Waterproof housing

As surf photography has element besides taking snaps from the beach i endure on a journey to find waterproof housing. Apart from having a fairly old Canon(350D) i also did not have the finances to buy an Ikelite (www.ikelite.com) even if i had a compatible camera. The other option is a soft case from Dicapac( http://www.kalahari.com/cameras/DiCAPac-WP-S5-DSLR-Waterproof-Camer...) but my objection to this is that the camera does not get the added protection of a hard case. So i decided to make my own...

I searched the web and found an "Instructable" (http://www.instructables.com/id/Under-Water-Housing-for-a-SLR-or-DS...) on how to make one. Although this one appears not to be aimed at surf photography i though i can add my own flavor. In this instructable it uses a "mechanical" button that presses the actual camera button. The housing also has a handle on the side and not a pistol grip.

What i decided was to use the remote trigger functionality build into the camera and add the pistol grip. This will make the housing comparable with almost all canon and Nikon DSLRs provided that the remote trigger is compatible, something small to change if its not. The 2 biggest obstacles i face is keeping everything dry and the actual 2 stage button(focus and shutter). The other obstacle was actually sourcing the materials. Although everything in the instructable seems to be normal hardware store bought i soon found this not to be true but the "boer-maak-n-plan" motto kept me going and i managed to get almost everything i needed.

Please look at the photos to see what i have done thus far. Excuse the quality as it was taken by my phone... Not taking into consideration the R & D phase this housing comes to less than R1000 in materials... Time is another story...

If anyone is interested in one of these housings let me know and i'll make you one for a small fee. It might take some time as i need to order some stuff from the US.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Greenway on October 9, 2012 at 20:53

dude very impresive..bt how did u overcome dat stage 2 focus en shutter button problem if u ueased a remote..did dat focus for u?.didnt it jus set off the sutter..?

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Permalink Reply by Ryno Olivier on October 10, 2012 at 10:30

So initially i too thought that this will be a problem only to find out later that for surf photography you generally dont use focus...Sounds strange but when you think of it you don't want the camera to keep adjusting the focus as the surfer approaches as you will loose time where you could have been snapping away. From what i found most surf photographers uses either fixed focus lenses or set the lens on manual focus and pre-fix the zoom before entering the water.(Feel free to correct me if i am wrong)

I did solve the dilemma of the focus though by buying a remote trigger for the camera i have and taking it apart, soldering two individual buttons to it and mounting them separately. This way i have a focus and a trigger button, not ideal but its the easiest way i could get it to work.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Greenway on October 11, 2012 at 14:07

shot bro..i hav a few idias of my own like salvaging sum buttn off a go pro housing since thot buttons can do up to 60m..bt stil very sceary taken an s.l.r in the water..bt realy want better pics dat only a S.LR ,espeshly in low lighting like early mornings en late arviz..prety sik of the noise in the still shots

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Permalink Reply by Ryno Olivier on October 11, 2012 at 14:20

Where are you based, If in CPT then we can get together and share some ideas...

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