Canon HF S10

[Scubacastor 3]

Hi,

 

I've managed to dive with the Aditech housing last weekend (25m, atlantic greenwater on a sunny day, 5m vis with lots of particles), flat port and a single 35W HID video light. THings went very nicely. I had to add a 500gr (1 lb) weight to have the housing almost perfectly neutral. Despite that, I keep the feeling I had when opening the box: all the controls are perfectly usable underwater. You can access all the menus without much trouble.

 

Regarding image quality, manual "point and shoot" white balance was possible without light (was filming in 24p mode) and very quick to perform. Using the HDMI port from my TV as I don't have yet my new PC for the editing, I haven't noticed low light artefact (however, I am probably not as expert as some of you). I've also tested the 1.7x telemacro option underwater. Not much degradation of the quality of image as well. Next week, I'll try the WP80 port as the flat port is too narrow for me Overall, I am very satisfied by my new toys.

[johnny boy 0]

Would like to know what those teething problems are, can you be more specific? How do you like the footage you have shot? Any problems with white balancing? Any issues loading the footage into the computer? The world awaits your opinions.

Steve

 

Steve. Glad you asked. I was wondering how long it would take before someone picked up on my post.

 

All is not rosey in the world of light and motion housings and the Canon S10. L & M engineering department and Paul Barnett must be well aware of the S10 housing problems.

 

But before i elaborate on 'teething problems', may i say that my dealer here in the united kingdom [steve and Ross of light and motion UK] have been great and always take any issues that have arisen very seriously and are professional in their approach.

 

I am perhaps the first in the UK to have one of these housings. i think i'm safe in saying that. I hate being a guinea pig, but i suppose it has to be someone. i have been a customer of L & M since 2006 purchasing a TRV950 housing, before moving up to an FX1 [fantastic piece of engineering and lot of love must have gone into manufacturing this housing], then onto the current S10. I think i've spent upwards of £10,000 sterling with L & M, so 'generally' i must like the brand!

 

Anyway - teething problems....

 

The custom dial that connects with the cameras dial simply does not work as intended, this is highlighted especially so when used for manual focus. The tray has a grooved gearing wheel that constantly slips against the cameras control. it works intermittantly in one direction, but not the other. This is due to the plastic arm of the gear wheel has too much flex and 'play' in it, the gear itself isn't toothed enough if you know what i mean. The torque of the custom dial on this housing ends up chewing the rubber gear teeth! these factors ensure it's failure to work. Frustrating or what. I went for this housing because of it's manual controls, so you can imagine my dissapoinment.

 

Secondly - the OLED back. the screen flickers, intermittantly doesn't display brightness, contrast controls when you press the centre button, screen is not centred, so the cameras menu control options on the display dissappear off the bottom of the display. This is due to a software programming issue i'm advised. So, hopefully this is only a minor blip and will be sorted soon, but it's taking an age for L & M USA to sort it. I have a standard monitor back in the mean time which is fine.

 

The engineering department is currently working on a fix to the more serious issue of the tray and gearing. i await a replacement, hopefully a first time fix.

 

I would imagine L & M have a great deal riding on this housing as the S10 is a great camera. The footage i'm getting topside is excellent [but editing AVCHD is an arse. more ram on order]. Basically the impression i'm getting is that L & M have rushed this housing to market and have not extensively tested the gearing with a full production camera, perhaps maybe only a prototype. Therefore it could be that the slight differences in manufacturing tolerance between a full production unit and a prototype have caused this. Lessons learnt? Hang fire before you start sending the buggers out.

 

I wonder how gates and aquatica have tackled the custom dial and gearing? Maybe they will run hurridly into the workshop to check after they read this. i hope so.

[Drew 0]

Sorry to hear you've had problems with your new housing, Johnny. The tolerances for manual gears in housings and cameras are pretty thin and if the variances are out of the design specs, it can fail dismally. But fortunately, misalignments are fairly simple to fix. Electronics failing on the other hand is more frustrating as you have to wait for parts, eprom reprogramming etc, not something you can do in the field.

If you have the time, please take some photos of the gear issues so others can have a look at it to know what to look for.

[Ryan 57]

The custom dial that connects with the cameras dial simply does not work as intended, this is highlighted especially so when used for manual focus. The tray has a grooved gearing wheel that constantly slips against the cameras control. it works intermittantly in one direction, but not the other. This is due to the plastic arm of the gear wheel has too much flex and 'play' in it, the gear itself isn't toothed enough if you know what i mean. The torque of the custom dial on this housing ends up chewing the rubber gear teeth! these factors ensure it's failure to work. Frustrating or what. I went for this housing because of it's manual controls, so you can imagine my dissapoinment.

 

This actually isn't caused by the plastic arm, but rather the rubber tire that contacts the control on the camera is slipping on its hub. I've fixed this on our store housing w/ a tube of gel superglue, and now it is working perfectly.

 

If you don't pull out the housing control when sliding in the camera it can catch on the internal drive gear, and slip the tire off the hub again, requiring another glue job.

 

The OLED issues you are describing seem to be PAL only, as they don't affect any of our NTSC stock.

[Steve Douglas 16]

Ryan, Why is this? Are there really any differences between the physical design of the PAL vs NTSC cam designs that would make the problem only for PAL models and L & M housings?

STeve

[johnny boy 0]

Ryan, i would beg to differ. The arm clearly has an issue when you turn the dial in the reverse direction. It ends up pushing the arm away from the cameras own custom dial. Anyway, why should the customer who has just paid £3400 UK sterling have to resort to 'gel superglue'. get real - Are you kidding! Maybe if i'd just knocked together a custom housing i made earlier in my shed.

 

Regarding the OLED, the reason they can't get it right for PAL users [sorry europe and australia, your not important], is that they didn't get hold of a PAL S10 before sending out the OLED backs. Rushed to market again.

 

not good enough...

[johnny boy 0]

This actually isn't caused by the plastic arm, but rather the rubber tire that contacts the control on the camera is slipping on its hub. I've fixed this on our store housing w/ a tube of gel superglue, and now it is working perfectly.

 

If you don't pull out the housing control when sliding in the camera it can catch on the internal drive gear, and slip the tire off the hub again, requiring another glue job.

 

The OLED issues you are describing seem to be PAL only, as they don't affect any of our NTSC stock.

 

Also, please note everyone on here that a major USA dealer is acknowledging the custom dial issue. Not sure about his fix method though.

 

Ryan, your right about pulling out the housing control first. Having owned an FX1 and housing for 2 years it makes you aware of things like that.

 

regards

 

John

[Ryan 57]

John, please don't shoot the messenger. I wasn't defending the product, just trying to help in the interem. I know there are proper updates in the works, but I'm happily diving the camera and not prepared to wait for them.

 

Even though there is some flex in the arm, I can not make it not work after I've properly adhered the tire to its hub. Even if I hold the arm, knocking out the flex, it still slips if not glued. After my field repair the control works flawlessly, both in air and water. I have this control assigned Exposure Compensation, and I use it constantly.

[Steve Douglas 16]

I know this is a different topic, but could you also tell me the workflow out in the field. Can you offload the Canon's card straight to an external hard drive or do you need some kind of card reader to offload to and then out to the external?

Steve

[johnny boy 0]

I know this is a different topic, but could you also tell me the workflow out in the field. Can you offload the Canon's card straight to an external hard drive or do you need some kind of card reader to offload to and then out to the external?

Steve

 

Steve. I connect the camera, press the pc connect button and let Sony Vegas suck it in.

 

Ryan, no worries. I'm just really dissapointed with L & M over this. I dont want to start messing around with controls at this level. Whats your opinion on the NTSC freindly OLED back over the standard LCD? I have to say that the viewing angle and sharpness is excellent.... once all the flickering stops and i can see the cameras menus properly this will be one hell of a setup!

 

john

[Drew 0]

Also, please note everyone on here that a major USA dealer is acknowledging the custom dial issue. Not sure about his fix method though.

 

Ryan, your right about pulling out the housing control first. Having owned an FX1 and housing for 2 years it makes you aware of things like that.

 

regards

 

John

 

John

I think it's fantastic that Ryan is here offering a solution to keep you going instead of playing Fedex pong with LMI. As a dealer with in-field solutions, it's a great thing to have vs someone following the corporate line.

I agree it's very disappointing when a customer has to fiddle with a product to get it working properly. I can certainly understand your frustration, especially about the PAL issue with the OLED. Are you assuming that LMI didn't test a PAL version or is this something you know? I mean it could be just a bad batch of poorly programmed OLED monitors etc.

Unfortunately, new products with short product lifespan tend to make manufacturers rush products out to maximize sales. The Canon cameras have a product lifespan of about a year. We're already into 5-6 mths of that cycle. However, it doesn't excuse LMI for having issues like these at all. It just seems that teething problems tend to happen with new products with short lifespans, especially ones with complicated electronics and precision design. I don't think anyone is immune to that. It doesn't make you feel any better I'm sure but that's the way it goes.

[Ryan 57]

I'll actually stick up for Light & Motion on the Pal monitor issue a bit. I don't believe in their entire history of building monitors there has been a PAL issue like this before. The same monitor's driver software works fine on the Sony cameras for both NTSC and PAL builds, as do the standard monitors, so this was definitely an unforeseen hiccup.

 

The manual wheel issue has been fixed already.

 

 

These components are available free of charge to anyone in the field with the original parts.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Ryan

[Steve Douglas 16]

Ryan,

That is great to know, thanks for the photo and the news. I've never met a housing manufacturer that didn't have any hiccups along the line somewhere. The important thing is that the company is responsive and makes a concerted effort to fix things to the customer's satisfaction as Light and Motion did here.

Steve

[johnny boy 0]

ok. But i still maintain that they shouldn't start shipping until they've tested it throughly. And they haven't, especially not a PAL camera.

[johnny boy 0]

Ryan, have you noticed on the S10 tray a small horizontal lump of plastic approx 1cm long. it's function is to support the underside of the camera. it's on the same side of the tray as the gear wheel. I got an email advising me to file this down. Have you had any trays through for the S10 with this removed already?

[Drew 0]

I'll actually stick up for Light & Motion on the Pal monitor issue a bit. I don't believe in their entire history of building monitors there has been a PAL issue like this before. The same monitor's driver software works fine on the Sony cameras for both NTSC and PAL builds, as do the standard monitors, so this was definitely an unforeseen hiccup.

 

The manual wheel issue has been fixed already.

Ryan

While I'm sure nobody expected PAL to be PAL++ with the video out from Canon, I do think John has a valid point as a customer. I know that the PAL versions came out a few weeks later than the NTSC one (and yes John, PAL isn't as important as NTSC in the video market ). Still, LMI, like every other manufacturer, has the responsibility to test the housing's basic functionality before delivery to customer. Whether it be at the dealer or factory, it shouldn't be the customer who discovers the PAL incompatibility.

Obviously, issues like durability (eg. that roller wheel) and precision alignment issues are to be expected due to the short model cycle. This forces manufacturers to design quickly and have a product out, within months of the new release, within certain tolerances in design. It's difficult to test for durability, especially with new specifically designed parts. But simple video output is something that can be simply tested. If they make 500 of these housings, then an extra $3 more to the price to buy the camera and test isn't something a customer is going to balk at.

Nice fix on the wheel btw. Rubber/plastic rollers that aren't fixed/sealed properly to the wheels are just a pain. I've seen quite a few in the last 10 years.

[Ryan 57]

The new tray molds are shipping now, but I have not installed one yet.

 

I don't disagree with John being frustrated, all I'm saying is that if I were in the same position as Light & Motion, and had never had this monitor issue before, I'm not sure I'd think to look for it popping up.

[Drew 0]

Ryan, it's surely easy to say "DUH" after the fact. Still the OLED monitor is new, they'd never made a Canon housing before.

The Canons usually allow users to choose how the feed is output (4:3/16:9, 1080/480or576i)) whereas Sony assumes 16:9 unless told otherwise. That's the difference between a big HDTV producing camera designer vs one who has no big HDTV market to deal with. If the Canon video output flags need to be programmed to work with a TV, then there's enough difference to raise an eyebrow at least.

At least now LMI knows of possible incompatibilities between the brands, they won't be blindsided again hopefully.

On an aside, I'm sure you wouldn't make that mistake of not testing a PAL model before delivery, or even contemplate delivering an untested product on the assumption it worked for Sony.

[diverpete 0]

I may have missed it, but has anyone had a chance to shoot the Camera Underwater. Most particularl how was the white balance at depth (in decent vis - say 50 feet or greater)?

 

Thanks

[Scubacastor 3]

I have the japanese model (iVIS instead of Vixia (US) instead of Legria (EURO)). You can't (or at least I haven't found how in the menus) set the aspect ratio for video output for recording. You can set it for playback only. Also the standard video output on my camera is the full frame (what you see is what you get inside the mts files)

 

Regarding white balance, I've been mostly playing with auto WB and the colors are quite nice in my green atlantic waters. My few tests with MWB (forgot to take the WB slate) showed the camcorder was quick to do WB. My old sony HC42 on the contrary was hyperslow (considering low-light filming was not the big point of this camcorder).

 

So far I had two dives with this camera and using it underwater was very enjoyable.

[Drew 0]

Sorry I was unclear about what modes I was talking about. This is all playback mode. The S10 cannot change aspect ratio in record mode. My point is that the flags are different in playback mode already.

This is off memory when I played with the camera, so don't bet lives on this but the HFS10 can choose either SD or HD on video display in Video/Photo modes. When set to SD, it's automatically pushed to 4:3.

[BDSC 1]

The video? Where the heck is all the video we were going to see from the HF S10? Several folks had the housings in hand and were going to shoot some video in the past several weeks and you guys are holding us hostage.

 

Do I need to get Bill Clinton involved to get this done!

[Scubacastor 3]

The video? Where the heck is all the video we were going to see from the HF S10? Several folks had the housings in hand and were going to shoot some video in the past several weeks and you guys are holding us hostage.

 

Do I need to get Bill Clinton involved to get this done!

 

We could tell you but we would have to kill you after that

 

I've posted a raw crappy mts file at http://dl.free.fr/rbfN9I7xr (HFS10, Aditech housing, WP80 lens).

 

Don't ask me for edited stuffs for now (or buy me a new computer before - Feel free to involve Bill Clinton in the operation )

Edited August 6, 2009 by Scubacastor

[donga 0]

Interesting discussion.

 

Me, I just have a basic question. You mention the camera as an HF S10 but the one I have is just a straight HF 10 - is there a difference?

 

Its a pretty awesome camera after having my old digitape one for many years - need a phd to get my head around all the functions.

[Guamrider 0]

I know somebody already asked this, but arte there any u/w videos taken withe the hfs-10 anywhere thats viewable? Theres one on a french site but its not avail in wmv or mov formats.