Polycarbonate housings in cold conditions

Hello all,

I'm about to make my move from film (N80+Hugyfot) to digital in the near future and now I'm concidering the housing options. While there are many interesting aluminium housings out there, I'm also curious to check out the "plastic" options, most notably Ikelite.

My issue, however, is that a great part of my diving is in what you might call cold conditions e.g. ice diving in surface temperatures in the sub -10 centigrade range. I'm now looking for first hand experiences on the durability of polycarbonate housings in these conditions.

Regards,

timo

http://www.ahomaki.net

I was curious about that at one point. I had some fogging issues with the Olympus housing. I found a couple of frequent Monterey divers with Ike housings who reported that they've never had problems with fogging. We get water temps from 45F to 55F.

I was curious about that at one point. I had some fogging issues with the Olympus housing. I found a couple of frequent Monterey divers with Ike housings who reported that they've never had problems with fogging. We get water temps from 45F to 55F.

Well,

I have had some fogging issues but not as much as I had expected. I suppose this is because when the air is -10C (~15F) and diving otherwise makes any sense (i.e. there is no major blizzard blowing etc.), the relative humidity is very low. So, when I take the housing to the water (surface water temps around 0C/32F), there is not so much moisture inside the housing to cause fogging.

Also, I put the camera into the housing at home or in the car and keep the housing in a peli box until I need it. This, apparently, keeps things at least a bit warm. Mind you, getting to the divesite and making a hole may take an hour or more, not to talk about hanging around if I am not the first guy in.

But still. Any experiences in REALLY cold environments (45-55F seems to be our average summer season water temp ;-)) having to do with the material itself. Does it get brittle, do the latches stay put, etc?

timo

Cold batteries should be the greatest problem............

But still. Any experiences in REALLY cold environments (45-55F seems to be our average summer season water temp ;-)) having to do with the material itself. Does it get brittle, do the latches stay put, etc?

Hello Timo,

I don't have personnal experience about using a polycarbonate case in cold environnement but a friend of mine used his small WPDC-800 case for the A80 at our artic diving spot without problems (water temp is between 36F-38F during summer and 30F-32F during winter). I've seen other people using these cases at our training site two weeks ago while the water was still warm in the upper 40's.

I would be more concerned by the thermal stress from bringing the camera from air temperature (-15C) to water to near 0C water.

I don't know how's the average indoor temperature and relative humidity in Finland during winter but here in Quebec the RH is very low when the heating is up. So dew probably won't be a problem during the winter if you load the camera into the case inside the house. In summer it could be a very different story.

Timo, in the past I've had several seasons of diving through the ice with an Ikelite MD housing. Although the housing froze to the ice once, no problems.

If anything, it seemed to handle the cold-to-warm transition a bit better than all-aluminum.

All the best, James

OK,

Thanks guys. I really did not expect anything drastic in this area, but better to check anyway. Now it's just a matter of lining out my options and then save, save, save...

As for the camera and batteries - oh well. I have used my N80 underwater for three winters now in an aluminium housing with no problems whatsoever and both the N80 and a D100 in topside nature photography in temperatures down to -30C/-20F. In these conditions I have found the biggest issue to be the oils in lenses getting so sticky that the aperture diagphragm and autofocus gears start jamming. This, again, is a matter of servicing my lenses frequently.

Thanks again for your replies,

timo

http://www.ahomaki.net

I just took my Ikelite MD-case to 50m and 4'C (39F) watertemp last weekend, absolutely no problems except from a leaking drysuit......brrrrr

I've not used a plastic housing for many years so can't comment on their ability to withstand cold (probably better than mine) but have had a custom built plastic port fail under test (no camera in the housing) due to what I assume was differential contraction shortly after entering a flooded (fresh water) quarry on winter. No damage to the housing as it just needed drying out but it is well worth testing gear out like this under unusual conditions if at all possible!