sjspeck
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Jul 19, 2004, 10:04 PM
Post #2 of 6
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Re: [ybdogsct] Underwater Housing For A Swim Coach
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John,
You certainly seem to have covered the market in looking for an affordable housing. The only one on my under $500 list you didn't have was this one: http://hometown.aol.com/deeeph2o/index.html. I have no experience with them good or bad.
One thing to consider is your plan of swimming along and filming. Video camera housings are hard to move in the water as they're kind of bulky and not particularly hydrodynamic since most are designed for gradual filming movements while diving so it does take some effort to move them along quickly. You might want to consider trying one before you buy to be sure that you can swim along while filming. Another thing you'll have to consider is that you'll have to add about 4/5 lbs. in some sort of weight system for the housing you get, either external - usually mounted on the bottom, or internally if there's room. This is so the housing is neutrally buoyant so you're not fighting to keep it down. My Sony camcorder in a Quest Polyurethane housing takes about 4-5 lbs. of weight to make it neutrally buoyant in a freshwater swimming pool.
I'd go for the smallest, simplest housing you can get your camera into, sacrificing some of the control functionality as it will add drag since the more complex the controls, the bigger the housing will have to be to accomodate them. Especially since with no LANC control on your Samsung, the controls would have to be mechanical levers. With a clear housing or a view to your remote eye, you can always stop/start the camera by pointing your remote control at it prior to entering/leaving the water and just let the video run while in the water. Most people shooting video use a small remote monitor located at the back of the housing since it's almost impossible to see thru the viewfinder on a camcorder in a housing. I do it, but I also do a lot of filming while following slow moving fish. Or you learn to point and shoot, with a wide angle lens most things are clearly in focus from about 2-40' underwater.
Any of the inexpensive tube-type housings will probably do what you want. I'd favor the Epic, they're used by surfers so they're pretty durable. Most of the tube housings will be too small in diameter to open and use your camera's LCD monitor, so what you'll want to do is get a separate LCD monitor and mount it on the back inside face of your housing and connect it to the video output on your camcorder. There's several options to do this - the one from Atmo-Seal is a Citizen M329 monitor, sometimes you can buy them cheaper on eBay. Also check for housings on eBay, sometimes they're pretty reasonable and all you'd have to do is ensure that your camera would fit. Although you will have to get one with a flat front port as the lens on your Samsung is probably in a different position than Sony's, which is what most housings are designed around. There's also a guy on eBay periodically that sells a simple tube type housing with basic/no controls for under $200. Yellowjacket or something similar...
Another really inexpensive option for viewing what you're filming is to buy a used LCD TV with a Video Input jack, there are about 4-5 of them that are small enough to fit inside a 5-6" dia tube housing and they're a lot cheaper than a standard LCD monitor - used I've seen them for as little as $50, again on eBay. The one thing watch in addition to the height is that some of them are too thick to fit between your camera battery and the back face of the housing. There are several 2.3" TV's made by Radio Shack and Casio that I considered once for a similar project, they would probably have worked as they were less than 1-1/2" thick.
One last option you might want to consider is going with an inexpensive Sony setup. For your purposes, there's a housing made by Sony called a Marine Pak, designed to just protect your camera from the elements, it's not a dive housing, but allows you to film underwater to about 2m deep. They're available on eBay quite often for under $50. Cheap Sony 8MM camcorders that fit them are also available on eBay for under $100 all day long. Although they are very specific as to the camera model(s) that they fit. They have LANC control and are pretty streamlined around the camera body. They might have a tendency to float, but they have a tripod mount so with a little ingenuity, you could mount a dive weight to the bottom. Downside is that I've never seen one with space for an add on monitor, but it would be a cheaper option than buying a housing for your Samsung DV camera, unless you have to use it for some reason. There's a couple on eBay right now, do a search for Underwater Video Housing.
I'm in Phoenix, so contact me if you need any further info, matrix@att.net
regards,
Steve
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