Am I the only one who thinks Nikonos Bulkheads are terrible?

Maybe I'm just spoiled by years of shooting with Ikelite cables. But after a month with my L&H Titan housing and its Nikonos bulkheads and cords, I gotta say, these bulkleads suck.

The list of why these cables blow is long, but some of the more irritating issues include they're combative to assemble on a moving, pitching, poorly lit boat. They're not installed facing the same way oh the housing (one notch forward, one notch back), unless the unit is bone dry there will always be water filling the bulkhead when you take out the cord (I have resorted to bringing along canned air to blow them out when breaking down the cam in the field.) The cord ends do not seal 100%, so unlike my Ikes I can't just screw the cords onto the delrin caps and toss the cords into the rinse bucket. Oh, the Ike end remains dry - not the Nikonos end. Even with installed correctly they don't offer a visual reference - there is always this little gap, you can't tell if they're on-on or just on. Unreal.

Its staggering to me what a poor design this is.

I'm calling BackScatter today to see if I can have these limp bulkheads sawed off and Ikelite or ANY other type installed on my L&M housing.

I can't be the only one who feels this way. I'm here and on other boards often, and I don't ever remember reading about how lame these things are.

Oh well. I'll call BS and see if they can assist.

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Ken

You know I'm with you on this one, buddy..... I tried that tip you gave me. I still have difficulties feeling when the notch has been aligned, though.

The Aquatica housings have the option of getting the Ike connectors - which I may go back to, but unfortunately with only one bulkhead, so a y-cable is required.

I've never had anything except Nikonos connectors so guess I don't know any better. They're not the best, but they're the only generic design so until the manufactures can agree on a universally accepted alternative I guess we're stuck.

One tip: I always remove the connector from the housing with the housing up-side-down. That way any trapped water will fall out and not into the bulkhead.

I've discussed it several times and it has been discussed on the forums. Yes, they blow.

Sadly, they became the defacto standard during the days of Nikonos. Let's all agree on a new standard and change it. Call Subal, Seacam, Nexus, Sea & Sea, Aquatica, Ikelite and Nexus and let them know our decision.

There are many thread here at wetpixel about this. I think there was even one thread where someone called for a vote for a "standardized" bulkhead.

I have used Nikonos, Ike, and S6 bulkheads. It would be easy to standardize on either Ikelite or S6 as both ends are even the same (although, I doubt it would be possible to convince Ikelite to switch :-)

Cheers

James

Call Subal, Seacam, Nexus, Sea & Sea, Aquatica, Ikelite and Nexus and let them know our decision.

Wrong tree George , many housing manufacturers do not manufacture strobe, the one's to call are the strobe manufacturers, I couldn't agree more with you guy's, The Nikonos has had its days, and a new open structure design is needed, something simple, robust and made to contain any moisture entering it (sealed from the housing interior) and please, please pretty please no spring loaded (should say loathed here ) pins. If the flash people make it happenand we are open armed to help them, we will be amongst the first to implemented it but again its not really up to the camera housing folks as much as it is the strobe manufacturer the must supply the proper cord to connect their strobes to the whatever new standard would be, as for us, well we plug the hole with what's available and popular

Cheers.

I'm siding with George on this one. The strobe manufacturers control one end of the connection and the housing makers the other. The two are different. You can't plug the strobe end of the cable into the housing. Although I've been careful and lucky enough to not have any failures to date, I find the housing end much more trouble to use and keep clean than the strobe end.

There's no reason a housing maker can't come up with a reliable, easy to maintain connector on their housings and sell cables to connect it and Nikonos strobes. To me, it looks perfectly feasible for a housing maker to offer this as an option. I'd take a more reliable connector at the cost of replacing a couple of cables. In fact Ikelite offers this option.

Fiber optics seem to be working quite well with the strobes designed for them (Inon comes to mind). Nexus seems to be the most recent to embrace this idea, perhaps it will catch on for the DSLR market.

Phil Rudin

I understand the frustation, but believe me I don't see were the housing manufacturer would be qualified as a supplier of cord but not of strobes. molding and manufacturing strobe cables make sense if you make the strobe that go along with them. Us or I guess another of our competitor coming out with a new design would just be another isolated standard that will fade away if its not endorsed by the strobe manufacturer.

A few years ago Aquatica came out with a wet connector system, it cost quite a chunk in R&D and was a smart design allowing swapping cord underwater, alas it died because the Nikonos was still too implemented.

The industry will need to address this one day, but that will mean sitting at the same table, putting aside our difference and ... agree on something. Dialog is prime here.

As a housing manufacturer we see a sure benefit in standarizing, and honestly I hope it will happen. We, you deserve a connector that is up to today's task and is widely accepted.

Meanwhile our housing are available with Ikelite Bulkhead's, its a simple and efficient connector and it is widely accepted worlwide, as a plus they have cords to connect their bulkhead to Inon/ Sea & Sea and Nikonos.

P.S. We are looking into Optical fiber, but not a lot of strobes are Optical ready as of now... again the bloody different standard .

Cheers

My Subal housing has Ike sockets. I highly recommend them.

With 25 years of Nikonos, I too agree in droping them.

I like the Sea & Sea connectors; good sized 'O' ring in the correct location, and a good threaded connection.

With 25 years of Nikonos, I too agree in droping them.

I use S6 and am thrilled with their reliability and ease of cord installation; in the dark, on a pitching boat, whatever:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showt...19246&hl=S6

Very robust and elegant. Of course, this thread above went nowhere last time in terms of suggesting a better universal standard than the Nikonos, other than letting me vent my angst. We are recommending S6 to new Seacam customers for the superiority of S6, and forward compatibility with E-TTL (Canon) and I-TTL (Nikon). Even so, at least 50% of our customers still opt for Nikonos V connectors due to legacy of strobe cords.

Interestingly, most ordering new Canon MKIII Seacam housings are ordering with at least one S6, and several have decided to go with dual S6. Mine will have dual S6.

BTW ... Seacam does provide S6 to either Ikelite or Inon/Sea and Sea strobes (I travel with both kinds of cords), and S6 is the standard for their own Seaflash 150. Because of the Euro exchange rate the cords are expensive, but very good.

My take, after being one of those who has regularly added to the discussions of the Nik V connector being well past its prime is to make your choice when you get a new housing!

While the S6 is nice, the Ike style connector (which is the same on their strobe bulkhead and housing end, hence ZERO hook up dilemmas) is currently the best choice for housing mfrs. to adopt.

Ikelite as mentioned currently makes cords from their housing connection style even to competitors strobes. Of course they HOPE you will consider their fine UW flash units!

Personally, for so many who will spend extra bucks for some gizmo on a new housing system to think getting new style, but more reliable and robust connecting cords is expensive? I am thinking that's penny wise and pound foolish.......

Just my 2 cents

dhaas

The other solution is to go fibre optic. 100% water proof, super light weight, cheap. Downsides - no TTL, not compatible with all strobes.

On last summer's Wetpixel/JASA shark trip, Tony Wu had both of his zillion housings fitted out this way. Very impressive indeed. I'm going this way with my Inon Z240s.

Alex

My Subal housing has Ike sockets. I highly recommend them.

Same thing here, but if I were to order it today, I'd ask it with Ike on one side and Nikonos on the other. This way I could use different strobes (with Y cables, not different strobes at the same time )

I was being somewhat facetious when I said let us decide and let them know.

Jean, you sell yourself and Aquatica short. Aquatica, and appparently Subal, have addressed the issue by offering optional Ikelite connectors on the housing. This is really all we need, a choice. I don't think it is a coincidence that neither Aquatica or Subal sell strobes.

All we need are a couple more to offer Ikelite connectors and then eventually the first guy will quit offering Nikonos.

Not to knock the S6, but cost counts and the Ike connector already has a bigger market share.

Then people like me will quit ordering housings with Nik connectors because we already have a drawer full of them from the past umpteen years.

Someone just needs to convince someone that an Ikelite connector to a Sea & Sea strobe connector on the other end is in their best interests.

Slightly off topic, but I added the Ike TTL adaptor to my D2X housing with the Ike synch sockets. Very nice and gives you TTL or manual. I believe they actually make it so you can use with Nikonos bulkheads as well, though I'm not sure.

http://web.mac.com/daveburroughs/Site/iTTL...ter_photos.html

The other solution is to go fibre optic. 100% water proof, super light weight, cheap. Downsides - no TTL, not compatible with all strobes.

I just wish I could use fibre optic cords with my Subal housing.

Agree with Gudge... I am reluctantly ordering a S&S 40D housing (due largely to all the ports/ domes/ gears I have collected) but wish S&S had gone the route of Nexus and Seatool by offering optical. But again, S&S is a major strobe maker and might have a vested interested in keeping to the Nikonos cables... S&S "You want TTL? Sure just buy our $400-500 TTL conveter"...

I have for years used wet connectors from Marshall. These are equal to the Electro Oceanics connectors that used to be popular some years ago. The connectors are cheap and reliable. The downside is that you only can use the strobe in manual mode. There are other alternatives that will make it possible to use TTL. One of these is Subconn. Subconn is even better than EO/Marshall and available in many configurations. The company that sells these connectors is MacArtney. They have branches all over the world. The use of such connectors will of course require some work attaching the strobe connector to the cable.