Anyone have experience with Meikon Aluminum housing?

Alright, its dark here, so I had to adjust the exposure on some of the photos really quickly.

 

 

I've also took some photos with the camera from within the housing:

 

With the h100m67(type 2) screwed directly to the meikon housing port, the vignetting almost disappears by 30mm. I next unscrewed the h100 and placed some step up/down rings to simulate a bayonet adapter. results were not good. I had to zoom in ALOT before the vignetting goes away, and clearly(pun unintended), the quality and clarity of the image becomes almost unusable. In fact, I had to zoom in until it was close to the 24mm flat port without wet lens, so it renders the additional wet lens almost useless.

 

This test/result demonstrates that the distance between the housing port and rear element of the wet lens also plays an important role.

 

 

As the h100 I have is a m67 type 2(rear element flush with m67 threads), I will be ordering a type 1 screw ring(rear element protrudes out from m67 threads) to see if I can get the rear element even closer to the housing glass. I would eventually like to adapt the h100 into a LD bayonet mount.

Great, thanks for shedding light on the vignetting - zoom question in the housing! I just wonder if the mkIV aluminium housing has the same geometry, I hope yes...

Just to double check... This is a alu meikon housing for rx100 mk 4?

Just to double check... This is a alu meikon housing for rx100 mk 4?

Nope, 40m/plastic, as he stated before.

BTW I am having 2nd thoughts about the Meikon housings:

#1: The Al would be interesting for me, however shipped, all taxes payed It would cost me above 800$, whereas I can get a Nauticam piece for 995 in the "local" (within the country, no overseas servicing, taxes etc...) store. Not a huge difference to risk warranty/service/parts issue. Also, this <200$ difference might come back once reselling the kit, because Nauticam is better known and I guess easier to sell.

#2: More important: The rear window concept gives me some worry: screws holding it against the water pressure:

This adds a possibility for a leak.

I think I'll rather decide between the Nauticam and the Fantasea housing.

I would have gone for the fantasea if I didn't chance upon the plastic Mk4 housing at a great price. If you check out aliexpress, the alu Mk4 housing is about usd$500 with free shipping, which puts it at the same price as the fantasea, while the plastic Mk4 housing is less than usd$200.

Oh, and one more thing to note is that I could almost get an image with a slightly wider FOV when I cropped the vignetting image as compared to the "zoomed in till it stops vignetting" image, so I would just save the trouble of zooming in while underwater and crop in post instead...

U koe.. I have seen the plastic housing for mk 2 and mk 3. And they dun have an issue of vignetting on the uwl h100. Thanks for this..

I believe that's because the h100 is meant for a 28mm native mount, which is the widest for the mk1/2. The mk3/4 are 24mm at widest, and when you zoom to 28mm, the front element of the camera lens retracts further from the housings flat port, which is probably why it needs to go a little beyond 28mm before vignetting goes away.

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I would have gone for the fantasea if I didn't chance upon the plastic Mk4 housing at a great price. If you check out aliexpress, the alu Mk4 housing is about usd$500 with free shipping, which puts it at the same price as the fantasea, while the plastic Mk4 housing is less than usd$200.

 

Oh, and one more thing to note is that I could almost get an image with a slightly wider FOV when I cropped the vignetting image as compared to the "zoomed in till it stops vignetting" image, so I would just save the trouble of zooming in while underwater and crop in post instead...

Cheapest one I found is 550+shipping+taxes (latter in my case is ~15%), this still makes almost 700$, I'll check deeper, <600$ shipped, taxed would make a deal for me. Still, I am a bit worried about the window solution, I'd be reluctant to bring it on a deep tech dive or mount it on an ROV...

Yes. I think that is a possibility. Maybe can try out the inon zm80. Seen some good thing it can do on the g16. Too bad I dun have a mk4 on hand... I do have access to the housing but... No actual camera

Yes. I think that is a possibility. Maybe can try out the inon zm80. Seen some good thing it can do on the g16. Too bad I dun have a mk4 on hand... I do have access to the housing but... No actual camera

I don't have it either. Once my plans for the next trip is fixed, I'll buy the stuff, not before. Camera prices can drop a lot within 2-3 months/other players can show up...

Alright, its dark here, so I had to adjust the exposure on some of the photos really quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also took some photos with the camera from within the housing:

 

 

With the h100m67(type 2) screwed directly to the meikon housing port, the vignetting almost disappears by 30mm. I next unscrewed the h100 and placed some step up/down rings to simulate a bayonet adapter. results were not good. I had to zoom in ALOT before the vignetting goes away, and clearly(pun unintended), the quality and clarity of the image becomes almost unusable. In fact, I had to zoom in until it was close to the FOV of the 24mm flat port without wet lens, so it renders the additional wet lens almost useless.

 

This test/result demonstrates that the distance between the housing port and rear element of the wet lens also plays an important role.

 

 

 

 

As the h100 I have is a m67 type 2(rear element flush with m67 threads), I will be ordering a type 1 screw ring(rear element protrudes out from m67 threads) to see if I can get the rear element even closer to the housing glass. I would eventually like to adapt the h100 into a LD bayonet mount.

 

 

Interesting. You also have to take account of the gap being filled with water instead of air, thus causing more magnification, thus less vignetting. Not sure how much of that would be true since in my last camera setup, I had no vignetting so that was never an issue.

Here is how the lens fits on the RX100's plastic housing:

You can see that the lens sits much further back probably 7-8mm from the rear of the glass port (at 28mm, when zoomed to 33mm (or 12mm, as picture specs indicates)), it is maybe a mm or 2 further back. It seems that Meikon was on a learning process in their design of housings, with the earlier housing the least thought out in terms of design and lacking the most features.

Strangely, the beveled recess of that lens port mates perfectly with the UWL-100 28AD's rear lens protrusion. I did some measurements of the type 2 vs the bayonet mount depth and if I put a type 2 mount on the 28AD, the 2 lenses could mate almost perfectly once it is screwed down, avoiding the vignetting from the UWL-100, and being a much smaller lens. I tried to do the swap, but my screwdriver stripped and didn't want to do harm to the screws, so I will be using the UWL-100 for the upcoming trip.

Lwang is right about the vignetting, which is great for me!. Did a quick test in my sink, results are self explanatory.

I realised the m67 mount does not let in water easily(coming from AD mount). So I had to literally screw the lens in when underwater. Anyone has any advice on this? threads are metal, so I can't really drill a weep hole.

Anyone sees the RX100 mk IV version =<500$, welcome to share the info - here or in PM. The prices I see on the Meikon site and on Aliexpress are 600+, which doesn't make a business case for me...

I just realised when I last looked up the prices when I purchased, it was 11th Nov, and they had some massive sale(similar to black Friday I guess). I got the plastic housing+ dome + shipping at USD$243 while it's back to USD$305 now. I guess I still got good price break considering the issues I have with the dome.

You can still purchase via the mobile app and get 6% off.

Costs exactly the same to pick it up from my neighborhood: 575EUR (=609$)+VAT+shipping at unterwasserkamera.at

I was wondering, is it possible to convert older, mkI-II housings (e.g. Nauticam) to accomodate the new mkIV camera?

I realised the m67 mount does not let in water easily(coming from AD mount). So I had to literally screw the lens in when underwater. Anyone has any advice on this? threads are metal, so I can't really drill a weep hole.

 

I went on a dive trip with the plastic housing. The lack of holes is quite a hassle. Having to unscrew the lens to let water in, then trying to mate the threads together in order to screw it back on could be a challenge sometimes. I actually dropped my dome lens and it fell 15 ft or so, luckily to a sandy bottom. I stopped having my lens on a leash since I never dropped my lens before, but now I will probably have to start using it again. Plus, I have to constantly screw the lens back and forth since that's what it takes to squeeze the excess water through the threads. The best method is probably to fill it with water in the camera tank before you go down, but if the camera is out of the tank too long, one never knows if any water leaked out of the gap and one ends up unscrewing the lens again while underwater. If the dive environment is a bit inhospitable, unscrewing/screwing the lens might be a bit harder.

Plus the lack of rear dial, I could not figure out how to change the aperture in manual mode, thus on my upward shots, the sky/sunball were a bit too bright. Maybe I should just set it in shutter priority since that's how I had it on my old camera and the surface/sunball were less overexposed. Or I just have to get move dives with the camera, but then I only use some of these weird features when the camera is the housing, which is when on dive trips, thus I frequently forget how its done.

I too am on a dive trip now, and setup my lenses with the inon LD mount adapters, and always tethered with a fishing line. Even then it doesn't let water in, so I just have to mount it underwater, which is less of an issue with the bayonet mount.

Everything has been working fine this far, and there are 2 more meikon/nb branded users on this trip with no issues this far(keeping fingers crossed). Just find it strange that the similiar range G16 housings have double o-ring and no leak sensor.

With regards to manual settings, the aperture should be in the front ring in M mode. To change shutter speed, you have to go into S mode and use the front ring to adjust, before changing back to M mode. A hassle it is for sure, but I generally keep shutter speed at 1/125 to freeze motion.

I too am on a dive trip now, and setup my lenses with the inon LD mount adapters, and always tethered with a fishing line. Even then it doesn't let water in, so I just have to mount it underwater, which is less of an issue with the bayonet mount.

 

Everything has been working fine this far, and there are 2 more meikon/nb branded users on this trip with no issues this far(keeping fingers crossed). Just find it strange that the similiar range G16 housings have double o-ring and no leak sensor.

 

With regards to manual settings, the aperture should be in the front ring in M mode. To change shutter speed, you have to go into S mode and use the front ring to adjust, before changing back to M mode. A hassle it is for sure, but I generally keep shutter speed at 1/125 to freeze motion.

I had a stainless steel fishing line leader attached to a zip tie that was wrapped around the lens as tether. I was always afraid it would drop while the cable was somehow wrapped around the fiber optic cable and slice it through if I drop the lens. Then I made some floats that wraps all around the lens, thus making underwater re-attachment pretty much impossible given the float blocks all view of the mating area of the thread. For the new RX100 setup, I didn't use the float because the reattachment of the lens requirement underwater, but left the tether off.

I meant I wanted to change the shutter speed since in re-taking a picture, I did not want to change the f-stop, which will cause the strobe to have to throw more light, possibily causing underexposure or the foreground subject becoming more bluish if the strobes maxed out in its light output capability. If I increase the shutter speed, only the background gets darker.

Jumping to S mode to change shutter speed would likely not work since I shoot mostly in MR mode, and MR 1 is pre-configured for shooting wide w/strobe under M. If I jump to S and then to M, it would not have any of my settings in MR 1 (iso, metering mode, etc). MR 2 is shooting w/o strobe w/manual WB, higher ISO, Shutter priority, etc, and MR 3 macro w/strobe.

So I either have to commit into memory how to change the front ring's mode from STD to Aperture so I don't forget about it when not touching that feature for many months, or get rid of MR 3's macro mode (a useless mode anyway, probably will just carry another P&S and use it to shoot macro with its built in flash..and put it on a pole so I can stick it into holes and get video that the big rig cannot get into) and have it similar to MR 1, but it will be in S instead of M, so as to let the camera's metering adjust settings so it exposes surface/sunball on par with forground exposure.

I too am on a dive trip now, and setup my lenses with the inon LD mount adapters, and always tethered with a fishing line. Even then it doesn't let water in, so I just have to mount it underwater, which is less of an issue with the bayonet mount.

 

 

Everything has been working fine this far, and there are 2 more meikon/nb branded users on this trip with no issues this far(keeping fingers crossed). Just find it strange that the similiar range G16 housings have double o-ring and no leak sensor.

 

With regards to manual settings, the aperture should be in the front ring in M mode. To change shutter speed, you have to go into S mode and use the front ring to adjust, before changing back to M mode. A hassle it is for sure, but I generally keep shutter speed at 1/125 to freeze motion.

I thought you bought the Meikon dome correcting lens? But what I see on the lens caddy is a Dome lens Unit II. Did you not try the Meikon dome?

Like I mentioned in my earlier post, the dome came a little fiddly, the lens hood locking screws were not long enough to lock the shades in place, so when mounting/unmounting was causing the screws to scratch against the inner surface because the plastic hood was the only thing you could grab onto. The plastic hood was also flexing a little which made tightening the locking screws impossible. I sent just the dome back for a refund, and I found a used h100 for a very good price. The most expensive component in this updated rig was the dome unit 2 which I bought new. It's also the heaviest and the whole rig was still pretty negative with all the stix floats.