Canon 20D not AFing at depth

Hi,

I had a weird issue during a dive yesterday, hoping someone can help me out. Did a shore dive (max depth about 80 ft yesterday - my camera was AFing and triggering the strobes when I set it up, but when I got to depth, I took a few shots to check exposure levels, etc, and my camera was not autofocusing - I'd try to depress the shutter slowly, and it would take the shot, regardless of focus. No red light, no beep. I simply used it as if it was in manual, thinking maybe the camera had shifted a bit in the housing or something. When I surfaced and got back to my car, I tried the camera out again - bingo, autofocusing was working fine.

(Oh, I'm not using the * system to lock AF - I'll perhaps give this a try next time to see if this bypasses whatever the problem is.)

In retrospect, I think this happened once or twice on a recent trip but didn't continue the whole dive.

Anyone have any ideas? (My camera setup is listed below - I was using the 50 mm compact macro lens yesterday, not that that matters.)

Thanks!

Only way a Canon body would fire without AF is if AI-Servo is your shooting mode, One Shot and AI-Focus requires that you first have focus on something. Maybe you accidentally pressed the control on top of the housing? It does require 2 movements though to change that mode, first to press the top button then to turn the rear dial.

S.

Does the Subal housing have a control to hit the DOF-Preview button? That's always the first thing I've checked when my camera has acted similarly...

Will be checking both of these when I get home from pesky workplace....thanks... Allison

Matt, hopefully that was it (not sure if it's the same thing, but there is a lever to the left of the port, behind the focussing bar, that was set to MF instead of AF) - looks like it was pressing on the DOF preview button...taking it out tomorrow before work to double check. THANKS!