I have the opportunity to buy a used (nearly new) Seatool HC7 housing along with the HDR-HC7 Handycam plus a Inon wideangle lens for about 2400 Euro. It's seems to me that this housing has wb control and other manual controls.
I have some questions:
Housing is rated only to 60 meters :-( Nobody tried a deeper trip with this housing?
I've seen some footage of a HDR-HC9 and a old VX1 on the same wreck at 90 meters deep. Both equipped with a talacetor lens.
HC-9 had really serious problems compensating exposistion in many cases.
Vignetting with this wide angle lens. Is there someone with this equipment and can assure that it hasn't a vignette problems with the Inon lens?
What do you think?
Thank you in advance
David
I considered this housing for my HC7 one minus point was that I think it only has WB shift, not full manual white balance. You will therefore not be able to get a decent white balance at depth (I think the shift does not go far enough). I'm also not convinced of the optical suitability of the inons when used on these housings (althought they seem to work great on still housings). In the end I went for the gates, which allows one touch white balance with fathom WP25 wide port and I've been extremely pleased with results.
This housing doesn't access one touch white balance, but does access white balance shift.
A "touch panel" retrofit is available that allows complete access to the touch screen menus, including (but not limited to) one touch white balance.
This retrofit eliminates the lcd mirror, so leaving the camera's eyepiece or an external monitor for composition.
