UH-OH !!! Start The Small H.D. S-Storm Again !!!

[rrweather]

which one are you talking about? I found them all and housings on B&H Photo.
B&H Photo Video | Digital Cameras, Camcorders


robin

The Kodak Zi8:

kodak zi8

B&H shows them all out of stock, as did amazon as of a couple of days.

Housing:

Underwater Housing for Kodak Camcorder

Searching for ikelite part #5660.08 yields no results besides the ikelite page linked above.

Maybe I'm missing something here...

 

[robint]

I didn't look up the Kodak, there is one here with a different number...5660.01
Housings
it says that the Kodak one is special order only, so that means it isn't expected to sell as well as the others.

 

[rrweather]

Ikelite's site says the housing for the Zi8 would start shipping at the end of February. My guess is that the housings have yet to arrive at B&H so they're not listed. That being said, I ordered the ikelite housing I own through B&H about a month before B&H had them in stock. I would think that B&H will list them as soon as they know when they will get them so people can pre-order them. I posted the question in the ikelite forum. We'll see what they say...

 

[DiveSurgeon]

FWIW, I just contacted Ikelite and asked them if it would be possible to take still photos with the Zi8 while in the housing. The answer was a definitive "no."

They did say you could always capture a still off the video later, but in my experience, that is usually pretty poor quality.

Too bad - I have been doing a fair amount of research into the different "cheap video" options and I liked the reviews on the Zi8 camera itself.

 

[Wompinblazer]

If anyone has any questions re: Kodak Zi8, I'd love to help out. I have one sitting in front of me.

Ive had the camera since Christmas, and have taken it all over. Never had it underwater (yet).

As far as clarity and quality go, Id have to say its one of the best Ive ever seen (for the small cameras).

Battery life is a little rough, but extras are cheap.

Honestly, I do not feel you could have it recording for an entire dive. I had it going for 30 minutes (tour of Lake Arrowhead on a boat) and it was very warm and the battery light was blinking. I turned it off for a bit and was able to use it with about 1/4 battery life after that.

All in all, much better than the competition, and even with the Ikelite housing, it would still be cheaper than a conventional HD video camera.

Last time I was in Best Buy, they had several in stock and available.

- DiveSurgeon - The still quality is still pretty good if your camera is steady. If not, then you will have a little blur. I did this the other day with the provided software.

 

[robint]

If anyone has any questions re: Kodak Zi8, I'd love to help out. I have one sitting in front of me.

Ive had the camera since Christmas, and have taken it all over. Never had it underwater (yet).

As far as clarity and quality go, Id have to say its one of the best Ive ever seen (for the small cameras).

Battery life is a little rough, but extras are cheap.

Honestly, I do not feel you could have it recording for an entire dive. I had it going for 30 minutes (tour of Lake Arrowhead on a boat) and it was very warm and the battery light was blinking. I turned it off for a bit and was able to use it with about 1/4 battery life after that.

All in all, much better than the competition, and even with the Ikelite housing, it would still be cheaper than a conventional HD video camera.

Last time I was in Best Buy, they had several in stock and available.

- DiveSurgeon - The still quality is still pretty good if your camera is steady. If not, then you will have a little blur. I did this the other day with the provided software.

shooting video underwater - turning on the camcorder and letting it run the whole dive is not the way to make good video. I see this (posted on YouTube) alot and it isn't something worthwhile. By doing this you defeat the purpose of "standby" and you waste battery. Plus editing one long clip into a usable video is painful, to say the least. You want to turn on camcorder and get in water, then shoot when you see something interesting and then put in standby, swim around and when you see something else interesting you hit button again and record... repeat throughout the dive. That way you end up with dozens of shorter clips (maybe 15 seconds to a minute each, sometimes longer) and have used only 15-20 minutes of battery time at most, even on an hour long dive.

I find that on my dives I shoot maybe 10 minutes of footage, even on long, fantastic dives! No wasted blurry video of me swimming around, camera moving around, etc. Then at end of day, after doing 3-4 dives, I download my footage and change battery (I am not using one of these small camcorders so YMMV.) This also means that I am not taking the camcorder in and out of housing all day long, risking floods and fogging of lens.

When I first got my camcorder, I took it on my first liveaboard trip. I learned most of what I know now from that trip. I made a huge mistake on the first shark dive by letting the camcorder run for 15 minutes straight. When I got home and tried to edit, I couldn't find where this happened or that happened ... I had to watch that whole long clip over and over and over to edit out the usuable portions. It was tedious and made me want to pull my hair out. :shocked2: Plus the editing software gives you nice little preview pictures of each clip so when editing you can immediately find those clips to put in your finished video. It is really so easy and soooooo cool once you have done it right.

robin

 

[Wompinblazer]

shooting video underwater - turning on the camcorder and letting it run the whole dive is not the way to make good video. I see this (posted on YouTube) alot and it isn't something worthwhile. By doing this you defeat the purpose of "standby" and you waste battery. Plus editing one long clip into a usable video is painful, to say the least. You want to turn on camcorder and get in water, then shoot when you see something interesting and then put in standby, swim around and when you see something else interesting you hit button again and record... repeat throughout the dive. That way you end up with dozens of shorter clips (maybe 15 seconds to a minute each, sometimes longer) and have used only 15-20 minutes of battery time at most, even on an hour long dive.

I find that on my dives I shoot maybe 10 minutes of footage, even on long, fantastic dives! No wasted blurry video of me swimming around, camera moving around, etc. Then at end of day, after doing 3-4 dives, I download my footage and change battery (I am not using one of these small camcorders so YMMV.) This also means that I am not taking the camcorder in and out of housing all day long, risking floods and fogging of lens.

When I first got my camcorder, I took it on my first liveaboard trip. I learned most of what I know now from that trip. I made a huge mistake on the first shark dive by letting the camcorder run for 15 minutes straight. When I got home and tried to edit, I couldn't find where this happened or that happened ... I had to watch that whole long clip over and over and over to edit out the usuable portions. It was tedious and made me want to pull my hair out. :shocked2: Plus the editing software gives you nice little preview pictures of each clip so when editing you can immediately find those clips to put in your finished video. It is really so easy and soooooo cool once you have done it right.

robin

I hear you on the camcorder being on the whole time. It is extremely counter-productive when it comes to editing afterwords. I just dont see how the Zi8 will allow that operation. Unless there is a way that the Ikelite housing allows you to turn it on and off, and you can keep it from powering down after x amount of minutes.

I generally dont use the provided software as I love Adobe Premiere, but thats neither here nor there.

As far as picture quality goes... Zi8 looks amazing!

 

[diversteve]

Unless there is a way that the Ikelite housing allows you to turn it on and off, and you can keep it from powering down after x amount of minutes.

It does.

Power on/off and record start/stop controls are accessible through the housing.

 

[Wompinblazer]

It does.

I just looked at it again and noticed it.

Anyone want to buy it and send it to me for testing?