Sea & Sea for the 10D

Any idea when Sea & Sea is expected to release their housing for the 10D? Before investing in a housing, I'd like the opportunity to look over as many as possible. Also, other than Ikelite (not yet available), where are the Jonah, UK Germany and Subal housings being sold - is it direct from the mfr.? What about support? How do I know what ports, etc. for the lenses.

I have a housed Oly digicam and am a former Nikonos shooter so this whole process of ports, rings,gears and the like is a bit mind numbing for a fella of minimal intellect such as myself.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated - Thanks!

Gerry

Hi Gerry,

We don't really have much correspondence with Sea and Sea, although we would like more. I don't know when their housing for the 10D will be available - or if they even have one planned.

Jonah is sold in the US by Oceanbrite.com and I think there will soon be others. In europe, they are sold by jonah-europe.com

Subal can be bought from many uw photo shops like backscatter, marine camera distributors, uw photo tech, etc. I don't think UK Germany has a US distributor (yet).

Cheers

James

I just put in an order for the Subal C10 Housing for my 10D. My main reason for doing this is because I have all the Subal ports already. Even if I chose to go with the cheaper Jonah route, by the time I add up the Jonah ports, I won't be as far off from the Subal, and I won't have to change zoom gears or carry 2 sets of ports/housings (I'm keeping my film Subal for when I need the 16-35L at it's full 16mm)

I've seen the build quality of Subal, Ikelite, S&S's new plastic housing and Nexus. I wasn't too impressed with the S&S one and I've known a couple of people who've had problems with them. Ike doesn't have a 10D housing yet and Nexus doesn't make one for the Canons....so Subal was my choice.

As far as ports are concerned (dome or flat) it depends on the lens you want to use, and unless you're using a lens on the ends of the focal length spectrum, you'll be well served by a 6" dome and a flat port for the 50macro and the proper extension to use the 100mm macro. I use the following underwater: 16-35L (DP-SWC with 40mm extension and +4 diopter), EF28-105 zoom (my hunting lens, used either behind the DP-SWC dome port with diopter or the FP90 flat port), EF 50mm macro, behind the FP94 and finally the Tamron SP90mm macro behind the FP94 and a 50mm extension.

Stu

I followed the same reasoning as Stu, when sticking with subal for my D100 housings: I already had the ports and had a reliable dealer.

I think that housing manufacturers should make port convertors more readily available for their housings. A port convertor that cost $50-100 would mean that a photographer like me who has lots of one brand might consider other brands.

I know people in the UK who use Aquatica domes on their subals with an appropriate adaptor.

Alex

I think a port convertor is a fantastic idea! I use a sea and sea film housing (nx80)which inpart I chose for the items compactness (and good looks!) but the current sea and sea digital offerings of the "big plastic shoebox" are leaving me in somewhat of a quandary for when I eventually go to digital SLR - thye are quite bulky and extremely ugly.

I do have a buddy who has the large Aquatica dome and it was modified for his Subal...it was an avenue that I thought about and even had a machine shop lined up. However, as I also wanted to have the housing ready for a trip in November and with Jonah not shipping 10D housings yet...it just made getting the Subal a much easier decision. I debated about shooting film and waiting for the Jonah but buying 60 rolls of film would have put me cash out of pocket even more.

Therefore, it was a no brainer.

Stu

B)

Word today was a November ship date, and the housing was very, very nice.

I didn't have much time with it, but it is in a different, smaller poly case. Much better IMO.

They also had a housing for the Canon eTTL speedlight.

James and Eric willl handle the pictures, I'm sure.

Word today was a November ship date, and the housing was very, very nice.

which vendor? S&S?

thx,

Marty

Yeah.

They also had a housing for the Canon eTTL speedlight. 

Oooh, now that sounds rather interesting, I wonder if we'll be able to fit that to a DX30/60. Could be just the ticket for macro on a D60.

I await pictures with baited breath.

Martyn

Eric is at DEMA today and I'll be flying in tonight. We'll try to get some photos of the new stuff up ASAP.

It depends on the connectivity we have there.

Cheers

James

We don't really have much correspondence with Sea and Sea, although we would like more.

Oh James, I exactly know what you are talking about. They seem not to consider this Internet mumbo jumbo entitled wetpixel.com and digideep.com too much. I have placed several emails to get a representative for regular news feeds but failed... Maybe you find the right guy on DEMA with them.

Andi

Also, other than Ikelite (not yet available), where are the Jonah, UK Germany and Subal housings being sold - is it direct from the mfr.?  What about support? How do I know what ports, etc. for the lenses.

Well we build a configurator concerning the ports for http://www.jonah-europe.com/order which helps you with the lense selection. Basically this kind of feature is open to any other manufacturer. The digideep.com team hopes to convince some of the housing manufacturers of this feature in the near future. It will help us to refinance digideep.com if a critical mass is willing to rent this. But we also rely on internet customers like you to help us pushing the manufacturers to that point. I think in the end everybody will be happy with this.

Andi

The photos of the S&S 10D housing show a new 6 pin strobe port. Can the housing be ordered with other strobe port options, such as a Nikonos standard 5 pin port to enable use of non-S&S strobes?

Marty

From what I understand from talking w/ Andy Sallmon, when you use a 5-pin cable on the 6-pin bulkhead, the center pin doesn't make contact. Eric has a photo of a 5-pin cord next to the 6-pin bulkhead to demonstrate. I'll ask him to post it.

Not sure what the camera will think when a strobe is connected via a 5 pin cord - we'll see.

Cheers

James

Sorry if I was too vague in my original question. Let me be more precise. Can I connect my existing Ikelite DS125's to the Sea and Sea 10D housing? I know TTL won't be supported, that's ok. I can always add Ike's manual strobe control unit. I think what's more important is can I get a Sea and Sea to Ikelite sync cable, or order the Sea and Sea housing with the standard Nikonos 5 pin bulkhead port to use the sync cords I already have?

thx,

Marty

Hi Marty,

[This is Jamesw posting from Laz's house in Miami after DEMA. Don't worry guys, I haven't broken into Laz's house and started using his computer :-) Laz is a great host - if you stop by - I HIGHLY recommend you try the flan]

I'll find out and get back to you. I'm thinking that the 10D housing has two bulkheads - a Sea and Sea 6pin and a nikonos type 5 pin, but I can't say for sure right now.

Cheers

James

Another question regarding the Sea and Sea Canon 10D housing: Are the ports for the housing the Nikon range of ports or are they the ones made for the Canon series for their CX600 and CX603 housings? ( which have different mounts unfortunately) From the picture with the housing and dome port it almost looks like the latter but I could be wrong.

I think that all of the ports are the same now. If I recall, Sea and Sea had some different ports for the SX1000 and the Rebel housings, but I don't think that continued into their digital line.

The photos show the 10D with the smaller dome port (6") as opposed to the fisheye dome port that you're probably used to seeing.

Cheers

James

For those that are interested, here's the 10D housing:

I'd say the housing is about 2/3 the size of the D30/60 housing. The photo shows it with a 6" dome port, so that helps make it look smaller.

If you look closely in the photo you can see there is a socket for a bulkhead on the right side of the housing (as you hold it) and if you have a look at the other photos, you can see the 6-pin socket is on the other side.

Cheers

James