underwater housing

Eric Clifford · December 7, 2006

I have done some research and come up with the Equinox which is around $1,200.00,

Epic pro which is around $370.00, and

Ewamarine v1000 for around $450.00.

I am not going more than 25ft down and will mostly be doing surface shots or rain shots. Does anyone own one of these or know where I can find some reviews? Any other suggestions? Without spending alot of $?

Daniel Sheehy · December 8, 2006

Hi,

I have used the Ewa Marine housing for the DVX. I shot a soft drink commercial on a white water rafting trip.

It performed quite well, allowing us to get some interesting angles and not having to worry about falling out of the raft.

Checking angles on the scouting trip

I did however have to modify the housing a little. It comes supplied with a foam base on which the camera sits. I found that this wasn't sufficient to prevent the camera from sliding out of position - I kept getting severe vignetting . So I wound up taking it out & stuffing some foam from a Pelican? case into the housing behind the battery to help hold it all still.

Once in edit I realised that with the lens at its widest, the over-scan area still showed vignetting... it was showing up on certain monitors.

Obviously with this housing you can't manually adjust focus or zoom or iris. You can adjust the exposure easily enough by playing with the manual/auto iris switch to get an exposure you're happy with.

On the slightly bizarre side, the on/off thumb button of the DVX popped off as I was shooting the first shot of the day! (There is an alternative record button on the handle... but you can't access it through the plastic of the housing.)

I managed to massage it back into place, but I had to keep an eye on it all day.. we were hours from anywhere & it was drizzling. so opening the housing to try & fix it was NOT an option.

Next time I will put the camera remote in a ziplock bag and have it on hand for starting & stopping the camera... just in case! (It will take so long to send the camera back to Canberra just to have them re-attach a plastic button, that we still haven't had it repaired.)

All in all, it's a great option for keeping the camera dry, & allowing you grab those angles that were prohibitively expensive before. However it does limit the controls you can access.

Eric Clifford · December 9, 2006

Thanks Daniel, I appreciate your input. How do you think it would hold up underwater? How about the buoyancy? Is shooting 16:9 out of the question with Ewa Marine?

Daniel Sheehy · December 9, 2006

I was shooting from in the raft, or from the surface. At times I submerged the camera to get certain angles... but by & large it didn't spend much time below. To take it deeper than a couple of feet from the surface you need to weight it to counteract its natural bouyancy. (I never had to do this so I can't offer much help... sorry. All I can suggest is to make sure you get as much air out of the housing before closing it as possible.) The housing has straps on the bottom to attach the weights, which must be purchased separately.

Once you neutralise its bouyancy, it should be quite easy to use.

Widescreen... if you are ok shooting 4:3 masked for 16:9 or using the 16:9 squeeze option, you can shoot no problem. There is however no room to attach the anamorphic adaptor, so the options have to be in-camera.