While I will see the Seacam housing for the Nikon D3 for the first time at next week's DEMA show, I did get to see the Superdome for the 14-24 last week, and am very pleased with the solution.

There is already a special Seacam dome for going ultra deep, SD Superdeep, and we have sold a few to tech divers making extreme 300 ft. + dives in caves and such. Anyway, that particular port design was reworked with a wider throat orifice to accommodate the 14-24. Known now as the Superdome ED (Extra Diameter?), it has the same external thread as all other Seacam ports. So, therefore all existing Seacam ports fit Seacam D3 housing, and unless 14-24 is going to be used, no new ports are required for those upgrading to D3. Obviously, this relates to the new D700 housing as well.

It is even possible to upgrade existing Superdomes to Superdome ED, but it means they have to go back to Austria. Still, a lot cheaper than buying a new Superdome for someone who already owns one.

Steve,
Is this Superdome identical to the glass of the present Superdome?
Are there any pictures anywhere taken with this dome and the 14-24?
Will the D700 housing be workable with a D300 with another back etc?
If you have good answers to these questions you could have a Seacam convert.
Jeff

Hey Jeff - In answer to your questions:

1. Yes, same glass. Only machined aluminum plate that glass mounts on is now different to accommodate the wide front diameter of 14-24.
2. No in-water tests with 14-24 yet. This D3 housing and 14-24 dome we are showing at DEMA next week are the first off the assembly line, but it is a real housing, not a prototype. Seacam dealers world-wide are taking D3 orders now.
3. I don't know what the ideal port extension will be, and look forward to some in-water tests with D3 to confirm. Seacam no doubt has a recommended port extension, which I will learn more about next week and report back.
4. I don't know about any D300/D700 hybrid. We have plenty of D300 in the field, and you'll remember Ana Maria and Bob Coakley from the class this summer. We tried to shoehorn Ana Maria's D700 into Bob's Seacam D300 housing and they were way off. Couldn't even close the back of the housing. I am very doubtful such a solution will ever be possible ... the cameras are just too much different for the precision these housings require.
5. As you know, I'd love to convert you, but we'll have to think of some other motivation than a D300/D700 hybrid housing I'm afraid. I too was hopeful for such a possibility, just for the extreme lens versatility combining DX and FX lenses in the same housing.

Looking forward to reading DEMA reports! Any possibility of also retrofitting optical coating and flocking while upgrading to SD ED?

Hi Tom - Harald showed us some pretty significant surprises on the D3 housing. The port we knew about, and to answer your question, yes we can send your dome back to Austria to Seacam and have it upgraded to SD ED for your 14-24, and also have anti-reflective flocking and optical coating applied while it is there.

The latching system is brand new, and will replace conventional latches and registration pins for all housings moving forward. Shutter release on the housing is new now too, and is another change for all housings of the future. Hard to describe to improvements, but I'll take pictures and post again by tomorrow. Or better yet, I'm sure Eric will be stopping, by and will likely include that on his front page coverage of the show. Other new things included a special handle part of the polecam that integrates a means to hook up cyberglasses independent of the remote monitor, Seaflash 150 strobe for both Nikon and Canon TTL (along with a diffuser for same)

Chuckie Luzier from Canon was there showing a lot of Canon product, but the one everyone migrated to was the 5DMKII. Some video guy covering the show and schlepping a rolling cart-full of video gear picked up the camera and walked around the booth doing video kind of stuff ... he was blown away. I'm not a video person (not yet anyway, but with the convergence of stills and video in the new cameras I expect to learn) but Chuckie made the logical statement that the guy's imager was 3/4", while the 5DMII imager is 1.5 inches. That seemed to particularly resonate and he was obviously quite impressed with the output.

Seacam will obviously do a 5DMKII housing, and we expect it 1st quarter 2009.