foglesre
Contributor
I've been putting together an inexpensive new underwater camera rig for myself. This will be my third underwater camera, the previous ones having been an Olympus SP350 (with wired external Olympus strobe, wonderful camera save a few shortcomings) and a Panasonic ZS3 (no strobe).
This time I wanted to get myself a good strobe to pair with a nice compact fully manual camera. I haven't been doing enough diving over the last year or two so I'm quite excited to be joining the Belize Aggressor for the first week of February. I got myself a Sea & Sea YS-01 from DiverVision. With the Canon S110 on closeout for just $220 and this Polaroid housing available for just $110, I decided to jump on that.
To be honest, purchasing this Polaroid housing has been a bit of a fiasco. I ordered it from RitzCamera.com just after Christmas. As I waited and waited for it to ship, I finally called them only to be told that the order had been cancelled because the could not get the item. Nice of them to tell me that... Fortuitously, it was suddenly available on Amazon Prime for the same price (now it's $250). It was sold by dBase, fulfilled by Amazon, just one left. I sprung for the extra $4 to have it overnighted. I didn't want this one to get away. It was clearly an open box item--wrapping crumpled, a couple of very slight water marks, very faint scratches and, frustratingly, the diffuser is not even the right one for the housing. I discussed with Amazon. The offered a very fair 30% refund. I'm happy...as long as it doesn't flood. The lack of diffuser is a bit of a letdown, but I really wanted this for use with the external strobe. Now on to the review... I'll just provide a few initial observations and a bunch of pictures. More will follow in mid-February, after I'm back from Belize.
Fit: First thing I noticed was that the camera fits in very tightly, much more so than either my Olympus or Panasonic housings. It has nice rubber grommets in the front and back, but the sides are pretty much all hard polycarbonate and it really wedges in there tightly.
Controls: The lens ring dial works well. An angled wheel actuates the ring. It's hard to tell, but that hard plastic. The mode wheel, by contrast has a rubber contact against the camera mode dial. I don't understand the reason for the difference. The buttons all actuate smoothly and easily (contrary to other comments I've read about stiff buttons on Meikon housings). Interestingly, the button internal contacts look identical to those of my panasonic housing, though it has nicer chrome buttons on the outside. I will say the zoom lever seems a little flimsy, but it should be okay unless it catches on something and gets pulled on hard. Of course, there's no control of the back wheel. I can live with that for the price I paid for the camera and housing. There's always the ring function button shortcut... Oh, and strangely, there's one superfluous button on the top next to the power button.
Latch: This is interesting. I'm used to my other two housings clamping the housing shut. On this housing, you do the squeezing it shut yourself and it just latches shut. Of course the seal is sealing on the size surface, not the face of the seal so the clamping force is really just overcoming the squeezed o-ring on the hinge side. The latch is a bit more plastic than I'd like, but seems adequate for the job. I tested it in a tub of water and it's leak tight (at no pressure).
Strobe Connectors: This is a great feature versus the Canon housings. It comes with two Sea & Sea-compatible fiber optic connectors. Tested that out already. Works great. I'll probably put a little electrical tape on the inside to mask the spilled light. I expect I will buy a second strobe before I buy a new camera/housing so I'm glad it has the second connector.
Lens Mount: Of course the other nice thing about this housing is that it has the 67mm thread on the lens. It is a plastic thread that doesn't give me the greatest confidence. I would trust it for a red filter or macro lens, but probably not a big wide angle lens. Oh well.
So that's it. Happy to answer any questions. I'd be interested out of curiosity to hear comparisons / differences with the Canon housing.
Bob
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
This time I wanted to get myself a good strobe to pair with a nice compact fully manual camera. I haven't been doing enough diving over the last year or two so I'm quite excited to be joining the Belize Aggressor for the first week of February. I got myself a Sea & Sea YS-01 from DiverVision. With the Canon S110 on closeout for just $220 and this Polaroid housing available for just $110, I decided to jump on that.
To be honest, purchasing this Polaroid housing has been a bit of a fiasco. I ordered it from RitzCamera.com just after Christmas. As I waited and waited for it to ship, I finally called them only to be told that the order had been cancelled because the could not get the item. Nice of them to tell me that... Fortuitously, it was suddenly available on Amazon Prime for the same price (now it's $250). It was sold by dBase, fulfilled by Amazon, just one left. I sprung for the extra $4 to have it overnighted. I didn't want this one to get away. It was clearly an open box item--wrapping crumpled, a couple of very slight water marks, very faint scratches and, frustratingly, the diffuser is not even the right one for the housing. I discussed with Amazon. The offered a very fair 30% refund. I'm happy...as long as it doesn't flood. The lack of diffuser is a bit of a letdown, but I really wanted this for use with the external strobe. Now on to the review... I'll just provide a few initial observations and a bunch of pictures. More will follow in mid-February, after I'm back from Belize.
Fit: First thing I noticed was that the camera fits in very tightly, much more so than either my Olympus or Panasonic housings. It has nice rubber grommets in the front and back, but the sides are pretty much all hard polycarbonate and it really wedges in there tightly.
Controls: The lens ring dial works well. An angled wheel actuates the ring. It's hard to tell, but that hard plastic. The mode wheel, by contrast has a rubber contact against the camera mode dial. I don't understand the reason for the difference. The buttons all actuate smoothly and easily (contrary to other comments I've read about stiff buttons on Meikon housings). Interestingly, the button internal contacts look identical to those of my panasonic housing, though it has nicer chrome buttons on the outside. I will say the zoom lever seems a little flimsy, but it should be okay unless it catches on something and gets pulled on hard. Of course, there's no control of the back wheel. I can live with that for the price I paid for the camera and housing. There's always the ring function button shortcut... Oh, and strangely, there's one superfluous button on the top next to the power button.
Latch: This is interesting. I'm used to my other two housings clamping the housing shut. On this housing, you do the squeezing it shut yourself and it just latches shut. Of course the seal is sealing on the size surface, not the face of the seal so the clamping force is really just overcoming the squeezed o-ring on the hinge side. The latch is a bit more plastic than I'd like, but seems adequate for the job. I tested it in a tub of water and it's leak tight (at no pressure).
Strobe Connectors: This is a great feature versus the Canon housings. It comes with two Sea & Sea-compatible fiber optic connectors. Tested that out already. Works great. I'll probably put a little electrical tape on the inside to mask the spilled light. I expect I will buy a second strobe before I buy a new camera/housing so I'm glad it has the second connector.
Lens Mount: Of course the other nice thing about this housing is that it has the 67mm thread on the lens. It is a plastic thread that doesn't give me the greatest confidence. I would trust it for a red filter or macro lens, but probably not a big wide angle lens. Oh well.
So that's it. Happy to answer any questions. I'd be interested out of curiosity to hear comparisons / differences with the Canon housing.
Bob
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
