10Bar LX3 Housing

Has anyone had any luck getting in contact directly with 10bar? I have emailed them three or four times over the last few months and I have not heard a word from them. Talk about non existent customer service. Does anyone know of a US distributor?

Ratfish, Alki beach, Cove 2, Seattle, USA. LX3 in 10bar UV-housing.

Those of you that are interested in the 10Bar LX3 housing, please PM or email me asap. I am looking into becoming a dealer for them at DEMA later this week. I will place an initial order for those willing to make deposits on the housing.

Jack

Hi guys,

 

I bought the housing from 10 bar recently and it seems working fine.... haven't tested it underwater yet.

I absolutely wanted to use a TTL strobe though, so I bought a Ikelite DS-160 strobe.

 

For being able to use the Ikelite strobe with the 10 bar housing, I had to:

 

• buy a Heinrichsweikamp TTL adapter to replace to original 10bar Hotshoe plug. see http://www.heinrichsweikamp.net/#/en/lumixttl/
  
• ask 10 bar to deliver the housing with a N5 bulkhead (free option)
  
• buy a new sync cable from housing to strobe, Ikelite 4104.6 Nikonos-to-one TTL Substrobe"
  

The only real "problem", is that you have to weld the 4 little contacts to the cable of the 10 bar housing. Which is for sure not a "real" problem.

 

I will be posting pictures soon.

 

Cheers

 

bgfspeedy

Hi guys....

I tested everything in Puerto Galera and it is working great......

The 10 bar lenses (wide angle and macro lenses) have to be bought from 10 bar.... they are cheaper and good....

So seriously... if you would consider the LX3, it works great with the DS160 from Ikelite and the Heinrichsweikamp adaptor also exist for a Sea & Sea YS110a.

If you have questions.... do not hesitate to contact me.....

Cheers

bgfpeedy

I just received my 10bar housing from Jack (Post 83) Thanks! Wow are those buttons crowded.

bgfpeedy, I was browsing heinrichsweikamp.net trying to get more information about the TTL adapter. The link for the manual doesn't work. Do you have the pdf of the manual? I have a couple of S&S YS90dx strobes that I was going to use on manual but seeing how the joystick works on the 10bar housing I think TTL might work better. Also can you post some pics of the heinrichsweikamp adapter on the camera, in the housing. I want to see how it fits inside.

First impressions with this set-up...

I brought my LX3 and 10bar to the Los Coronados Islands near San Diego for a day trip. A couple of things that I've immediately noticed is that the joystick and setting white balance are a pain.

While I didn't have any problems with the joystick being too tight or not operable (as previously posted here), the fact that it's so close to some of the other controls poses a problem. With 5mm gloves on, it was nearly impossible to move the joystick down without accidentaly hitting another control which would take me out of the quick menu. I'm contemplating fashioning something onto the end of the joystick so it protrudes a bit more away from the other controls. If anyone has any other suggestions or has a DIY solution, I'm all ears.

Setting white balance at depth was difficult. With the joystick you have to enter the quick menu, select custom white balance and then select the Display button to enter the interface to be able to take a reading. Once in this interface, you have to select the center Menu/OK button in the middle of the four directional buttons. The way the housing was built, there is a single control for all four directionals, so you have to rotate it to precisely that spot in order to hit the correct directional button. This isn't too big of an issue, since because of the quick menu/joystick there really isn't a reason to use the directionals while underwater. The problem is using the other control to select the middle Menu/OK button. It also must be rotated to exactly the correct sweet spot in order to hit the middle. It's not easily viewable which position it's in from the back of the housing and I found myself accidentaly hitting one of the directional buttons on occasion (completely taking me out of the white balance set-up)... very frustrating. Also if the control that's used for the four directionals hasn't been rotated out of the way, you can't even rotate the Menu/OK control to the center at all. This is another thing I'm considering rigging to keep the directional control out of the way at all times and holding the Menu/OK control exactly over the button. Again, if anyone has run into similar frustrations and has a DIY solution, let's hear it.

Other than these issues, I know it's just a case of getting used to some of the other controls. I have to say that I like the shutter and zoom controls much more than the previous Ikelite housing I've had. The shutter is a button vs. the lever on the Ikelite (which I always had trouble with pressing the shutter half way to focus prior to shooting. The zoom has a spring which brings it back into neutral after moving it either way. This is leaps and bounds over the Ikelite housing I had where you had to manually move it back into neutral after zooming in or out. Which ended up causing me to zoom the other way and struggle with stopping exactly where I wanted to.

I'm thinking of getting the 10bar housing for my LX3. Seems to be pretty much the only option

I have a couple stupid newbie questions though.

Do I absolutely need wide angle lens for the camera?

Do I absolutely need an external flash unit for the camera? Is the built in flash useless under water? If I'll be needing external flash, which one is the best bang for the buck?

There's also two different flash connectors to choose from when ordering the housing, which one should I choose?

Do I absolutely need wide angle lens for the camera?

Do I absolutely need an external flash unit for the camera? Is the built in flash useless under water? If I'll be needing external flash, which one is the best bang for the buck?

For me the answer would be yes and yes. If you just want to take snapshots while on vacation then you might do fine without them. The LX3 and the housing are on the expensive size for casual photography.

The LX3 doesn't have underwater modes in it's menus. There are a number of cameras that have dedicated UW modes and cases. Many much less expensive than what you are suggesting. My dive buddy uses an Olympus camera in an Olympus case. She gets some excellent shots. They mostly go on the web though. She is not trying to get fine art shots that could be printed 8 x 11 or so.

If you are interesting in more "high end" shots then you are going to want the wide angle lens and an external strobe. For those the LX3 could be an excellent camera.

Thanks for your reply. So in other words, I might be better of buying another camera with cheaper housing available for it, unless I want invest a lot of money and get serious about UV-photography?

Basic ixus and canon UV-housing for it would be around 550euros. I don't want to travel with 2 cameras though, so I would need to sell the LX3, which would mean I'd loose about 150euros selling the camera second hand. 10bar housing for LX3 is about 650euros. So changing to canon would be just about the same financially plus I'd have a lesser camera.

So I guess the question is, does the canon combination give me better picture quality than the LX3+10bar combination out of the box without any extra gizmoz?

Thanks for your reply. So in other words, I might be better of buying another camera with cheaper housing available for it, unless I want invest a lot of money and get serious about UV-photography?

 

Basic ixus and canon UV-housing for it would be around 550euros. I don't want to travel with 2 cameras though, so I would need to sell the LX3, which would mean I'd loose about 150euros selling the camera second hand. 10bar housing for LX3 is about 650euros. So changing to canon would be just about the same financially plus I'd have a lesser camera.

 

So I guess the question is, does the canon combination give me better picture quality than the LX3+10bar combination out of the box without any extra gizmoz?

I think the Canon Ixus shouldn't be compared to the LX3, perhaps the Canon G11 or S90 are closer match in terms of picture quality. Budget wise the Ixus combo is more economical but you'd probably be adding extra gizmos soon enough! Your money, your call....

Anyway, there hasn't been much discussed about the LX3 HD video capabilty here, I think it's not too bad at all! Here are some footage I took last year, sorry I had not time to edit them. The blue may be a bit saturated but can be easily tuned down in PP: LX3 underwater

Yeah. It's the S90 I've been thinking of to replace the LX3. S90+ikelite kombo would still be cheaper than the 10bar housing for LX3.

Does anyone have any experience how these cameras perform without external flash? I'm sure on both cameras the internal flash is useless under water because of the backscatter issue.

Yeah. It's the S90 I've been thinking of to replace the LX3. S90+ikelite kombo would still be cheaper than the 10bar housing for LX3.

 

Does anyone have any experience how these cameras perform without external flash? I'm sure on both cameras the internal flash is useless under water because of the backscatter issue.

Available light performance is very good on the LX3 with the f2.0 Leica lens. All the videos I shot on the previous reply was with 10bar red filter, manual white balance and no video lights.

I think the red filter from 10bar gives very saturated colours, the UrPro CY or Magic Filter reproduces more subtle, natural colours. Will try them on my next trip.