Using unbranded underwater housings with cameras

[duanejason]

UPDATE: have made several dives, Max depth 85-90ft and buttons work fine and dont stick because of pressure. The only downside I've encountered is that the housing with camera inside and strobe attached is still very positively bouyant, nothing serious since I have a steel cable lanyard attached to the housing and to my BCD. Some sample pics if anybody is interested.

 

[Progen]

How is the casing holding up so far, duanejason?

 

[duanejason]

It's holding up great!! have done several dives, nothing has malfunctioned, buttons dont stick at all. Havent done a deeper (100ftish) dive but even at 75-80 buttons dont stick at all.

 

[AandK]

Hi duanejason

Are you saying that this housing can not control the shutter speed/aperture wheel?

How do you set your exposure, or are you shooting a DSLR in auto??

Thanks for your help.

 

[duanejason]

Hello AandK

That is correct, you DO NOR have control to the main dial... but... I DO NOT shoot in auto. What I did is try out a set of presets if you will... since i knew the old setting of my Canon 95 in Manual mode I tried different settings until I found the one I liked best. Basically before a DIve I'll set my Manual mode to F5.6 iso100 SS 1/160 and then just adjust strobe (sea and sea YS-02) power for each individual shot I make. I also set my SS priority to 1/200 and my aperture priority to F 3.5in case I wanna have the shallowest DOP possible. Oh and I always shoot RAW.

It sucks that I cant have acces to the control wheel.. but again. it does cost 1K$ less

I have more recent shots in my flickr page, I hate uploeading photos here... too much trouble. Diving pictures in my page are with the T2i and this housing (see exif for specific settings) I also have other work (pics) there but there are some diving ones.

Flickr: D.S.Photo's Photostream

 

[drmark920]

Duane- I checked out your flickr album. I was incredibly impressed by your overall photography skills. Thank you for your thoughts and info on the housing. I have wanted to get one for my t2i but couldn't justify the price of an ikelite.
Keep up the great work.
drmark920

 

[duanejason]

Drmark920

Glad you liked my pictures!! You are welcome and I am glad i was able to share my experience with the housing with everyone. I bet the Ikelite housing is great but I'll settle for this one for now. It gets the job done

 

[Progen]

I managed to get one to try yesterday. Results were on the crappy side since I didn't have a strobe and didn't set the white balace. Here's one heavily corrected one.

 

[duanejason]

Sorry for the late reply. Nice picture, was that with the 550d? Mine has been holding up great… no problems whatsoever with the buttons… i actually like them better than my old canon S95 Ikelite housing… Ikelite housings tend to have very sticky buttons and become hard to press… these feel the same as when I first got it.

Last time I went shooting for fun was in December… latelty water has been a little murky but here are some of my latest shots… (links below)please share your too! I'd love to see some of your work.

All the best
-Duane

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97663594@N03/11519286593/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97663594@N03/11519156016/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97663594@N03/11519204593/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97663594@N03/11519298356/

 

[Stoo]

IOther than sticky buttons has anyone encountered any unexpected floods with the no namers?

Speaking as someone who has been dragging various lumps of camera gear around the water for the past 35 years or so, I can assure you virtually all camera floods are "unexpected"...

Sticky buttons are a good indicator of a poorly designed housing, and probably of questionable quality. I say go for it, but be prepared to replace your camera sooner rather than later.

And perhaps limit your photo dives to shallower water.