S2 Pro housing - Small criticisms

I have just received my new S2 pro ikelite housing today

Whilst the overall built quality is very good i do have the following gripes:

The shutter release lever is not spring loaded. This means it is possible to let go of the lever whilst the button is in the half pressed position.

The on/off lever is a very hit and miss affair. It requires a bit of fiddling and peering down into the housing, not sure how easy this will be in less than optimal lighting conditions.

I was rather hoping it would have come with the new back allowing me to access the full range of controls. At the moment i can only see the last picture taken and cannot review previous pictures, a real pain if i wish to use bracketing over multiple shots.

I also found that the suggested flat port for use with the Micro Nikkor 60mm (5505.5) is way to big and the 5502.41 is a much better fit. Luckily because i went in to the dealers to try the camera in the housing and they had a selection of ports i got the correct one. (hats off to UnderWaterCameras for thier patience and help).

Am i alone in the above critiscisms?

p.s. although i may appear to be critical of the housing i am on the whole very pleased with it.

Interesting criticisms. I totally agree with your statements as you've written them.

However - my housing came with a return spring for the shutter release. I've used it with and without the spring and I prefer it without the spring - but I have to be careful not to do "continuous shooting" by accident.

I use the 5505.5 port with the 60 and it works fine - although it is longer than necessary. I can also use this same port with my 28-85 zoom. So it's a compromise where I don't give anything up - I think. It might not be optimal.

The on/off lever is a pain sometimes - but I don't have to look at it to use it. I just turn it to push the switch over to the right and the camera turns on. I don't try to get the little tip of the lever to sit in that groove on the camera switch.

I'm glad to hear that you are using the S2 setup and look forward to sharing tips. PLEASE let me know if you have any "lessons learned" to share after your dives with the setup. As I told Margaret before her trip to the Turks and Caicos - remember, underwater photography is supposed to be FUN, so don't expect perfect photos from your first dive and just relax and have fun.

Cheers

James Wiseman

I concur with everything that MR Fish has stated. I also felt that the listed 5505.5 was excessively long and elected to use the 5502.41 hoping to use the extra 1.5" of housing to subject to my advantage. It seems that there is about 1/4" clearance between lens and port, while fully extended. Unfortunately, there was no stock of different ports at my dive shop. However, Ikelite was very responsive to my concerns and shipped the port immediately.

I also would like to have use of a few more controls such as the "menu" button, the "4-direction control button", and all 5 "function buttons". This would allow you to dilete mis fires, change resolutions and quality, switch media types (like having another roll of film), and many others operations.

I assume these could be added later and will re-evaluate after my upcoming Belize Aggressor trip where I intend to try everything I can think of.

Out of interest i have just tried fitting the Tamron 24-135mm lens (locked to 24mm) into the 5502.41 port and it works just fine. No vignetting or other aberations were apparent, i will have to try it underwater to truly prove it though.

This would drive me nuts. You could probably buy your own spring.

Shouldn't be a big deal. I turn mine right before the dive for a final check and turn it off after I get back on the boat.

Just make sure all your settings are exactly as you want them before you dive. I find this true even with film cameras. Messing with non-essential settings is always a pain underwater.

Bracket? I don't need no stinking bracket. Well, at least not for macro. Aperture priority at f/22, strobes on TTL, fire away. Bracketing is a waste of time. If you stop down, the strobes will just fire longer. If there isn't enough light at full discharge to match my f-stop, my Ike strobes beep 4 times to let me know.

Since I don't have a housing for my D100, I can only speculate as to how I would set up my rig. I would do as I do with film as stated above. I would have my strobes on TTL, something the S2 can do and the D100 can't. I would have my monitor set to display the histogram. The D100 histo display covers the entire image in a bright yellow graph, far easier to see than the S2. It is much easier to evaluate the exposure via the histogram in poor light than trying to evaluate the image itself. This would let me know if there wasn't enough strobe power to handle a small aperture. Also, I would use EV if TTL wasn't getting it quite right. Of course, I'd be shooting RAW on a 1 gig microdrive or CF card allowing 108 images and plenty of RAW post capture adjustments.

Now, wide angle would be much different. This would be where bracketing counts for something.

More about bracketing: I've done plenty of top side shooting with the D100. Again, I meter for what I think is the best exposure. With film, I would bracket 2/3 of a stop both directions. With the digital, I just look at the histogram and ajust one direction or the other. It's fast, it's easy, it's reliable. I love it.

I would like to be to add the ability to maninpulate the 4-way button on the back of the S2. Is it possible to buy th push buttons myself and have the casing drilled and the buttons installed?

MrFish,

How thick is the back plate you would be drilling into ?

Marc

as far as i can tell it's about 6mm polycarbonate

Sounds like it's to thin to drill into. Their is a possibility if the area right above the button is flat, it may be possible to bond a piece of acrylic to it.

This will give you the necessary thickness for the components of the push

button type control.

Marc

My guess is that if Ikelite could have put those buttons on there, they would have. I'm thinking it has something to do with the strength of a flat plate under uniform pressure - with 5 small holes in close proximity.

I think perhaps there needs to be a little more "meat" there to do that.

Cheers

James

Hi James,

Just my point, if you could bond a piece of acrylic to the surface it would also give you that extra strength you need plus the depth for the control it self. I’ll check on the bonding process later today and check back later with the possibility. You only need to drill one hole in the center of the 4-way button. A single push button control can rotate and touch all 4 corners of that control that's my experience. You do need adequate space between the end plate and the camera to do this.

Marc

I have not had any experience with bonding polycarbonate to acrylic and have found out that it does not glue well, not even to it self. It could not be relied on for integrity.

Marc

I've used both the "rotating pushbutton" (like on Ike's CP990 housing) and the "4-button cluster" (like on Ike's CP995 and CP5000 housing) and I MUCH PREFER the 4-button cluster.

Cheers

James

I've got to think that if they *could* have done something like this (bonding some extra material) and gotten the reliability we all expect from them, Ikelite would have done it.

Personally, I wouldn't do this, but that's just me. If you do, make sure your flood insurance is paid up, and that it will pay out if your housing floods after you modify it.

Tom