12 replies to this topic

[Nunomix]

Hi Guys,

I went yesterday to BOOT in Dusseldorf. To my surprise nor Sea&Sea nor Ikelite were represented in the show. There were some stands with a couple of Sea&Sea cameras but only P&S. The big European housings such as Seacam, UK-Germany, Subal, BS Kinetics and Hugyfot were there.

Hugyfot

Hugyfot was present in the BOOT with three housings:

- Canon EOS 350D
- Canon EOS 400D
- Canon EOS 5D





Hugyfot had also their 45º viewfinder in the stand. The viewfinder is very easy to install by yourself and can be installed in any of the Hugyfot housings. The quality of the viewfinder is very good and provides very a clear image.




I want this 45º viewfinder !!!


Seacam

Seacam had in the stand their three viewfinders (GPro, Swivelling 45º sportsfinder (S45) and S180). I tried the S45 and it looked great. Seacam showed me how to take out the S45 in a matter of seconds! No pictures on this one I am afraid

BS Kinetics

German BS Kinetics housings are made of a composite of carbon fibre and an epoxy resin. This makes the housing extremly light. BS Kinetics housings can be taken until 80 meters deep.

BS Kinetics also has a 45º viewfinder but the image quality was not as clear in the viewfinder as with the Hugyfot and Seacam.





Subal

In Subal I did not see anything special. Since I was in the mood to try viewfinders, also here I tried the Subal viewfinder. I am afraid to say I was not impressed. It looked at the same quality as the one from UK-Germany. The image did not look very clear Maybe just my inexperience...

The Boat

Ah.... and of course, I found the right boat to get for diving... just need to collect some more bucks

Edited by Nunomix, 21 January 2007 - 10:15 AM.

[Alex_Mustard]

The UK Germany ring flash looks interesting:
http://www.flickr.co...57594490621463/

Alex

[Tobias]

Hi,

here are my pictures from yesterday:



Regards,
Tobias

[Rattus]

The UK Germany ring flash looks interesting:
http://www.flickr.co...57594490621463/

Aah, that'll be a housed Canon MR-14EX. Should be able to do full TTL on Canons with a 6 pin bulkhead.

Did I mention I got the Inon quadflash working in TTL on my 5D? Pretty sweet, but aperture too narrow for many good macro lenses.

Martyn

[hydraulicphoto]

Martyn, I'm interested in the Inon ring flash for my SEA&SEA 5D housing to use with my 100mm lens. I'm keen to hear about your TTL customization, please (as well as any other comments on the ring).
Thanks
Cheers
Marc

[Cerianthus]

Alex, I thought about mentioning the UK germany ring flash separately, but then i found an old thread:

http://wetpixel.com/...?showtopic=1009

it seems to exist for some time.

[Alex_Mustard]

Wow. I am impressed by your research skills! It is always scary to read such old threads.

Alex

[Cerianthus]

Ha ha, maybe we can dig up some embarassing funny stuff :-)

after a moan in the feedback forum
http://wetpixel.com/...showtopic=16149

I discovered the google search in the right hand corner. This gives the functionality that i was craving for in that post. And it turns out it works quite well.

Gerard

[Rattus]

Martyn, I'm interested in the Inon ring flash for my SEA&SEA 5D housing to use with my 100mm lens. I'm keen to hear about your TTL customization, please (as well as any other comments on the ring).
Thanks
Cheers
Marc

Hi Marc,

There's not much customisation to speak of, I just plugged the Inon Z-22 Quadflash into my Sea&Sea TTL Converter and gave it a fairly brief test at Ocean Optics in London. The TTL performance seemed fine. Subjects within a reasonable macro range came out well exposed independant of the camera settings. It's worth noting that the practical underwater range of a ring flash is very limited due to the propensity to cause hideous backscatter at short distances than standard guns.

I was coincidentally at Ocean Optics to listen to a talk by Mark Webster, who uses the Quadflash for almost 100% of his macro shots. It gives a superb quality of light for small underwater subjects, making them appear to almost glow from inside.

As I mentioned above though, the tricky thing will be housing the lens. The Quadflash does not leave much room for lens ports, which means in general that a custom port will be needed.

I haven't pushed ahead with it because at the moment I'm more interested in wide angle.

Martyn

[Alex_Mustard]

Digideep have started to post lots of pictures and reports from BOOT:
http://www.digideep.com/

Alex

[Jolly]

BS Kinetics also has a 45º viewfinder but the image quality was not as clear in the viewfinder as with the Hugyfot ...

Many visitors compared the competing viewfinders during Boot show. One thing I noticed that many haven’t been aware of one thing. You can only compare housing finders side by side if you have exactly the same camera inside different housings. For example, if you have a 5D in housing A, there is no way for housing B with some crop camera inside to get such a big viewfinder image, no matter how good the enhanced viewfinder is. On the other hand, corner shading is basically more critical with a 5D. The camera provides the viewfinder image. A cheap housing finder will shrink it. An enhanced housing finder will almost maintain the camera’s viewfinder image size. I have done some comparison shots how different cameras behave with standard/enhanced viewfinder. I hope I find the time to post them when I am back home.

Julian

[BrantD]

Many visitors compared the competing viewfinders during Boot show. One thing I noticed that many haven’t been aware of one thing. You can only compare housing finders side by side if you have exactly the same camera inside different housings. For example, if you have a 5D in housing A, there is no way for housing B with some crop camera inside to get such a big viewfinder image, no matter how good the enhanced viewfinder is. On the other hand, corner shading is basically more critical with a 5D. The camera provides the viewfinder image. A cheap housing finder will shrink it. An enhanced housing finder will almost maintain the camera’s viewfinder image size. I have done some comparison shots how different cameras behave with standard/enhanced viewfinder. I hope I find the time to post them when I am back home.

Julian

Julian,
I'll be looking for that post!

[bvanant]

[quote name='Rattus' date='Jan 24 2007, 03:11 AM' post='116253']
Hi Marc,

There's not much customisation to speak of, I just plugged the Inon Z-22 Quadflash into my Sea&Sea TTL Converter and gave it a fairly brief test at Ocean Optics in London. The TTL performance seemed fine. Subjects within a reasonable macro range came out well exposed independant of the camera settings. It's worth noting that the practical underwater range of a ring flash is very limited due to the propensity to cause hideous backscatter at short distances than standard guns.

I was coincidentally at Ocean Optics to listen to a talk by Mark Webster, who uses the Quadflash for almost 100% of his macro shots. It gives a superb quality of light for small underwater subjects, making them appear to almost glow from inside.

As I mentioned above though, the tricky thing will be housing the lens. The Quadflash does not leave much room for lens ports, which means in general that a custom port will be needed.

I haven't pushed ahead with it because at the moment I'm more interested in wide angle.

Martyn


On the other hand, I have been using the Inon ringflash with Matthias's converter. It works fine at really small f stops but not quite so well larger than f11 or so. The quality of the pictures I think is amazing, but the quality of the hardware appears spotty, after 10 or so dives, the battery cap needs to be adjusted very carefully and after 20 dives, it often can't be used in any way.

Bill