Wow, housings have gotten freakin' expensive!

[Maddog59]

Thanks Alcina. Its very true though. I dont think most realize that housing manufacturers are LUCKY if they sell a 200-300 hundred of each housing. Imagine how many thousands or even tens of thousands are sold of each camera body worldwide.

I know what your saying! As a builder of custom housings back in the 80's & 90's I was somtimes only making two or three housings for a particular model camera and people were complaining about the costs then! When you consider the wholesale cost of Aluminium these days is almost the same as stainless steel it's no wonder the costs are ludicrous. These days I stick to one off's of housings for the Film industry and try to make a living from that!


Peter

 

[highdesert]

Remember when gas was less than a dollar a gallon?

I remember when it was six gallons for a dollar ...

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

I agree with that one...I remember last year paying $5.89 a gallon for DIESEL!

 

[MarkH]

I made my own video housing a few years ago out of PVC pipe and plexiglass. No controls, just turn on the camera and edit later. It cost me about $20. I used it for years down to about 130 feet deep. It looked like a piece of sewer pipe and plexiglass, but I'm sure housing manufacturers could make a generic "sealed tube" type of housing that looked prettier for about $100 retail. -But then not many people would buy the $1200 ones.

 

[davelew]

When was the last time you saw two people with the same camera, lens and housing? This isn't the world of the Nikonos III. Housings today are expensive because the market hasn't standardized.

If there were true volume manufacturing, it would be easy to make a dSLR housing for $600. Unfortunately, a manufacturer can easily spend above $20,000 to develop a housing and pay for the tooling or CNC programming, and then can only rely on selling a couple dozen housings. They need to make back that original investment by getting hundreds of dollars in profit margin on each housing.

There is an exception to this: Olympus dSLRs. Olympus develops housings alongside their SLRs, and sells a $900 PT-E06 housing for an $800 E-620 camera body. Olympus develops the housings in order to sell more cameras, so they have different economics than the independent manufacturers. If only Olympus had a cheaper dome port, I feel they would become the default underwater SLR.

 

[JackConnick]

Actually it depends on what w/a lens you want to house on the Oly.

I'm importing some Athena semi dome ports for the 9-18mm that are very nice and a complete set with the F.G and cover runs $779 - quite a bit cheaper than the Oly 170mm dome and FG - which is actually made by Athena.

It's true a plastic optic dome for them would sell well, but Oly has always had high-end optics.

BTW, I'm putting up a killer deal on the Oly E520/PT-E05/UFL-2 set; complete with camera for $2549.

Jack

 

[ryssyr]

Yeah the camera body is always the least expensive component of a fully outfitted camera kit. Lenses, strobes, housings and ports all add up very quickly.

What is surprising to me though is the cost of the strobe arms. Those things are crazy expensive for what they are made of -and they are all the same.

I just upgraded bodies so I recently had to go through the same wallet cleansing process.

 

[alcina]

Meh, it's not a cheap sport/hobby/pastime. There are alternatives for many budgets - you just have to choose what's important to you. No different to buying a $15 pair of blue jeans at walmart or a $250 pair at a boutique or the $399 netbook vs the $2500 superduper laptop, really. Some will find the money is better spent elsewhere, some will fine the cost doesn't matter to them for whatever reason.

I hate doing my camera insurance every year coz the total number is a little overwhelming, frankly. And since I just added a 24L and 135L I'm pretty sure this next round will be even moreso LOL But it's so much fun - who can begrudge a few dollars??

 

[davelew]

I'm importing some Athena semi dome ports for the 9-18mm that are very nice and a complete set with the F.G and cover runs $779

That's still close to the cost of the housing. Dome ports shouldn't cost THAT much, and they wouldn't if there were a standard dome port that every photographer used. Edmunds Optics sells mass-produced 8" hemispheres for about $50, the mounting features can't cost THAT much.

 

[highdesert]

I think a diver/photographer needs to really consider what they want out of their photos ... and then be even more critical yet about whether they're willing to consider how little they can spend to achieve those ends. Face it, some of us are outright gearheads ... buying the gear, playing touchy-feely with it, comparing it to the set-up of the person next to you, is all part of the deal. For others, it's about getting a good, clean shot that brings back their trip when they think about it. Where do you lie in that range, if you're really honest?

Me, I love good red wine, but I can't afford the $$$ for the fancy labels. So I go to the store and cruise the bottom shelf, maybe even venture to the next shelf up, looking for good deals. It's all about "how little can I spend to get a really good bottle?" Same deal for camera gear ... develop your skills, since the camera really isn't going to help you out that much. Then determine how much you really have to spend to get some nice shots.