acuevas

Yesterday I was involved in a series of actions that ended with a dead Nikon D7000 and a Tokina 10-17.

My wife and I went to practice in a 3 mts deep pool filled with sea water.
In one more week we will be in New Zealand, we will take the Advance Wreck Diving course there and then we will go for a 5 days live aboard to dive the Lermontov wreck.

We wanted to do some practice in the pool in order to correct a few details in our trim and techniques, we did the same last weekend.
I wanted to use my D7000 mounted in a tripod in order to record the practice, that way is easier to correct our self what we are doing wrong.

After an hour and a half driving to the beach where the pool is located, I started to prepare the camera, I was tired because I didn't sleep more than 5 hours. I wanted to make it simple so I decided not to attach the strobes and the focus light, I was going to use just the housing. I was a little distracted at the moment of the assembling.
I put the camera inside the housing and everything was ready, as I wasn't using the strobes I didn't test the button that activates the internal flash of the camera.

After getting the rest of the dive equipment ready we went to the pool.
My wife and I in the water with our doubles in our back and the stage tank attached to the harness, I went to the side of the pool where the housing was waiting for the disaster, I took the housing and in the moment it touched the water I started to see too many bubbles, something was not right, I wasted I few seconds because I thought, if it is a leak the moisture alarm must activate. But something was not right, I raised the housing above the water and I saw what I didn't want to see, water inside the housing, 3/4 of the housing with water.

I left the housing out of the pool, I went out of the water knowing that the camera was already dead.
I opened the housing and took the camera out, when I removed the battery a white liquid went out, not a good thing. Salt water inside the camera and inside the lens.

At that moment I knew that nothing I could do will save the camera, but there is a remote probability that some part of the camera might be saved and the camera could be repaired for an amount of money inferior to the cost of a new camera.
Having nothing more to loose I submerged the camera and the lens in fresh water, I left it there for a couple of hours.
After I returned home in the night I submerged the camera and the lens in distilled water for another couple of hours, today I went to the store to get isopropyl alcohol and submerge the camera and the lens for a few minutes hoping that this will dry the interior of the camera and the lens faster.

But what created the massive flood?
Today I took the housing and reproduced the problem, I had an idea about the problem because I was aware that if the lever that activates the internal flash of the camera is in a bad position, the housing will not close correctly. I'm sure now that that was the problem.
But why this only happened to me and not to other users of the Aquatica AD7000 housing?
The problem is the cable of the microphone of the housing, because I don't use it I tied the cable in the upper left corner of the housing, with the cable in that position it doesn't allow the lever of the flash button rotates freely, I'm going to cut that cable because I don't really need it.

I always knew that there is some probabilities to flood the camera, so I accepted the situation and I said to my self, this is part of the game. But this happened in the worst possible moment to me.

I hope that what happen to me avoids other user of the same housing do the same mistakes as me.

I found this trailer very interesting and moving.

Surfing the net, I found these monster lights the wasp.
I know they are expensive, but some specs look great.

The web site doesn't specify the burn time at different power settings.

Any thoughts about it?

Few weeks ago my wife and I went to the South of Chile to dive.
Here are some pictures of that trip.

Colonia Wreck located in the Llanquihue Lake:











And some shots from the ocean:











The rest of the shots can be found here:
http://www.flickr.co...57630097930750/

http://www.flickr.co...57630097873990/

And some top side shots here:
http://www.flickr.co...57630035583397/

Hope you like it.