New S&S RDX system - an own goal?

My S&S D70 housing has seen better days. Not only it is aging but the front has now showing small radial cracks that, while are treatable, are only going to get worse. Upgrade time.

Now, I am neither a pro nor am I particularly well off and so I tend to go for the middle of road system (think D70, D80, D90). It is also worth bearing in mind that as the pound has down from $2 to $1.4, housings have gone up in price by about 25-30% retail.

When it comes to my upgrade the obvious choice would have been the D90. Now it seems that S&S are going down the RDX route which means a small port hole and the need for 2 different adapters (one for bayonet and one for the macro screw extensions). Becuase these add length to the ports it means my Sigma 15mm is useless and my 60mm and 105mm ports (base + S and 79) will no longer be suitable for those lenses. Effectively, to stick with S&S means either going up to the D300 or buying all new ports.

Is this me, or do others think that this is a mistake on S&S's behalf?

Normally, once you have invested in ports you are effectively tied in to the manufacture because of the cost of replacing them. But by making people require you ports you are giving them an option (at roughly the same price) of going over to the likes of Nexus or Aquatica.

I appreciate they may believe that the Ike end of the market is worth chasing but again, they are only going to attract new to photography customers who do not have money invested in Ike ports. I would imagine that the D40/D60 newcomers are likely to be price sensitive, but D90?

What do others think?

I know what you mean about your currency falling against the US$ and it being hard. I managed to get most of my current gear just before ours fell, although it's making it difficult for me to keep adding on other bits and pieces, let alone planning holidays for next year!

Aquatica are releasing port adaptors for other brand's ports, I think Sea and Sea is one they were looking at, so that might be an option. There was a topic about this on here the other day that you might want to check out here. Whether this will add to the length of the port as you mentioned above, I wouldn't have a clue, but hopefully someone will chime in and say.

As for your question about new comers going with Ike and S&S chasing this market, it would have to be fairly worth while, as well as creating loyal customers that could stay with the same brand in future purchases. I can only speak for my local area, but I would say about 80% of dSLR shooters I see here use Ikelite, and I've seen everything up to 40D's and D300's in them, so if that's a common trend around the world, I guess it's a fairly big market.

I was at a shootout earlier in the year around here actually, and I can only remember seeing two housings that weren't Ikelite (both Seacam), out of maybe 10 on that day, so like I said, around 80%!

Good luck with the upgrade!

Ryan.