Underwater Housings - Recent Price Hikes

In a minor attempt to clarify the issue of recent price hikes, I tabulated the prices of available underwater housings for a few top cameras.

The prices are from Backscatter and Bluewater. The goal is to assist us UW photographers when navigating the issue of price and quality, that is, how to buy a good housing for a reasonable price. Older prices are not available for comparison, but my recent memory tells me that prices for some housings, such as Nauticam's, have indeed gone way up. 

Current numbers show that Ikelite's plastic housing is the lowest priced, and for metal housings Isotta is the best buy.

And as mentioned here by others, Nauticam's prices have gone up, and are now in the same range as Seacam and Subal. Seacam continues devoid of fiberoptic bulkheads, a real drawback.  Subal, in my biased opinion, is still a top choice with its overall excellent design and quality. 

(Aquatica's prices as posted in Backscatter and Bluewater are all about the same, I do not know if this might be an error. My sample admittedly is very small and biased in the choice of cameras, and I hope somebody will gather representative data for a comprehensive comparison.)

References:

https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/69175-nauticams-recent-price-hikes/

https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/60308-d500-housing-choices/

Prices from another galaxy!! Thank you for your work of collecting data.

By the way, you forgot to include the new Olympus OM-1 in the prices list ;-)

Looks like Subal have significantly reduced their A1 housing since it was first published - 4640 USD plus tax now

Thank you for compiling this list. I just purchased the Nauticam NA -Z7II housing for $5056US and felt the pain! 

Thanks Kraken for your U.S. price compilation. It is interesting to notice that the U.S. prices show such a steep difference. Nauticam's recent price updates explains part of this, but are there other factors involved also? E.g. does U.S. have higher import duties towards products from certain countries and zero for products from Canada? For example here in Europe, the relative price difference between Aquatica and Nauticam is much smaller, though it does exist. The euro has become weaker against USD.

May I add Underwater Photo Stores in Taiwan to the discussion?
 To avoid local sales tax and similar costs, I have often bought from Fun-In Underwater Photo, Anthis-Nexus and DiverVision, as their shipping is immediate, the item arrives in a few days.  As thus far I have not been charged me a sales or import tax, and as often the price is a bit lower than locally, I have benefitted from buying from one of these Taiwan stores.

6 hours ago, Kraken de Mabini said:

As thus far I have not been charged me a sales or import tax, and as often the price is a bit lower than locally

I think the key here is that you have not been charged ...yet

Legally, you should pay customs and duty on import of goods and I'm not sure telling everyone that you have not done so is very wise! Certainly, advising other members of the Wetpixel community to avoid doing so, is not something that Wetpixel can or should condone.

Your local dealers typically provide a great deal more than just sales. Service, back-up, stock holding and advice all require resourcing, and we should perhaps all recognize this when we make purchases.

In terms of price increases, I am afraid the current ones are inevitable, and I would expect that there are more to come. World events over the past few years have put a huge strain on all businesses, and some of this is going to be passed on to end users.

The good news is that thanks to technical innovations in software, we should all be able to hold on to and shoot with our existing cameras for longer than we have since the onset of the "digital revolution". As always, I have yet to own a camera that was not capable of producing better images than I can

The points made by Adam are correct.  But when I watch the waste of tax dollars, and pay 9-10% California state plus city sales tax on things that I did not even buy here, that is when the Devil whispers in my ear.  

About the recent housing price increases, one significant factor may be the (big) drop in sales from the Covid 19 pandemic.  I say this as some big UW photo dealers are not open during the work week and do not even answer the telephone, indicating that business is slow and employees are laid off, just a trickle of the business before 2020.  As employees are no longer manning the store, they are not available to provide the nice services they used to provide, and outlined by Adam. 

1 hour ago, adamhanlon said:

I think the key here is that you have not been charged ...yet

Legally, you should pay customs and duty on import of goods and I'm not sure telling everyone that you have not done so is very wise! Certainly, advising other members of the Wetpixel community to avoid doing so, is not something that Wetpixel can or should condone.

Your local dealers typically provide a great deal more than just sales. Service, back-up, stock holding and advice all require resourcing, and we should perhaps all recognize this when we make purchases.

In terms of price increases, I am afraid the current ones are inevitable, and I would expect that there are more to come. World events over the past few years have put a huge strain on all businesses, and some of this is going to be passed on to end users.

The good news is that thanks to technical innovations in software, we should all be able to hold on to and shoot with our existing cameras for longer than we have since the onset of the "digital revolution". As always, I have yet to own a camera that was not capable of producing better images than I can

I agree, we have similar issues in Australia, with people buying grey import cameras/lenses then complaining bitterly that they are not covered by warranty by the local importer.  Under Australian consumer law, the importer is liable to provide warranty service and if you purchase from overseas you are the importer and responsible for warranty.

Warranties and support service are important but - and many people don't realise this - they are not free.  Same thing with taxes if people avoid them different ones pop up to take their place. 

If everyone avoids buying from their local dealers/stores and importers eventually you will have no store you can go to for support and you'll have to import everything yourself and then be complaining that the costs to ship your housing or other item off for warranty work costs too much or worse, that the warranty is not honoured.  Buying locally you generally at least have some consumer laws to help.

10 hours ago, Kraken de Mabini said:

one significant factor may be the (big) drop in sales from the Covid 19 pandemic.

My understanding from conversations with those in the industry is that sales actually increased during the lockdowns as people were spending on equipment the money they would usually spend on travel. 

The price increases are due to supply chain issues and commodity/component shortages caused by dislocation in the manufacturing sector. This is going to get worse, not better as the events continue to ricochet around the globe.

Tax is a necessary burden. Dare I say that those of us that are fortunate enough to be able to invest in foreign travel and expensive luxury camera equipment, should also be prepared to pay our way? 

Ironically, in the US at least, punitive tariffs on foreign imports, which were/are an entirely political decision, are largely responsible for significant proportion of the price increases. Make no error, you are paying these tariffs directly, so they form an additional tax

All the major retailers that I deal with (both US and European) are open for business and answering their phones.

22 hours ago, adamhanlon said:

My understanding from conversations with those in the industry is that sales actually increased during the lockdowns as people were spending on equipment the money they would usually spend on travel. 

I was one of them and I have friends who did the same.

On 5/11/2022 at 5:41 AM, adamhanlon said:

The price increases are due to supply chain issues and commodity/component shortages caused by dislocation in the manufacturing sector. This is going to get worse, not better as the events continue to ricochet around the globe.

 

I think you're overstating the supply chain disruption, Adam. And the tarrifs.  I work in an industry with complex supply chains for a manufacturer of safety-critical mechanical equipment that regularly imports items into the U.S. from abroad, including from China. I'm painfully familiar with the supply chain challenges and increasing made-in-America rhetoric. But it doesn't take much analysis to cast doubt on the theory that that's what accounts for Nauticam's price hikes:

1. Underwater housings aren't all that complicated. There's very few electronic components, none requiring advanced semiconductors. Mostly they're just machined out of a hunk of aluminium. What component shortages are we talking about?

2. Yes, aluminium prices have gone up, but they went from $2843 a ton in December to an absolute high of $3857 a ton on March 4th and are now back down to.. drumroll... $2828 a ton.  https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/aluminum

3. Let's be generous and assume you need 10 KG of aluminium to machine a housing. Even at the height of the aluminium price spike in March 2022, 10KG of aluminium cost... $37.57. In December it would've cost $28.28. Are you really suggesting a $10 increase in raw material price is what led to Nauticam hiking it's housing prices from $3300 to $5150?

4. No other housing supplier has hiked their prices. Do they have such different supply chains?

On 5/11/2022 at 5:41 AM, adamhanlon said:

Ironically, in the US at least, punitive tariffs on foreign imports, which were/are an entirely political decision, are largely responsible for significant proportion of the price increases. Make no error, you are paying these tariffs directly, so they form an additional tax

1. Again, not true. The U.S. has not instituted any new tariffs or restrictions on foreign imports (apart form Russian and Belarus) in the last 6 months. 

2. Are you suggesting that the tariffs only impacted Nauticam, not other suppliers that manufacture outside the U.S.? (Aquatica - Canada; Isotta - Italy; Sea & Sea - Japan/China?; Subal, Seacam - E.U.?
 

Let's be honest here -- Nauticam hiked its prices because it believed the market could bear the higher prices. Maybe the pandemic has lead to a spike in demand for Nauticam products, and they feel that even with the price hikes they'll still max out their production capacity. But it sure as hell wasn't because of supply chain disruptions. 

The US has not (yet) reduced the tariffs that were applied to Chines imports (currently around 20%) since 2016.

It has reduced (to zero) tariffs on aluminum manufactured goods imported from the EU. I don't know about Canada, but I would imagine that this is the case there too.

The housing companies have all attempted to maintain their pricing structure in the face of these tariffs. Chatting to the Nauticam team, they deliberately took a hit on profits in order to not inflate their prices. However, at some point, most companies will have to increase prices in order to resource.

Simple raw material pricing is an over simplification. For example, I would imagine that we have all noticed a significant increase in the cost of living, and companies must respond to this to ensure productivity. Energy prices have sky rocketed, and companies are not immune to this....

I have found that sourcing, again for example, specialist stainless steel parts is more difficult, lead times are increased and prices significantly higher. While your experience may be different, in the UK and Europe, this is definitely the case.
 

I would suggest the arguments as to why the prices have gone up or not are moot - the prices are what they are and people will either pay them or not.  I do think some of the accessory prices are a little extreme for things like o-ring sets though.   It seems to me that Nauticam have invested significantly to allow them to introduce new housings to the market very quickly and have a number of housings for less popular camera bodies - this is always going to attract a premium.

I added the Marelux housings from Blue Water Photo to the mix, added the Canon R5 C and Nikon Z9 housings for comparison, and re-ordered the manufacturers based on the average price of the first 4 housings.

Ikelite is in a price category of its own.

Isotta remains the best bang for the buck among the aluminium brands, with Aquatica and Marilux similarly priced and just on its heels. Seas & Sea probably belongs in the same tier, but the odd Nikon Z7 II housing price throws it off. Let call this the second price bracket, which is about a 75% price premium over Ikelite housings.

Nauticam, Seacam and Subal are all now in a completely different price bracket very similar to each other. Compared to the second price bracket, we're talking about another 60% price premium, almost as big as the jump from the polycarbonate Ikelite housings to the lower tier aluminium housings.

So.. what justifies a 60% price premium for Nauticam, Seacam & Subal? Genuinely curious what the advantages are, in your view. Better build quality? Better anodization or finish? Something else?

12 hours ago, dreifish said:

So.. what justifies a 60% price premium for Nauticam, Seacam & Subal? Genuinely curious what the advantages are, in your view. Better build quality? Better anodization or finish? Something else?

Tough question!

I've had just over 20 years experience now of Subal - 6 housings, approx 2000 dives. Never had a problem. Even after, on a couple of them, diving almost daily for a year or so at a time, they still looked like new.

The design of the moving parts looks straightforward (especially compared to Nauticam). I'm no engineer but find it relatively easy to adjust things if alignment slips (very rare!). Reading posts from Kraken de Mabini, they are easy to service - I've only had one of mine done once -  so "running costs" are light.

They  have always been at the higher end of the market so that's not really changed. But are they worth the extra? Yeah, I honestly thing it has been worth it. I know the housing will just work, won't let me down, minor issues I can sort out myself - and it will always look good. I'm sure folks that have bought the housings I have sold on have been pretty happy too - especially at the second hand price! Although perhaps that is going to change with these big jumps.

On 5/10/2022 at 12:46 AM, pooley said:

Looks like Subal have significantly reduced their A1 housing since it was first published - 4640 USD plus tax now

I've not been checking on the prices myself, but you've not used the updated Subal Sony price reported above, which would drop it down two places in he leader board. 

11 hours ago, dreifish said:

Nauticam, Seacam and Subal are all now in a completely different price bracket very similar to each other. Compared to the second price bracket, we're talking about another 60% price premium, almost as big as the jump from the polycarbonate Ikelite housings to the lower tier aluminium housings.

 

12 hours ago, Alex_Mustard said:

I've not been checking on the prices myself, but you've not used the updated Subal Sony price reported above, which would drop it down two places in he leader board. 

Yes, seems they've done so on their site (in EUROs, 4390 EUR for export = $4582), which puts the price in line with the Nauticam A1 price. With the adjusted price, Subal, Nauticam and Seacam are neck-in-neck in pricing.

One thing is clear: prices are becoming unaffordable for an average hobbyist. A luxury within the reach of a few.

While I don't think it relates to why the prices have gone up - it is worth considering that with the slower progress in camera tech, I do think that we are all upgrading much less regularly than we used to.

Pre-Wetpixel/digital era - people would have housings for a decade or so. Then camera advances during the digital era we've got used to upgrading more regularly 2-3 years has been more normal for the last 20 years. But as camera tech has plateaued this has slowed again. Which at least makes these price hikes a little easier to stomach, as we will be using the gear for longer.