Polaroid Housing for NEX5

I came across this on Amazon. Anyone have any info or experience w/ Polaroid housings? Says its polycarbonate rated to 40m and retains all camera functions for $129.00us. Come in two flavors, one for the kit 18-55, and one for the pancake 16mm. I was gonna pickup the Canon s100 combo, but now i'm rethinking this due to the price of this housing. Any advice? I know the whole "you get what you pay for" applies here, but for a compact sub $1k system, my only other option is the s100/canon or ike housing (which costs almost as much btw). Its even cheaper than those dslr dive bags from Ewa Marine lol.

http://www.amazon.com/Polaroid-Waterproof-...7016&sr=8-3

I came across this on Amazon. Anyone have any info or experience w/ Polaroid housings? Says its polycarbonate rated to 40m and retains all camera functions for $129.00us. Come in two flavors, one for the kit 18-55, and one for the pancake 16mm. I was gonna pickup the Canon s100 combo, but now i'm rethinking this due to the price of this housing. Any advice? I know the whole "you get what you pay for" applies here, but for a compact sub $1k system, my only other option is the s100/canon or ike housing (which costs almost as much btw). Its even cheaper than those dslr dive bags from Ewa Marine lol.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Polaroid-Waterproof-...7016&sr=8-3

I picked up the $216 (with international shipping) 5N/16mm model because the 16mm is a little sharper, wider, and half a stop brighter than the 18-55mm, although it's a little softer at the corners. I got this inexpensive housing mainly for a white-water rafting trip fearful that an expensive acrylic dome will be scratched amidst all the bumping. It'll also be the temporary scuba housing until Sony releases its wide angle zoom, coming in 2012, which "should" have a focal range similar to the 11-18mm A-mount lens. Can't wait to find out!

The built quality of the housing is similar to the two Canon P&S housings I have. The only problem is the rear wheel doesn't turn easily so the work around for me is to set the Aperture Priority to F4 for both stills and 1080 60p video. 60p HD will turn out life-like smooth even with 1/400sec shutter unlike 30p and 24p both require shutter speeds 1/60sec or slower to reduce the choppiness of these slow frame rates.

Both the NEX 16mm and the NEX 18-55mm OSS kit lenses are sharper overall than the Canon 18-55mm IS and Nikon 18-55mm VR so you can't go wrong with either one.

Also, a 16-50mm (24-75mm equivalent FOV) "G"(Gold) high-performance pancake zoom is coming in 2012 - reportedly it will be almost as small as the Panasonic 14-42mm (28-84mm equivalent) X pancake zoom.

I did a lot of research before deciding on the NEX system and put my observations on this 5N page.

AWESOME! THANKS!! much better picture than the Amazon one also. I didn't even notice the s/s latch on the top in the Amazon pic. Looks solid enough for me!

I came across this on Amazon. Anyone have any info or experience w/ Polaroid housings? Says its polycarbonate rated to 40m and retains all camera functions for $129.00us. Come in two flavors, one for the kit 18-55, and one for the pancake 16mm. I was gonna pickup the Canon s100 combo, but now i'm rethinking this due to the price of this housing. Any advice? I know the whole "you get what you pay for" applies here, but for a compact sub $1k system, my only other option is the s100/canon or ike housing (which costs almost as much btw). Its even cheaper than those dslr dive bags from Ewa Marine lol.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Polaroid-Waterproof-...7016&sr=8-3

I couldn't resist and bought this housing few days ago and so far I'm impressed. I think you get a bit more what you pay (or in my case what I expected). I bought the 16mm version mainly for snorkeling and to take it to public pools. I always wanted to take pictures of my children but I was hesitant to use my big DSLR housing with strobes. This camera is perfect for this purpose:

It still gets some attention but not as much as a DSLR housing.

The aps-c sensor of nex is really good and works well even under low light conditions. The 16mm lens in not a stellar one, especially with this flat port, so don't do pixel peeping at the boarders. But the whole set-up is very small and handy.

Now I even plan to use it a bit advanced way doing some optical fiber modification of the flash and using magic filter (w.o. flash)

Few weeks ago I saw a nex-3+16mm camera for 270 euro in the local store, probably they wanted to clear the stocks. My housing was 106 euro. I think for an UW set 400 euro is really a bargain.

..and I agree with A.Y. that using the rear wheel is almost impossible. You need healthy strong fingernails to have a chance. I'm also thinking to modify somehow this wheel.

Sorry for bumping this old post... I have a nex-7 and refuse to pay $1600+ for a underwater housing for it so I'm looking to buy a nex-5n and either this case or the one that supports the 18-55mm lens. I had a few questions I was hoping someone here could help me with.

1) My main interest is doing underwater video and am interested in using a fish eye lens, either the attachment to the 16mm or a purpose built one available from a few vendors. I was wondering if either this case which is built for the 16mm or the 18-55 version would support this?

2) I have yet to try underwater photography on a more advanced camera, previously I've just used a simple point/click canon. I know the $1600+ cases have direct support for external strobes and was wondering if this case could be mod'ed to support this. I saw gobiodon talking about it, and have seen similar posts on other boards. From some google searches I found some lights that are designed as external flashes for point/click cameras but they don't really go into detail how they work, how the sensor picks up the flash, etc. I think the best would be to use a direct optical fiber mod, but I'm guessing that would involve drilling into the case which would/could damage the integrity. Anyway, any info would be great!