What mask for photography whith a housed DSLR?

Hello folks,

I just did some testing with my new housing and found it very hard to look through the viewfinder, set focus and compose the image... Quit different to composing with a LCD screen...

I wonder what kind of masks you use and If you have/had the same problems?! Any suggestions are welcome!

My guess: The less volume a mask has the nearer my eye is to the housing and the viewfinders picture gets bigger. Am I right?

Best regards

Christian

The Scubapro frameless mask. My 30 year search for a good mask ended when I found this mask. Due to the framless design it is low volume and seems designed for SLR underwater photographers.

Digital cameras (like mine) that use a smaller frame format but use the same full-frame prism optics in the parent body unfortunately leave a lot to be desired in this regard. The worst aspect of this is that the data display remains at the bottom of the screen, separated from the viewfinder image, so housing manufacturers can't use optics to enlarge the viewfinder image without losing the exposure and other data in the viewfinder.

I've become somewhat used to the small viewfinder image in the S2, but I don't like it, and I remember how much I don't like it whenever I pick up my F100 and see that wonderful huge viewfinder image inside.

Among other things, I really can't see whether (or what part of) the image is in focus using the viewfinder on the S2 - making it necessary to rely on autofocus and/or the black ball. The black ball is pretty much all you've got when using manual focus for macro. Opening up an image on the computer is really the first time I can see how much of an image is in focus.

If somebody offered replacement prism optics for the S2 that fixed this, I'd buy it in a shot.

As to masks, if you need corrective lenses, unfortunately, you'll have to go with a mask with individual lenses. (I believe the Scubapro frameless has a single lens, and cannot be corrected except with internal stick-on lenses, which I understand don't work very well.

Any low-volume mask that lets you get as close to the housing viewfinder port as possible should work. I use a Tusa Viewfinder. Black skirts (rather than clear silicon) are better in many situations where the viewfinder image may be dim, or there is a strong light source above or to the side.