Know what really Grinds my Gears?

Paul is right, compared to the days of film, digital imaging HAS caused a "bump" in divers taking photos underwater...

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And the number of divers taking GOOD photos has increased significantly! I have a dive friend who -- until recently -- dove with an Oly 5050 and single strobe, and he was taking FAR better photos than I did back when I was shooting film! Now he has moved up to a 20D in an Ikelite housing (which is not a horrendously expensive rig), and I expect he'll be getting even better results, but the point is that you don't NEED an expensive DSLR to get outstanding uw photos if you study and practice technique enough!

Frankly, Lloyd, if the cost of housing your Rebl XT just seems prohibitively high, buy a good P&S (I'm not sure if the Oly is still the best option, but there's a forum here where you can find out) and its inexpensive manufacturer's housing, and have fun with that. Not only will you be able to take outstanding uw photos, but you'll have a compact camera for above water use when it's impractical to carry your XT. Then, after a couple of years, when you'll probably be upgrading from your XT to a newer, fancier DSLR anyway, you can buy a housing for THAT, and make the (more expensive) transition many of us have now made (to uw DSLR).

The important thing is this: if you want to take photos underwater, DO IT! If you simply can't afford (or can't justify/live with) spending the high prices of uw DSLR housings, that's fine -- start shooting with a good (but far less expensive) P&S rig. The important thing is to START SHOOTING! If you're like the rest of us in this thread, you'll end up deciding that blowing a higher portion of your recreational budget than you used to think was "reasonable" on uw photo gear is actually well worth it in the end.

Lloyd et al:

I think that we all agree that " it is in the realm of possibility" that current housing manufacturers could lower their prices, that is tautological. The bigger question is whether or not they should.

I think most of the posters here agree with the following

a. All (or almost all, I am not sure about Sea and Sea) of the SLR housing manufacturers are small, privately held companies

b. There is a lot of competition among companies that make housings. For example, there are at least 7 available housings for the Nikon D200, a camera that was introduced 3 months ago at best. (see x-ray 11 p. 85) and 8 housings for the 5D. This not only means competition but lots of R&D at these companies.

c. The barriers to entry for making housings are modest, a good machine shop for aluminum or making molds and some good engineering talent. In LA at least there are 15 shops within 10 miles of our place that could make housings, but they look at my Subal and say they would need to charge x for it where x is usually 2x what I paid.

d. Underwater photography, as much as we love it just isn't important to the companies that make cameras, if it were they wouldn't keep making 2 mm changes in dimensions, (unless of course the housing guys convince them to do that so they could sell more housings).

e. Price alone isn't the most important thing when buying a housing ( or anything else), if it were then Ikelite would dominate the housing market but a quick tally of the folks in this thread at least show more seacams than anything else.

I work in a very big R&D driven company, we spend 15% or so of sales on R&D. Our gross profit margins are in the 70% range to allow us to pay for R&D among other things. When you say that the housing guys should make a fair profit, what does that mean to you. You should be thankful that really big companies aren't making housings, if we made it it would cost $10K or more (but the box it came in would be nicer).

I would estimate that most of the DSLR companies have sales in the $10M range or smaller, making a go of something that changes as fast a housings need to change in that environment seems very tough to me. When I bought the Subal housing for the 20D, I looked at the Jonah and the Ikelite. Neither did what I wanted, one was too unfinished to give me confidence, the other had a bulkhead cable that was very prone to breaking. Price wasn't the driver. I think the market is doing fine with the pricing of housings, unless you are suggesting that the manufacturers are getting together to keep the prices high.

Bill

Well its been quite a little interesting discussion. I do appreciate the time everyone has taken to reply..and in quite civil tones. You are a group to be appreciated. I hope I haven't been too vociferous or obstinate. Apologies if I rubbed anyone the wrong way.

At least now I have a better feel for what's happening in the industry and why. And good Mr. Yates was most helpful in helping me determine if anything could really be done. Also loved the passion from Mr. Haas and the recent insightful info from Mr. Mooney. Many thanks to all.

Here's to hoping we meet again, face to face, on a live aboard in..........

Lloyd (Stew)

Why must a housing be brand new? Housings for the D100, D70 and Rebel are available used for much less than what they cost new. I've seen some nice used equipment ads right here on Wetpixel.