This is my second foray into uw photography...The first was about 10 years ago and lasted just under a week. I had purchased a Nikon RS system in Singapore for a trip to Sipadan. I then travelled on to Jakarta & 'experienced' a baggage delay.... the bags arrived minus the camera, strobes etc. Needless to say less than a week and out several thousand dollars left me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth & I gave up on the idea of taking photos underwater (and no; none of the gear was insured!).
Long story short I bit the bullet a couple months ago and decided to buy an uw system. Wetpixel has proved to be an invaluable resource in selecting both the gear and where to purchase it from.
The final piece arrived yesterday (Sea & Sea TTL converter for YS250....very hard to find). I decided to go with a Storm case over a Pelican because of the weight saving & the latch system (which is soooo smooth compared to the Pelican). Given the large investment I really wanted to go with a custom fit solution for the gear. Trying to find a foam fabrication company is no easy task even in Los Angeles (which is bizarre given all the AV equipment in this town). I found a couple of places, but both were using a band saw to make the cuts & I wanted a higher level of accuracy and finish than this. Also, the closed cell Polyethelene foam that most company's suggested using was very hard (which was fine) but also incredibly rough and definately would have marred the surface of some of the gear. After about 2 weeks of hunting around I found a company just outside of LA that could do what I was looking for. I'm not sure what the rules are regarding posting names, so if anyone is interested in using their services please send me a pm and I''l give you their contact details.....If it is ok to post their name, please let me know & I'll post it in the thread.
The Foam
I selected a closed cell (won't retain water, go moldy/smell) Polyethelene smooth finish foam called M200 (2LB weight). It's rigid, has high resistance to compression, a smooth finish & is extremely buoyant...which is useful because I also had them fabricate floats to go on my Ultrlight Arms.
The process
The company uses water jet cutting, produced a CAD drawing which was emailed for my approval and took about 1 week to fabricate. The blocks used in the case are 2" thick and are laminated together using a hot melt process. The arm floats were fabricated in single cuts (not laminated together) & hot melted to the Ultralight Arms.
The yellow piece you see in the photos is actually a cut up Yoga Mat from Nike. I wanted something soft to be able to lay the camera on when on a dive boat....
