The Cure For Flooding?

[Gilligan]

Of course the guaranteed way to never flood a camera or housing is to not have one.

 

[victor]

Imagine a digital camera that didn't mind water; i.e. it could be submerged without being sealed and it didn't fry!?! Maybe it's not powered by electricity! Too bad there won't be much to take a pic of when the machines take over in AD 2510 !!!!!

With a digital camera I am sure this could be solved today.
Why do you open the case on a digital camera?
1. To change or charge the battery
2. To download the pictures
3. Maybe to change the lens

I am sure with a little clever electronics and cabeling it would be possible to bring the recharge and download connections to a sealed connector similar to the TTL flash.

Then you could close and preasure test your casing before the season starts and away you go. Maybe every 50 /100 dives you would need to service it.

I have never used external wet changeable lenses so I don't know anything about this.

Maybe someone at Ikelite will read this.
If they build one for my camera I will offer to test it for them.

 

[reidman]

UH I still use film.

 

[Tortuga Roja]

With a digital camera I am sure this could be solved today.
Why do you open the case on a digital camera?
1. To change or charge the battery
2. To download the pictures
3. Maybe to change the lens

I am sure with a little clever electronics and cabeling it would be possible to bring the recharge and download connections to a sealed connector similar to the TTL flash.

Then you could close and preasure test your casing before the season starts and away you go. Maybe every 50 /100 dives you would need to service it.

I have never used external wet changeable lenses so I don't know anything about this.

Maybe someone at Ikelite will read this.
If they build one for my camera I will offer to test it for them.

Matt Segal had Ikelite do #2 for his Canon dSLR quite a while ago. They put in a bulkhead so he could download his pix between dives. I'm sure they could do the same for battery charging. Can't imagine how you could do it for changing lenses though.

With the incredible battery life of my camera (D70) and a 2GB card, I can go 4 dives without changing either - I would have to recharge my strobes once. That's plenty to keep me from opening the housing on a boat or on shore.

 

[victor]

Matt Segal had Ikelite do #2 for his Canon dSLR quite a while ago. They put in a bulkhead so he could download his pix between dives. I'm sure they could do the same for battery charging. Can't imagine how you could do it for changing lenses though.

With the incredible battery life of my camera (D70) and a 2GB card, I can go 4 dives without changing either - I would have to recharge my strobes once. That's plenty to keep me from opening the housing on a boat or on shore.

So all thats left is protecting the camera while charging from an over voltage situation, thats no big deal.

Imagine sealing the camera and having it preasure tested before you the start of the dive season.
Preasurising the case to say 2 atmospheres with a visible guage to show that it is still holding preasure.
Check before every dive that it still holding preasure.
Download pics and recharge, etc as required.
Taking it in for a service at the end of the diving season.

The back could be screwed down rather than an easy open catches.

If we can solve the lens problem then I cannot see why this is not done.
Please for my 8080 first

 

[havnmonkey]

I don't understan why Nikonos didn't convert to digital...I mean it seemed the logical progression of things. Nikonos looked like they had it together. Kind of like a semi DSLR w/o size of a housing. Fully interchangeable lenses, not add on lenses, and built in bulkheads.

It wouldn't be the answer to floods but it might make it less apt to occur. The only vulnerable parts would be the CF card slot and battery door; the lense could be sealed off internally. And maybe the CF card and battery compartment could have a moisture warning that would shut down the Camera if it started to leak?

 

[Kim]

So certainly it is possible to make a camera like that but I don't know of any non-housed digital cameras.

What about the Sea & Sea digitals?

 

[f3nikon]

I don't understan why Nikonos didn't convert to digital...I mean it seemed the logical progression of things. Nikonos looked like they had it together. Kind of like a semi DSLR w/o size of a housing. Fully interchangeable lenses, not add on lenses, and built in bulkheads.

It wouldn't be the answer to floods but it might make it less apt to occur. The only vulnerable parts would be the CF card slot and battery door; the lense could be sealed off internally. And maybe the CF card and battery compartment could have a moisture warning that would shut down the Camera if it started to leak?

Because they would lose money big time, first it cost about 4 times as much to make an U/W use camera (an U/W housing on average... $150) and with the amount of flooding these days this will drive Nikon to the poor house. This is why the Nikon RS never really got off the ground. Remember the lens have to be water proof as well. Plus the market is too small to make any money on this.

 

[havnmonkey]

Ah yes, I figured it was along those lines. Housings are very inexpensive to build for cameras that you sell anyways.

But you gotta admit it would be cool to have an 8.0 mp Nikonos X w/ various wide angle lenses. Imagine how comapct it would be compared to a housed DSLR!

 

[Tortuga Roja]

What about the Sea & Sea digitals?

Unless they make something different that I'm not aware of, they are Ricoh cameras inside a Sea & Sea housing.