A couple quick questions

Do you get fogged ports? I used to get fogging in my oly housing and dont want this to happen with my new ikelite housing, will this not happen with my ikelite or is there something I should do?

Retractors? Do you use them, what do you do on dives whn two hand are needed, say you lose your reg and need to sweep and get it but you are in high current and holding onto your anchor line on accent and dont want to get swept away? DO you have a retractor of some sort for your camera, the ikelite housing seems not to have a spot for this?

Ports: When you assemble your camera in humid conditions you can develop fog. Try to assemble in dry enviroments. You can also gently shoot some dry air from your tank into the housing just before you seal it. Some claim that dessicants work well. You can go to http://www.desiccantcity.com/ to check them out. From another forum, "the type that use silica beads like those found in Nikon packaging and many other Japanese electronic packaging are the best, no powder."

Also, "Use the indicator kind, the ones that turn from blue to pink, so you know they are good, and give them as much time as you can, they absorb a lot in the first hour and level off after around 5 hours."

Also, the OLY housing is a lot smaller and easier to fog. Just make sure you assemble the housing in a dry place like the galley area or in your bunk room, or house.

Retractors: I have a large clip on my BC and a LARGE D-ring on my housing. If something happens where I need my hands, I clip the housing on to my bc, but it is very easy to disconnect with the big clips. There are times I do need to use two hands, like when decompressing (did I say that?). I like to have one hand on my computer and the other on the anchor line when in heavy current. Some will say that they never connect the housing to their gear. You cannot NOT do that in hard diving conditions unless you are willing to dump your housing and buy a new one everytime you are in a situation. Don't get me wrong, if I get into a situation where clipping the housing on my BC will cause further complications, I won't do it. But in 20 years of photography, I have never had a problem getting out of kelp or any other situation. I would recommend not to use an elastic connection. You need to always know where your connection is by feel. Mine is right near my right areola :wink:

Joe

I don't have too much trouble with fogged ports in my Ikelite Digital Rebel housing; having more air space around the camera seems to help.

On retractors - I do use them, in fact I end up having 3 of them attached to the camera when diving here in Puget Sound - one that is a coiled-cord lanyard that clips in close for entry/exit, but stays unclipped (coil extends to 3-4 feet) while I'm diving; one close-clip quick-release lanyard that is just for entry/exit on the other side; and then I hook my Light Cannon over one of the housing handles, and it stays on another unclipped coiled lanyard on the same side as the quick-release clip. As you can tell, I'm paranoid about losing any of my gear.

But seriously, it doesn't seem to restrict my movement, and I know I can drop the camera at any time and recover it - and the coiled lanyards are good at not being loose enough to entangle. They're tight enough where I can usually tell where the camera is - I would NOT recommend a longer, looser coiled lanyard (I have one of the longer, very stretchy kinds, and it's not as good).

I have them clipped to the lower D-rings on my BCD, and then they are connected to keyrings that are around the knurled knobs on the bottom of the handles. Make sure you tighten the knobs down tight if you do this - I lost one knob because it came loose.