Canon 40D Ikelite housing for Canon 50D Body?

I reccon your havin a go at us Aussies now! Anyone else you want to give a hard time?

Oh please tell me you're kidding?! I loved Australia and I loved the people, and my comment was a complement! The Aussies are some of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of being around. In fact, I'm trying to figure out how to get back to Australia for vacation! I felt the Aussies could say a lot with a few words, what is wrong with that? Heh... If you are serious you must not be from Australia!

Please tell me that trying to gain knowledge in UW photography is not going to result in political correctness and miss understanding? Please tell me this is not so?

I'm a very sensitive guy and you are starting to hurt my feelings now!

Cheers Mate!

Derek...

Reads like you have bit of practise "whipping out the drill" - or have I made the wrong assumption ?

Gotta love it! Well yes I do, if you must know. I have a lot of practice at a lot of things...

No problem partner, I'm sensitive to the fact that a few thousand people are going to read the posts here over time and it's easy to make a negative comment that some folks could misunderstand. It's also easy to forget that there are people behind all these companies and that the overwhelming majority are busting there butts to make the customer (us) happy.

I do understand and it would never be my intent to bite the hand that feeds me...

Not sure if they do the machining in house or sub it out, but I know they do great work. Next time you're in Monterrey say hi to Berkley and the gang for me. I'll be happy and privileged to buy the first boat drink when we run into each other at a mahogany dropoff sometime.

I will be seeing Berkley in 3 weeks, and we will be on a boat together going to the Galapagos Islands! I will let him know that I created an international incident over my loose lips! I hope I do run into you someday, you seem like a very decent man.

Hey Aussie, for the record the first time I got off a plane in Sydney, I was struggling to understand what everyone around me was saying. I turned to my wife as we walked through customs and asked, "What language are they speaking"? She looked at me as only your wife can and said "it's Engish", (dummy).

When I was in Australia for 3 weeks a couple years ago, I found the folks to be kind and genuine. I never thought I'd be insulting Aussie from Brisbane from this side of the globe.. Wow, a truly international incident I've created here!

Sorry Aussie can't take a shot at you. In my experience Australia has the friendliest, most giving people on the planet. Well....., except maybe for Bruce.

Cheers!

Steve

It sounds like I need to buy a lot of beers here!? When and where can I start on this?

Cheers

Derek...

Next Thirstyday @ the LV Hilton would be a good start :)

Oh please tell me you're kidding?!

Course I was! No hard feelings mate. Keep forgetting our sense of humour is a little different!

Hey Steve, don't worry about not being able to understand us, we have the same problem with Americans from the Southern states (who are of course great ppl too).

Enough of this, I'm going for a dive (new camera, wahoo!).

Ryan.

I've been lucky enough to "play" with a Canon 50D this weekend, and I was really keen to try it in my Ikelite 40D housing.

And, unfortunately, after many hours of experimenting, I can report the THE TTL CIRCUITRY DOES NOT WORK

So....for all of you waiting for that information.....there it is.

It does not recognise the +/- compensation commands from the housing and just fired the flash at full no matter what the setting.

Same with manual settings. The flash fired at full power no matter what.

The camera certainly fits in the 40D housing, with no real problems.

A couple of the buttons are switched around - the 50D's INFO button is where the 40D's JUMP button is. Also the 50D's Liveview is accessed from the PRINT button (top left next to MENU).

I bit more intuitive to use than the 40D, it gives you a "quick control screen" which I found really useful, and I LOVE the extra pixels in the view monitor.

....aaahh well, it was fun to play.

I've copied and pasted this from another forum, answering Divegirl's above post:

Thanks for your post, you are certainly correct. A DS Substrobe could be used in manual only (using the manual power settings on the flash and not through the housing).

We are just finishing up the new TTL circuitry and will offer an upgrade of the electronics in existing 40D housings. The new TTL has been programmed to work properly with both cameras. I'll have final details of the upgrade (also to include the addition of a pushbutton) to post sometime next week....

Regards,

Jean / Ikelite

IKELITE Underwater Systems

That's great news! Thanks for posting Aussie.

Cheers

James

Hey Gang,

well it is official that the 40D housing does not function with the "TTL & Manual Compensation Settings" when using the 50D body. I asked Ikelite directly and below is Brett Foster's response from Ikelite. The upside on the message below is now Ikelite is going to offer adding the Liveview button also! This should make some of you happy. However, meanwhile the 50D will work fine in the 40D housing using your strobes in manual mode, by just dialing your strobe strength yourself. I'm sure many of you do this already and control the rest with your aperture settings and strobe angle...

Cheers

Derek...

Message from Ikelite:

Derek,

Sorry, you must send the 40D housing to Ikelite for an electronics upgrade for the 50D to function properly in the 40D housing. We can also add the "liveview" button.

Please send your housing along with a brief letter of explanation or this e-mail, and full contact information to:

Ikelite Underwater Systems

attn. Repair Dept.

50 W. 33rd St.,

Indpls., In 46208

Please include your name, complete return address, e-mail, phone number, and your stated problem or service request. Normal turnaround time is 2-3 weeks.

Regards,

Brett S. Foster

Ikelite Underwater Systems

50 W. 33rd St.

Indpls., In 46208

www.ikelite.com

brett@ikelite.com

ph. 317.923.4523

fax: 317.924.7988

I was able to get my hands on a Canon 50D today from a friend, and I did some strobe testing on the 40D housing... I was able to verify some of the issues with the 50D in the 40D housing, but I also found something interesting about the 40D in the 40D housing:

1. I tested the Ikelite TTL & Manual Compensation Settings on the 40D housing using the 40D body, and here is what I found. I was trying to baseline what the 40D does in that housing. Indoor shots were taken to compare the relative brightness with each TTL flash compensation change:

Ikelite -2/+2***40D -2/+2 read out***Actual strobe brightness

*******-2.0********-2.0***********very dim

*******-1.5********-1.5***********dim

*******-1.0********-1.0***********less dim

*******-0.5********-0.5***********(-)correct brightness

********0*********+2.0***********VERY BRIGHT (THERE IS NO "0" COMPENSATION FROM THE IKELITE ELECTRONICS), the 40D thinks it's set a +2 flash exposure compensation?

*******+0.5*******+0.5***********(+)correct brightness

*******+1.0*******+1.0***********less bright

*******+1.5*******+1.5***********bright

*******+2.0*******+2.0***********very bright

The Ikelite TTL Flash compensation DID NOT WORK PROPERLY AT A SETTING OF "0", in fact it showed up on the 40D as +2.0 of the camera's flash exposure compensation?! This is either a bug in the electronics of the housing or a defect in my electronics?

I also manually changed the 40D flash exposure compensation and the strobes responded correctly, and when I set the flash compensation to "0" I did indeed get "correct brightness.

I also tried the 50D in the 40D housing and indeed the Ikelite TTL compensation setting never made a corresponding change. I also tried to manually control the flash compensation through the 50D, but the strobes shot "Full brightness" regardless of how I had that set.

Of course controlling the strobes via the strobe compensation dial works fine when using DS-125's.

I will contact Ikelite about what I found on the 40D housing with the 40D body. I believe it is a bug/defect of my Ikelite electronics, because when I manually control it there is no problem.

For kicks some of you should try and see if you have the same problem with the TTL compensation at "0" and report back. I just verified the strobes brightness with pictures up against a wall, with fixed manual camera settings, etc...

Cheers

Derek...

Hey Gang,

couple things.... Ikelite is now offering the 50D upgrades to the 40D housing, see below link for details; http://www.ikelite.com/web_two/can_40d_diff.html

To add the LiveView button and update the TTL electronics to support both the 50D and 40D, is approximately $200.

On a different topic related to the Canon 50D however, is the "Err99" that people are getting from the 50D's... I was playing with a friends 50D and sure enough I got the dreaded "Err99", which locks you completely out of the camera! I couldn't believe it, you are stuck in that mode until you physically remove the battery from the camera and then restart! I thought to myself, "This will never work underwater, as if you get the "Err99" we can't simply remove the battery to restart the camera". I kid you not, the next day I went to Canon's web site to look for driver updates and sure enough there was a driver update, v1.3 that addresses the "Err99" bug! I have to say Canon is really great this way, as they are generally always updating software and drivers for all their applications, it is really nice..

In any case, my friend is going to let me take his firmware updated 50D into the water this weekend!

Cheers

Derek...

Thanks for your posts. They are really very cool, very wonderful.

simulationcredit