SeaTool Housings

Does anyone have experience good or bad with SeaTool DSLR housings?

Regards;

Vettediver

I got one for my wife's 400D last year. It's a very nice housing and she loves it.

I have a Seatool 40D housing. Finally got to play with it in the pool a couple days ago. Anything more specific you might be looking to find out?

Mike

Mike:

I am not in the mood to risk my new Nikon D300 performing R&D for a new Company. My specofic questions are:

Build quality

Weight and balance underwater with so little air space in the housing

Quality of the control mechinisms

Are they positioned correctly

Do they properly engage the desired camera control

Are the controls easy to use underwater

How well do Inon strobes work using the fiber optic trigger in the S-TTl mode

Thanks in advance for your prompt response;

Vettediver

Build quality

Weight and balance underwater with so little air space in the housing

Quality of the control mechinisms

Are they positioned correctly

Do they properly engage the desired camera control

Are the controls easy to use underwater

How well do Inon strobes work using the fiber optic trigger in the S-TTl mode

I am not in the mood to risk my new Nikon D300 performing R&D for a new Company.

Without attempting to judge in any way, I would recommend that you think about how strongly you feel in this direction. There are other manufacturers that have been around a while and you might be better off just going with one of them if you are, at heart, simply more comfortable with something that is familiar. In any event, you will not be risking the camera. The Seatool housings are watertight. The R&D statement does have a bit of validity, though, depending on what you plan to try to do with the housing. I have two examples from my experience:

1. I am not using Seatool ports with my current setup. Seatool makes adapter rings for other manufacturers' ports. I installed the ring, then attempted to install my Sea and Sea fisheye dome. The dome didn't line up properly with the housing. I called Reef Photo (that's where I bought it) and they inquired. The adapter ring is a relatively new product and not many people had tried to use it. They verified the problem with store stock and said they would work on getting me a replacement. I still do not have a replacement ring, however it turns out that if you mount the port upside down, it lines up fine. With the dome, this is not an issue as the zoom control is run from the housing. With my Sea and Sea custom macro port, the controls on the port now are in an awkward position. The Sea and Sea configuration is to run the focus knob for the 100mm on the port. However, the Seatool configuration runs the focus from the housing with an extended gear ring. Reef offered to loan me a Seatool ring and I tried it out in the pool. Turns out I like running the focus from the housing MUCH more than I ever did from the port so I bought the Seatool ring and now it really doesn't matter how the darn port lines up. Having said all this, one could still be valid in stating that the adapter ring design is either flawed or confusing and it has taken a while to get a "proper" one that allows for mounting the ports in their originally-designed way. If you plan to go with Seatool ports, you will likely not have any problems.

2. Due to what appears to be an assembly problem, the zoom/focus gearing on my housing slips when mated to the gear rings on the lenses. Reef Photo has ordered a replacement mechanism and are going to ship it out to me under warranty. This has taken some time, however, as it has to come from the manufacturer. I've been waiting several weeks.

There you have my two complaints. I would also point out at this juncture that Reef Photo has been very good about the situation. They are well aware of when I leave on my next trip and have made it known that they will do whatever they need to do make sure I have a functioning system before my next trip. When the adapter thing became apparent, they set aside Seatool ports for me to borrow in case we couldn't work it out. I would imagine that if the replacement part for my housing doesn't make it here in time, they will make that right as well. In my experience, there are potential issues with ANY manufacturer so the retailer is important in this equation as well. Also keep in mind that not all manufacturers support all the same lenses and configurations. I use a Tokina 12-24 lens. Seatool doesnt' make a zoom ring for that one so Reef sent me a ring for the 10-17 and I've sanded it out slightly to work. I also had to do this with my old Sea and Sea housing (adapted a 100mm macro ring that time).

Build quality

Build quality is very good. The housing is machined well and the anodizing is good. Gears, and the port rings and ports I am familiar with (check with your retailer for the whole story -- I can only speak to what I've seen personally) are machined from delrin, not aluminum, so if you are a "plastic means lower quality than aluminum" person . . .

Weight and balance underwater with so little air space in the housing

So far, I have only tried the housing in the pool with my 100mm macro lens. I used the adapter ring that mates my Sea and Sea ports to the housing. So: housing, adapter ring, extension ring and Sea and Sea custom macro port. I used ULCS arms but put 4th Generation Design floats on them. A total of six of their medium floats made the housing slightly negative in the pool with two INON strobes. Found it very easy to handle. With my big dome, I may have to remove some of the floats. Will find out this next week when I take that configuration into the pool.

Quality of the control mechinisms; Are they positioned correctly; Do they properly engage the desired camera control; Are the controls easy to use underwater

The quality is fine, with the one exception I noted above, which appears to be an assembly issue (still waiting for the replacement part to be 100% sure). Due to the small size of the housing, one might quibble that the gears look a bit "delicate" (they appear a bit small, I suppose) but they seem to work and mate up OK. Ergonomics are quite good. If you have really big hands, though, you might want to hold the housing before buying. I have big hands and almost wish the housing could be slightly bigger, but the whole reason for getting this thing was to reduce the volume of crap I take with me. From using it in the pool, I don't think it will be an issue in practice. Only thing I noticed was that it takes a bit of turning to change aperture and shutter speed but I don't know how one would change that anyway and the controls are accessible without having to take your finger off the shutter. All controls seem to mate up with the camera just fine.

How well do Inon strobes work using the fiber optic trigger in the S-TTl mode

This seems to work very well. My only complaint from my pool session has nothing to do with the housing. Rather, the issue is with the camera and strobes. I'm not 100% trained on the 40D yet so it could just be me. When the 40D is having trouble getting a focus lock, it releases a bunch of preflashes to assist with focus. The INONs mimic this faithfully and it can affect recycle time (in other words, the strobes use up their capacitance on the preflashes and occasionally don't give you the flash you want).

Thanks in advance for your prompt response;

Vettediver

You're welcome. Hope this helps.

Mike

Just to follow up on my post from earlier this morning. I have now been trained a bit more on my 40D (amazing what one can learn from Google and from surfing the Custom Functions). It is possible to turn off the AF assist beam (annoying preflashes that were sucking the life out of my strobes in the pool). Custom function menu III, number 5 allows you to disable this. Only works for the "Creative Zone" (P, Tv, Av, M), but that's where we want to be anyway . . .

Well, not to take this over or anything but I've thought a bit more about the comment you made about not wanting to risk you camera doing R&D for a new company. Any manufacturer that released a housing that routinely leaked would be laughed out of the industry quite quickly so I don't necessarily see floods as the most likely point of contention. However, I would submit that many of us here have, wittingly or unwittingly, been doing R&D for ALL of the manufacturers for years. Allow me an anecdote:

When I bought my first digital camera, a state-of-the-art Olympus C-2020z, I also, on a whim, bought an Olympus housing to go with it. Worked pretty well but I wished it could be a bit more robust so I sent a note to Ike Brigham wondering if Ikelite was thinking of housing digicams. I got a typically curt response about why would anyone want to do that, was this digital thing ever going to really catch on, etc. I dropped it. Sure enough, Ikelite released an Ike-branded setup within a year or so to test the waters. When I upgraded my C-2020z to a C-4040z, I bought one of the very first Ikelite housings for it. The housing arrived and I was a bit horrified. Ikelite, a manufacturer who was NOT a startup, had sent me a housing with a cracked port ring, buttons that didn't line up and furthermore, all the buttons around the menu button were all the same height making it all but impossible to push any of them without pushing the others. To make matters worse, I had already sort of volunteered to review the housing and post the review here and on Digital Diver. So I got on the horn to Ike and told he he might want a mulligan on this one. I sent the housing back and it was determined that the button alignment issue had to do with how the camera had to be mounted in the housing. They fixed that. They added in buttons of different heights around the menu button. I got it back -- the port ring crack was still there! Had to take pictures of it and send it to Ike to convince him. I sent it back again and finally all was fixed. So, what's the point of my little story? Here an established vendor, whose reputation was backed up fervently by thousands of users, had designed a housing poorly and not been able to fix a fairly obvious flaw the first time around. But you know what, they made it right and just about every housing they've made since then has used the "different button height" idea I provided (or at least certainly passionately supported). Was the issue the fact that Ikelite was a new company? Hardly. The issue was that this was a new model and like any company producing a new model, there were bugs that needed to be worked out. It would be great if manufacturers could think of everything, but they often can't. And, even if they can, it may not be worth it to them to do it (having worked in the auto industry, I can attest to this as well -- car manufacturers have to decide what they can and can't afford to offer all the time).

I'm sure others can attest to times that they gave housing manufacturers good ideas and saw them appear on new models. Another example -- Ikelite started offering 90-degree synch cord bulkhead fittings. Why? Not because they had a light bulb appear over their heads one day. Rather, many people got sick of having the regular one poke them in the face and suggested something needed to be different.

Finally, I want to say I'm not picking on Ike here. Just giving two examples I know something about.

Cheers,

Mike

Hi all,

I just had mine delivered today - yippeee!!

We bought it from Yuzo (what a guy - thank you Yuzo!). As far as build quality is concerned I cannot fault it.

The solid CNC machined alloy housing looks "tough as teak" (as we Aussies say), all controls barring the ones mentioned in previous replies are easily accessed, and the gearing appears to work smoothly. The camera slides in and out easily on a special foot that is coated in a silicone membrane.

I have given mine a test dunking at home and it passed the 3 x 3 test - now for Clovelly sea pool in Sydney later this week....weather here on the east coast has been awful!!

The port extras seemed fine also - machined Delrin. I have only purchased the standard 18-55mm IS lens for my 40D to begin with as I am a newbie to SLR's (my previous camera has been an Oly 7070 that has been an excellent work horse) and want to get comfortable prior to making further investments....ahem

All up I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER with Seatool, Yuzo and my wife for letting me have the camera of my dreams

Will report back with my humble offerings once all devices have been swimming successfuly.

PW

The solid CNC machined alloy housing looks "tough as teak" (as we Aussies say)

I am not in the mood to risk my new Nikon D300 performing R&D for a new Company