they will support. I guess that they choose to build an UW Housing for those that are better rated for their UW functions and easy of use and a list of etceteras that I cannot even imagine.

 

[chris196]

To me it seems the obvious rational.
There is a quality housing available for $600 from Olympus.
Ike has traditionally sat between OEM housings and the more expensive aluminum housings.

I don't understand the sony and panasonic decision.
that seems like a place they could be successful.

 

[gert7to3]

I just caught this on July 20th. I'd been waiting and waiting for an Ike housing so I could use my Ike strobe with an E-pl camera. While the cost issue may be one thing, Ike housings are more robust, can be taken deeper, have more accessories and there remains the customer base of users out there with Ike strobes as well. This is a super disappointment. My future upgrade path will not include Ikelite.

There seems to be a common thread here and I think it is the strobe interface. Perhaps the American manufacturer was excluded by the Asian cartel?

 

[under water]

...
There seems to be a common thread here and I think it is the strobe interface. Perhaps the American manufacturer was excluded by the Asian cartel?

Ikelite chooses to use a proprietary method that includes TTL converters in their housings and pretty much guarantees that their strobes match only their housings. I am not sure how that is an "Asian cartel" thing.
I would love to hear your rationale though.

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

I agree with underwater, Iklite has now comeup with some sort of add-on which will allow a few of their strobes to fire with fiber optic cables slowly moving towards the 21st century. Asian strobe and housing manufacturers have had a fiber optic TTL solution for several years which allows for the most cost effective use of TTL across a broad range of camera makes. It seems to me that the rest of the world is beginning to add fiber optic capability more as a result of lost revenue and customer requests than as a result of wanting to embrace the fiber optic TTL solution.

Phil Rudin

 

[gert7to3]

The micro 4/3rds interface has a common set parameters, which all of the micro 4/3rds manufacturers adhere to. I was just speculating that there may have been some exclusion applied to Ikelite. This might prevent them from being able to offer equipment which interfaces with micro 4/3rds camera systems. This could have been in the form of a licensing fee, perhaps set extortionately high, or it's simply beyond the technical capability of Ikelite. I don't know anything specific, my cartel comment was a speculation. It was not intended to prejudicial to the micro 4/3rds manufacturers. I do not have a better word to describe them as a group.

Afterall, Ikelite has successfully created TTL interfaces for a very broad range of camera systems. The question I have is why all of a sudden they can't address a very new, growing market segment. If this was an issue with a specific camera maker that would be one thing. That Ikelite are not able to interface with the whole micro 4/3rds family seems to portend a broader issue.

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

Ikelite already has a TTL interface with Olympus & Panasonic cameras, the strobes can all be shared between the 4/3 (which Ikelite already builds housings for) and M4/3 camera bodies. With strobes that TTL using fiber optic cables you have no interface, the external strobes are just mimicing the cameras on board flash via the fiber optic cable.

Second Iklite is not just passing on M4/3 cameras they have passed on all mirrorless cameras regardless of sensor design (i.e. NEX-3/5 and Samsung NX100).

These are not hard housings to design relative to other housings in the Ikelite line. They could however require a new line of interchangeable ports to get the size down to where they could be competitive.

Phil Rudin

 

[Prop Joe]

I wish Ikelite would make a housing that can use other ports then. My 5050 rig at Ikelite for repairs right now. They are great people that stand behind their products.
Right now I'm looking at replacing my 5050 rig completely and selling all of my Ikelite stuff. I really like the micro 4/3 Olympus cameras. But I'm having a hard time swallowing that 3K pill to start over with a new Oly housing, mount, arms, cords, Zen port and dual S2000 strobes. When I bought the 5050 Ike stuff I thought I could just step up and piece it back together a little at a time. I really like the nice colors the Ikelite strobes put out and wondering if S2000 will be the same...


Edit: Thinking of buying E-PL2 BTW