Easy scratching on Phenom Port

Just curious if anyone else out there is experiencing problems with scratches on the Phenom. This too, has been a major problem for me? Anyone used any cleaners on it yet or the "micromesh"? I got a big scratch on it from someone else's fins - told Amphibico and they replaced the whole thing saying some of them were not coated properly before they were sent out. Then, yesterday, 9 dives later I scratched the new one up in the rinse bucket somehow????

I've had all the Amphibico line for the last 6 years and have never had a problem before. I'm also super anal with everything and am finding this unacceptable.

Bryce

Hello Bryce

Sorry to hear about your scratched dome there.

There is a guy over here in AUS that just pollished his whole dome due to scratching it up rather bad. He told me that he had to pollish the whole dome as it is coated with a rather hard coating to get a uniform finish. I'll ping him an email to see what he used. He said it looks good and was going to to a test dive with it to see how it went.

Thanks Wags. I'm a little p.o'd about it. I dive almost every day (usually with the PD170) and have now started with the Phenom and have two major scratches that shouldn't have been as bad as they are. I don't get it - especially with the big coating they supposedly put on it - thought maybe more people had some issues with it as it does stick out past the dome shade a little bit.

Anyways thanks for your posts on the Hi Def.

Aloha

Bryce

Bryce, the problem is 2 fold. The port is acrylic so it will scratch a little easier than glass, but you can polish it off the acrylic Then the coating which is hard so you can't really polish it off without making a mess.

Unfortunately quite a few owners have had this problem and reported their findings to Amphibico. The good thing is that they are replacing the acrylic port with a new lens mount soon.

According to their website, they have sold thousands of the Phenoms so they must've fixed the problem already.

Bryce, i scratched my amphibico dome twice in less than 1 month. Frankly, i was really disturubed by how fragile it was...nothing like any other lens I had ever owned. Drew is spot on that a hard coating over a softer acrylic is a recipe for disaster. Basically, you can let nothing touch your dome (not fingers, not sea grass, not fish scales, not cloth). This issue is compounded by the fact that the dome has very little protection from the minimalist dome ring and petals (the parts that protrude out). It seemed that anything that came in contact with mine caused some kind of scratch...even eel grass. I do a lot of aggressive diving to get wide angle pelagic shots (in and out of zodiacs and such) and for me this was entirely unreasonable. i have since moved on to another manufacturer.

Bottom line: don't let anyting near that dome.

What are other manufacturers ports made out of?

Dave, a few like Ikelite and Gates are acrylic but no coating so you can buff the scratches off. Glass dome lenses with coatins are more resilient (except for that coating part) but once scratched, can be expensive to replace.

Dave,

Don't get me wrong, the visual quality of your shots through this dome will be excellent...just don't scratch it then no images are useable. Don't underestimate how much care you will need to exercise with it.

shawn

Hey Shawn. Did you just eat the cost on the Phenom??? Not sure what to do with it but thinking of going L&M next - but don't want to get stuck with the Phenom - guess you can ebay it. B&H wants nothing to do with this conversation.

As far as thousands of sales go, I think they are still in the hundreds - the email list that goes out from them to all the buyers definitely isn't that large.

I feel like they rushed this housing - this one is my third one they have replaced (one grip issue, one mother board issue inside the housing and one port issue) - and I'm over it.

Which one did you end up going with?

A book I have suggests one place the port cover back on the port just before exiting the water and getting back onto the boat, that way as the housing is lifted up, it doesn't bang the port against things.....Seems like a pain, but less of a pain then sending your port back.....at least the cover on the Phenom port is made from a neoprene material so it can fold up and be taken down with me as opposed to the plastic ones on the Gates......I wouldn't mind one of each......

Dave,

Neoprene can still cause little scratches which will show on the footage. Only a chammy or optical cloth does not damage. It is a problem with coatings and acrylic ports in general. And when you put them together, the problem is compounded.

Dave,

I often used to cover my lens entering and exiting the water. On my old glass lens that was not an issue. With the acrylic dome, sediment, dried salt, etc that gets in the neoprene will copmpress immediately against the coating as you enter the water (so do not enter with the cover on). A plastic cover will be less likely to do this as it will not trap sediment. Exiting the water you have more freedom...but...again, sediment from you BC or in the water can scratch the lens. Really, there are no good solutions but to get medival in pretecting the Amphibico dome.

Bryce,

I sold my housing fairly quickly. Really the housing has a lot to offer but like anything has its issues. For me the issues happened to be things that I really cared about. It seems that Amphibico is finally taking many of these issues seriously (vignetting, alt port options, manual WB, new coating) but will not be addressing the coated acrylic port issue. If you can live with that, by all means stick with the housing.

Also, I was one of the unfortunate ones who it seemed the world was targeting my dome. Shipping the dome through customs over and over for replacement just wasn't worth it anymore. That combined with the other issues made it no longer usable for my purposes.

I have since purchased the L&M Housing. It is a really nice set up and so far I give it strong recomendations. L&M has provided me great customer service and have been very responsive. You can read my review on the housing on Wetpixl at ( ).

Hope this helps and Dave, don't worry, you'll get some awesome footage with your set-up. I would definitely pay the money and upgrade the port so it does not vignette and get the manual wb fix (if it is not ready, get the wags special).

Bryce,

her is the link to the wetpixel review (http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13072&st=0)

shawn

Right on. Thanks Shawn. Thinking L&M myself. We'll see.