This new "vlogging" camera looks like it may have some real potential for underwater use. 1.4" sensor - 4k 30p downsampled from 5.7k (image stabilization), 16-50mm full frame equivalent lens, big battery. I'm excited for a new compact camera to potentially replace my wife's aging RX100 VII camera.

 

https://petapixel.com/2025/02/19/the-compact-powershot-v1-is-canons-answer-to-the-sony-zv-1-mark-ii/

 

Note: Not initially planned for US market (but that's why there's Japan)

 

Edited February 22Feb 22 by insomniac

It does seem like it would be a great compact option with effectively a wide m43 sensor.  The $64,000 question of course is will anyone make a housing for it??

Looks good. Maybe this will herald a new line of larger sensor compacts.

I suppose any potential housing for it will need a dome port?

Yeah, that's likely, Nauticam has a small dome port adapter for the RX100 VII housing so I would hope they would be able to build something similar if they choose to make a housing for this camera. They could also make a flat port that just requires you to zoom to 24mm first, and then that could be compatible with some of their water contact optics.

On 2/22/2025 at 7:31 PM, insomniac said:

Yeah, that's likely, Nauticam has a small dome port adapter for the RX100 VII housing so I would hope they would be able to build something similar if they choose to make a housing for this camera. They could also make a flat port that just requires you to zoom to 24mm first, and then that could be compatible with some of their water contact optics.

Nauticam just announced the housing…

But do you see it as a real alternative to the last compact camera models? The biggest problem for me would be 16-50mm lens. Might be nice for wide angle videos but 50mm is very limiting for macro, isn’t it?

Would be interested what you think 👍

I saw it over here in Japan - one of the really interesting features is that it has 4K 60 fps, but with 1.4x crop.
This would be really useful for underwater imaging on a compact.

On 6/18/2025 at 7:30 PM, MrPhilipps said:

Nauticam just announced the housing…

But do you see it as a real alternative to the last compact camera models? The biggest problem for me would be 16-50mm lens. Might be nice for wide angle videos but 50mm is very limiting for macro, isn’t it?

Would be interested what you think 👍

I think with flat port and diopter it would be great for macro.

I am very excited about this Nauticam housing with this camera - combining (removable) dome port with the 16-50 (supposedly) almost constant length barrel it should provide image quality comparable to (in real world) any full frame camera with 25Mpix sensors. Plus it has good ergonomics plus the trigger for flash... It checks all buttons for ultimate pocket UW imaging device.

I went ahead and ordered this camera and housing for my wife (who currently shoots an RX100 VII). If all goes well; expect to see that in the classifieds section soon. One big "deal breaker" for us is having to swap batteries every dive. These compact camera's never have that great of battery capacity. On the RX100 VII; Nauticam has an extra entrance port (meant for HDMI); but I use that to run a custom 18650 battery enclosure I have on the outside of the housing; that allows her to shoot at least 3-4 dives without needing to open the housing / swap batteries.

Because the NA-CV1 doesn't have an HDMI port; the only option was to forgo the vacuum valve (deal breaker); or utilize the space where the flash trigger adapter + Nauticam flash trigger (since she is video only, this was a viable option). I am happy to report back that you can easily fit 4x 18350 batteries in that spot, and I even managed to get 4x 18500 batteries to fit. All that to say, it does take some specialty skills to build a custom lithium battery pack; but in today's day and age that's not too hard to obtain. I built a couple packs with BMS, USB-C Bidirectional Power Delivery/Charging, and even a thermal sensor on the pack to shut it down if it exceeds a certain temp (highly unlikely, but nice for safety).

Just for reference; I did a test video shoot with the smaller 4x 18350 batteries and it recorded for 6 hours straight and then I ran out of memory card space (vs. battery). And I love the fact that this fits inside the housing vs externally as it's much more streamlined. I'll bet you that you could even fit a flash trigger in the space along with 2x batteries if you used something like the UWTechnics flash trigger (vs. the bulky Nauticam one).

Anyways, I'll share feedback and more pictures when I have the time. For now here's the progress shots of one of the first battery packs I made with 18350 batteries.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by insomniac

Wow - I'm really looking forward to seeing how you make it work - it's something that is really bugging me on my Lumix LX10 compact. I love this integrated solution can't see how this would fit on my NALX10 housing, which has a tiny flash trigger. I also shoot video only, and battery life is really an issue.

One thing I've looked into would be an external battery connected to a dummy battery, routed through one of the double-ports I think you can get for a single vaccum port (need to check) - but I gave up as I have no idea how to make a pressure resistant external battery pack.
Meaning I'm very interested in your custom 18650 battery enclosure I have on the outside of the housing !

b

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by bghazzal

17 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

Wow - I'm really looking forward to seeing how you make it work - it's something that is really bugging me on my Lumix LX10 compact. I love this integrated solution can't see how this would fit on my NALX10 housing, which has a tiny flash trigger. I also shoot video only, and battery life is really an issue.

One thing I've looked into would be an external battery connected to a dummy battery, routed through one of the double-ports I think you can get for a single vaccum port (need to check) - but I gave up as I have no idea how to make a pressure resistant external battery pack.
Meaning I'm very interested in your custom 18650 battery enclosure I have on the outside of the housing !

b

For the Sony, I bought a GoPro 3 housing many many years ago that had an external battery holder for 1x 18650 battery (at the time it was like over $500, and it came with a custom aluminum gopro case that I didn't even need). Anyways, I cut the wire on the battery holder and then soldered a USB cable to the other side. Before connecting the wires I ran it through a Nauticam Socket Extension and then I just made sure my wires were split up pretty good and fully inside the socket extension and epoxied it inside. This worked amazing for about 6 years, and then I started getting an insanely small vacuum leak (only on land, stayed sealed when testing with some toilet paper in the housing and the housing in a 5 gallon bucket of water). I never got a drop of water on the toilet paper, but I ended up just using a Dremel to remove about 2cm of epoxy and re-epoxied it and hasn't been a problem since.

It's a super simple cable that could have any tip (Micro USB, USB-C, etc), and because it's magnetic it makes it super easy to install in the housing (there's a million on Amazon, here's an example), mine has a little light that comes on so you know it's connected. The battery has an on / off switch which can be annoying but it's been so nice. You get an entire day without having to open the housing and swap batteries.

Here's some pics of that...

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by insomniac

9 hours ago, insomniac said:

Anyways, I'll share feedback and more pictures when I have the time. For now here's the progress shots of one of the first battery packs I made with 18350 batteries.

I just finished up the 18500 battery pack, it fits amazingly well and has an insane 9600mAh of power (enough to last 8+ hours)... I made this one with a slightly fancier board, that shows how much battery is left (and when charging how full the battery is).

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by insomniac

I also just confirmed I can build a 2x 18500 battery pack to likely fit in most full frame camera housings (I have a Sony A1). It would add 4800mAh of battery life (enough to get you through a full day considering the full frame batteries (for Sony, and likely others) are already pretty descent). That said, I use a flash trigger in my housing, so they are too big to fit with that. But I am now curious to see if I can come up with a solution that will work with my camera (down the rabbit hole I go).

12 minutes ago, insomniac said:

For the Sony, I bought a GoPro 3 housing many many years ago that had an external battery holder for 1x 18650 battery (at the time it was like over $500, and it came with a custom aluminum gopro case that I didn't even need). Anyways, I cut the wire on the battery holder and then soldered a USB cable to the other side. Before connecting the wires I ran it through a Nauticam Socket Extension and then I just made sure my wires were split up pretty good and fully inside the socket extension and epoxied it inside. This worked amazing for about 6 years, and then I started getting an insanely small vacuum leak (only on land, stayed sealed when testing with some toilet paper and a 5 gallon bucket). I ended up just using a Dremel to remove about 2cm of epoxy and epoxied it and hasn't been a problem since.

It's a super simple cable that could have any tip (Micro USB, USB-C, etc), and because it's magnetic it makes it super easy to install in the housing (there's a million on Amazon, here's an example), mine has a little light that comes on so you know it's connected. The battery has an on / off switch which can be annoying but it's been so nice. You get an entire day without having to open the housing and swap batteries.

Here's some pics of that...

Wow - this is amazing. An external battery pack would really, really change my life.

Since we're derailling the thread (maybe these posts can be moved to the DIY forum), I'd love to have your opinion - My NALX10 housing has a single M14 port, which I use for vaccum.so really not sure what can be done.

I seem to remember that there was some option to have dual output bulkhead (vaccum + one cable) but can't seem to find that.
A dummy battery does exist for the cameras - battery requires 8.4 V .


main issues for me would be solving the bulkhead issue, best battery for UW use and cannister...

I'd given up but your post is giving me hope!

thanks

ben

24 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

Wow - this is amazing. An external battery pack would really, really change my life.

Since we're derailling the thread (maybe these posts can be moved to the DIY forum), I'd love to have your opinion - My NALX10 housing has a single M14 port, which I use for vaccum.so really not sure what can be done.

I seem to remember that there was some option to have dual output bulkhead (vaccum + one cable) but can't seem to find that.
A dummy battery does exist for the cameras - battery requires 8.4 V .


main issues for me would be solving the bulkhead issue, best battery for UW use and cannister...

I'd given up but your post is giving me hope!

thanks

ben

If you want to take the risk and forgo the vacuum (scary), you could for sure do it. I would recommend keeping your battery; and just charging it through the USB port. The RX100 can charge and be powered on at the same time. Some camera's only charge when off (but still, just turn off the camera between dives and it will charge up). The Canon actually runs off my custom battery pack (when turned on, and my pack has juice); and when the camera is off it charges the camera battery. You really don't want to use a dummy battery unless you have no other choice; as you are giving up additional capacity and redundancy.

The issue I'm having is that battery life is very limited. I shoot 1 minute clips tops, to edit, and turn off the camera to save battery as recommended by Panasonic, but still don't have enough for one dive. I did a two hour dive this morning, and the battery died out on me. I haven't opened the camera yet, but I probably have around 20 minutes of footage.

I've never tried filming continuously, but based on the footage length I'm getting I think I have enough juice for about 20 to 30 minutes of filming or so before the battery is empty, and this is being very very careful with battery life, fully charged, new batteries.

Charging is not an option unfortunately. I desperately need more runtime underwater. It would completely change my life if I could have say one full hour of shooting or even a little more.

The point of the dummy battery is to power the camera from it, either from DC or a battery pack.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by bghazzal

6 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

Wow - this is amazing. An external battery pack would really, really change my life.

Since we're derailling the thread (maybe these posts can be moved to the DIY forum), I'd love to have your opinion - My NALX10 housing has a single M14 port, which I use for vaccum.so really not sure what can be done.

I seem to remember that there was some option to have dual output bulkhead (vaccum + one cable) but can't seem to find that.
A dummy battery does exist for the cameras - battery requires 8.4 V .


main issues for me would be solving the bulkhead issue, best battery for UW use and cannister...

I'd given up but your post is giving me hope!

thanks

ben

Hi Ben, perhaps you could hop over to this thread, it has some of the missing details.

Unfortunately many of these types of solutions require some skills in electronic assembly, not sure how you are with this and selecting proper components for battery packs like charge monitors etc.

For your case there are probably a few solutions - the simplest would be some sort of USB-C bulkhead. I believe you can charge the LX10 via the USB port which seem to be a mini USB. If you had this you could recharge the battery between dives without any sort of UW housing for the battery.

If you go for an UW housed battery - The first thing to consider for an UW battery housing is if you can charge the battery while the camera is running via USB, many cameras cannot. In this case this is where the dummy battery would come into play.

You might be able to find a second hand monitor housing to hold batteries, you could install something like some 18650 or 21700 batteries in a holder and just cut off the HDMI cable plug and use that cable for getting the power down to the camera housing. Something like this:

battery holder

This way you could use a land based 18650 charger to recharge the batteries and not need to build in a charging circuit. It would probably be fiddly using the fine wires in the HDMI cable for power and terminating them so they don't break and you would need to have some means to plug the USB cable in - inside the housing. The biggest barrier might be the M14 thread, many bulkheads for this sort of service are at least M16.

I see Backscatter has a used Ninja housing on sale currently: used housing

There's probably a few other items about you could utilise, for example subtronic have external batteries built into strobe arms which might be adaptable, but likely expensive.

Thanks Chris, I'd forgotten about this thread, and sorry for derailing this one - in my case the LX10 cannot be charged by USB, it's data-transfer only, so dummy battery / DC coupler is the only way.
I don't think there really any vaccum-safe practical option with my camera + M14 bulkhead housing combo, though this thread had given me hope!