Ikelite condensation issues??

Hello:

I wish to place my canon 20 D DSLR into a housing, and use the 100mm macro and 17-40 zoom lens.

I am looking at either a Subal or Ikelite housings.

Subal is VERY expensive and falls in at $8000.00 Australian with ports. Ikelite comes in at $3000.00 Australian.

My question.

I am concerned that the Ikelite housing will condensate thereby fogging up the glass lens port. Subal on the other hand is made of aluminium which acts a heat sink more or less eliminating this problem.

For those using Ikelite housing. Have you observed this problem when diving in tropical waters??

Many thanks………Iain

For those using Ikelite housing.  Have you observed this problem when diving in tropical waters??

No.

~Matt Segal

Never had any fogging problems with my Ikelite film camera housings, digital shouldn't be different. BTW, Ikelite lens dome ports are not made of glass.

My experience is quite the opposite.

I have never had fogging problems with plastic housings but I have had near disasters with aluminum housings.

If you place your cold camera in a aluminum housing and submerge it into warm tropical water the aluminum housing does act like a heat sink and transfers the heat to your camera faster then the insulating properties of plastic.

In any case warm your camera and housing before submerging. I always leave the housing open for a while to let the camera and the housing warm up together.

Marc

For me this has never been a concern with 20 + years shooting aluminum houings. The only complant I have with ikelike housing was that the controls were harder to operate at deeper depths. that was back in 1982 and they may have fixed it by now. i love their strobes and service.I do like the subal glass ports. Just keep the housing out of the airconditioning of a live aboard and it will not fog. Mark

The fogging is an issue with the plastic housing only with the P&S digital cameras because it creates a lot of heat inside the housing.

I never herd about this problem with DSLR.

Just keep the housing out of the airconditioning of a live aboard and it will not fog.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, loading the housing in an airconditioned area will reduce fogging issues because the air trapped in the housing is dry, compared to humid outdoors air. Just don't leave your housing near an A/C unit such that it cools down significantly.

Iain,

I've been diving with an Olympus C-3040 in an Ikelite housing for nearly four years now and I have experienced the issue that you are talking about. The most annoying instance occurred in Bonaire. I'm still a wee bit bitter about that one. Anyway, before I go off on a rant, let me say that there is a very simple solution. Dessicant Gel Packets!

There is enough room adjacent to the camera in an Ikelite housing to fit a couple of gel packets. The packets make the excess moisture problem go away by making a low humidity environment in the sealed housing. With the C-3040, I typically change smart media cards and batteries on the boat after each dive. While I am extraordinarily careful not to drip anything into the housing, I can't guarantee that water in tiny droplet form doesn't make it's way into the housing (especially on short surface intervals) on its own. I suspect that the heat generated from the camera helped to make the droplets a fine vapor and this is where my first fogging problem occurred. Since I added the gel packets, the problem has never duplicated itself.

I have also encountered the depth and pressure problem on the Ikelite housings as mentioned in another reply in this thread. The Olympus will not operate if more than one button is being depressed simultaneously (I don't know about other cameras yet). You could see where a pressure squeeze on the housing would cause problems. My simple solution for this was to make sure I applied silicon grease to lubricate the buttons on the housing to allow the springs to work against the additional external pressure. I do this before any deep dive with a stripped Q-tip. I then try to clean up any excess globs with the other side of the Q-tip to make sure I don't leave greasy smudges all over my housing. I haven't experienced any squeeze problems at less than 80 feet but I have been annoyed trying to capture photos of Jew Fish around the 110 foot marker because of the squeeze in the past.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Stiffer springs on the push buttons eliminated depth problem of early housings.

I have never had problems with fogging in my Ikelite DSLR housing. I have used it both with and without moisture muncher dissacant packs.

I have had problems with fogging of my Canon consumer digital housing (Canon brand not Ikelite) which is also plastic.

I attribute the difference to two factors:

Heat: Using the internal flash on consumer cameras generates a lot of heat. In addition, the power requirements of consumer cameras with live video feed and in particular older consumer cameras like this one dump a lot of heat. None of this is true with a DSLR. No internal strobe or video feed. These cameras do not get hot to the touch even during continious shooting, the Canon Elph does.

Volume: The Canon housing was small enough to fit in a BC pocket. The DSLR housing is much bigger and has lots of air space. This makes it even harder to heat the interior of the housing with more air volume and less heat dissipated inside.

I don't think that housing material is the significant factor here.

Never had any fogging problems with my ike housing and I always dive in reaaaally hot and humid places. =)

David.

I've never had any problems either. A lot of this has to do with equipment discipline - if you are sloppy, you can fog just about any housing...:-) When you keep your camera inside an air conditioned boat and take it outside, water will hit the dewpoint and condense on AND IN the camera and lens - any cold surface. If you put the camera into the housing now, you are asking for trouble. If you put the camera inside the housing INSIDE the boat, and seal it, you have trapped cold dry inside the housing - and that's not a problem. Water has to be present inside the rig to cause fogging.

If you bring out a camera and it fogs up on and in the lens, let it warm up in the sun. You want to basically "boil" the water out of the camera and lens. I do a lot of offshore photography in the hot moist Gulf waters and consider myself "an expert" in this area...lol

HTH

James