Stupid oval port (on new Canon housings)

On my recent trip to the Similans and the Richelieu Rock with South Siam Divers (the excellent liveaboard SSD4, but that's another story) I saw a couple of people diving with the new Canon A620, with the Canon off-shelf housing, the WP-DC90. They were happy with just the on-board flash, and with the native optics. When I asked: " so how do you put on an external lens?" I just got a blank stare back from the happy users.

I mean, that oval port on the case did not look like able to accept an adaptor for a wide or a macro lens.

Short of buying Ike's venerable product (out in January, I hear) is there any way to overcome this apparent lack of thought on part of Canon engineers? It seems like a very decent camera and a good housing (rated to 40m, I saw them taken down to 33 m on this very trip at least on 3 occassions). Why the oval port, anyway?

regards to all

Robert Z.

Some external attachments can be fixed to the threads under the housing. Inon uses such a system for these situations, although it takes some time to appear on the market, as each attachment has to be custom designed for each housing. You can see an example below. The screw isbelow and behind the actual lens mount...

Mat

Righto - the Inon accessories mount to the tripod mount and work well.

I think the Canon engineers taper the port like that so that it doesn't block the internal flash as badly. I think the OEM housing designers believe most people just use the internal flash and they're probably right.

Cheers

James

There is a real disconnect between Canon's OEM housing manufacturer and their diving customers. As to the ports design, my only guess is that maybe the lens is somewhat retracted? Probably not but you never know. My money says that the 620 in an Ike housing should be a winner.

I too was dissapointed to see the oval port on this particular housing. One of the reasons I've bought a couple of A series Canon housings is because they were supported by Inon. I like these cameras and housings but I would not be rushing out to get this particular one. I guess it does not rule out a lens adaptor being made for it but it makes it a lot harder to design.

As far as Inon lens adaptors go it would be nice to see Inon come out with a few new adaptors for some of the latest cameras. Most of the adaptors available now are for discontinued cameras. This should happen - otherwise I can't see too many lenses being sold.

Based on my quick tests this isn't compatible with any of the existing Inon wide angle lenses. I really doubt they'd build a new lens for these two cameras.