Has anyone had a problem with Aquatica Housing

[DParsells 0]

When I attempted to purchase an Aquatica Housing for my D70 camera the dealer advised me that he no longer sold Aquatica Housings due to poor product quality control. He advised me that the Sea and Sea housing was a much better choise. My question is, has anyone had any problems with the housing or it's manufature?

 

D. Parsells

[acroporas 0]

No one here has complained about Aquatica and a lot of people here use them so If there were problems I'm sure we'd hear about it.

[anthp 0]

Sounds like sour grapes to me. Aquatica make a good product and I certainly don't agree that they have poorer quality control than S&S.

[MikeVeitch 0]

No problems from my end, anytime i have needed anything i have received quick replies and prompt service/mail

 

On your other question, i believe the D70 is better than the 100, quicker autofocus plus a few more controls etc

[danschmitt 0]

I've been happy with my A-20 for the canon 20d. I sacrificed a can cozy to extend the little dial for the front thumb wheel, and started putting the port so the manual focus knob is on the top instead of the side (where it tilts the camera instead of turning the gears) and all is golden now. Aside from one dive where I forgot the compact flash card, it's been quite excellent.

[dbh 0]

On a North Sulawesi trip last December, a person had a brand new one for the D70 and the paint chipped badly, the threads in the handle pulled out and most controls had to be adjusted.

 

To Aquatica's credit, that is the only bad incident that I have seen / heard about.

 

Dave

[Kasey 0]

I was very dissatisfied with the finish quality of my Aquatica D100 system I owned 2 and both chipped badly at the port opening - a dangerous place to get a chip lodged behind your oring. The housing functioned very well, although the viewfinder was very small.

 

I also had serious recurrent corrosion issues at 2 of the buttons - caused by electrolysis between housing and shaft.

 

Ryan at UWCP told me that they have improved on these corrosion issues. Frustratingly the finish on my old Aquatica N90 housing looks better after 1000s of dives than my D100s after 50 dives!

 

I think that Nexus builds a much higher quality system at the same price point. I've switched to Seacam and while pricey, the quality of the housing is near-perfection as is the support I've received from Frink Photo.

[james 0]

Hi D.,

 

Welcome to Wetpixel. I used an aquatica S2pro housing for over a year, and later sold it to Richorn when I upgraded to a full frame camera.

 

Just like Nexus (Ever seen a used Nexus housing Kasey?) the paint will flake and chip off of the Aquatica housings. This just happens with painted housings - it's not a problem with plastic housings of course, or with anodized housings like Seacam and UK Germany.

 

The Aquatica housings were particularly prone to chipping at sharp curves, like the area around the port opening, the corners, etc. I talked with Blake from Aquatica recently and their plan is to not paint right up to the port opening, instead leaving it anodized there, but unpainted. That should help a lot.

 

RE other problems, I've never had any probs with my gears, or controls not working. I didn't have a problem w/ corrosion, but I didn't dive every day like Kasey gets to do. Lucky s.o.b!

 

Cheers

James

[richorn 0]

Hi D.,

 

Welcome to Wetpixel.  I used an aquatica S2pro housing for over a year, and later sold it to Richorn when I upgraded to a full frame camera.

 

and I have about 200 more dives on it since. no problems to date...

[Viz'art 24]

Hi D, the chipping problem has been addressed, aside from changing the paint (not only the color from gold to silver) a groove is now machined around the port flange preventing said paint to reach critical edges, as far as corrosion, zinc anodes are installed on current housing, but proper maintenance includes a torough rinsing with fresh water after every dive, this cannot be by passed and does make a huge difference in how your equipment will work and look in the long run. I suggest contacting Blake at Aquatica if you have any doubt about the quality and service of Aquatica's line of housing.

 

Regards

[yahsemtough 0]

Love my Aquatica!!

 

I have had no issues with paint chipping on my A300 and no rust issues. Service is top notch and friendly!

[Kasey 0]

frame camera.

 

Just like Nexus (Ever seen a used Nexus housing Kasey?) the paint will flake and chip off of the Aquatica housings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I played with Ketrick Chin's Nexus D100 housing while in Kapalai, and it seemed to be holding up pretty well after many hundreds of dives. I'm glad Aquatica has addressed the flaking issue. My housing operated very well - very easy to mount the camera and never had an issue with alignment of controls. My old A90 is excellent and has held up very well.

[Viz'art 24]

Coming back on the comment of the dealer concerning the housing, a simple test question is to ask if he has both brand A and brand B in stock, I have been in the retail business of camera for 34 years and seen a lot of this happening in this field, you have a overstock or a product with a more profitable margin and presto it become instantly better than the other product, this why the internet and it's forum such as this one are such a big asset to the consumer. You can get info from the user's mouth, a much better way than the "old" way of trusting the sales rep to choose for you

 

The role of a sales person have changed since I started selling cameras in the 70's, the consumer knows the center product they want a lot more now, heck a lot of peoples reading this probably know as much if not more than me, so the "educating" part is now geared toward what is needed to get better picture from that center product. Sales persons should be active in knowledge sharing and learn a product's characteristic and accessories by hearth. There is a trend in recent years toward profit making. It's fine to make money, but let's make it fair money, that why I’m a sales manager in a camera store that now has 160 employee, because we sell what's best for the consumer in the long run, not what's best for the accountant. You cannot get that kind of growth from a single store unless you play straight with your customers

 

Now I just wish the store was in Turk and Caicos or somewhere warm

 

Kasey, do you still have your D100 housing? if yes send it to Blake, he will take care of you paint problem.

 

Regards

[Viz'art 24]

As far as D70 versus D100, my preference goes to the D70, altough the I have a few D100 and have been quite happy with them also. as far as the Aquatica housing choice the D70 housing is significantly more compact and lighter, remember the traveling part it will pack easier than it sister the D100 housing, also the D100 as good as it may be will be discontinued one day soon I presume

 

Cheers

[stucotts 0]

Love the Aquatica,

 

some sales person is trying to move some old inventory or something anyway

 

D70 for sure.....

 

Enjoy,

Stuart

[Paul Kay 46]

"anodized housings like Seacam"

 

Just to note that Seacam uses Eloxal coating - a very hard coating material which is a far tougher and more resistant surface than conventional anodisation!

 

Just wanted to set the record straight.

 

On the topic, I won't mention manufacturers, but my wife used to have a housing which simply would not stop corroding - identical housings did not suufer anything like as badly. Somewhere there was metal to metal contact which was setting up electrolytic problems. I never found out where and she sold the housing very cheap with the buyer fully understanding the problem (it was going to get abused so we weren't too worried!). So it seems that the odd unit has its own individual problems.

[jimbo1946 0]

Just to get in my own 2 cents worth:

 

1. I love Aquatica. I have owned three Aquatical housings (N90s, D100, and D70), and they have all been excellent. Also, each has been better than the previous one, so apparently Aquatica learns quickly and improves each new model.

 

2. The D100 is a great camera, but I prefer the D70. Some of the controls are better placed and thought out (the DELETE button is a good example). It's a close call, but since both cameras are now selling for about the same price, I would go with the D70.

 

 

Jim

[james 0]

Paul, you are correct, Seacam uses Eloxal coating, using Oxalic acid. This is a subset of "anodizing" in general which is an electrolytic process where metal is coated with a hard oxide.

 

Cheers

James

[DaveD 0]

Hi Wet Pixalians.

 

I've been lurking and learning for a while now. This is my first post concerning my experiences so far with the Aqautica A70 housing.

 

This is a pretty long story mainly due to some problems that I have had along the way. The short version for those who don’t want to read the entire post is that in the end my Aquatica A70 housing works very well and I am happy with it. It was however not a smooth and easy process to get to this point.

 

The long story

 

After playing around with digital point and shoot cameras I was convinced that digital was the way to go for underwater photography. I was however unhappy with the performance of the P&S cameras that I had tried especially the shutter lag, poor auto focus in low light and the lack of exposure control and manual focus that I was used to on traditional 35mm cameras. Also the clear plastic housings were not rated deep enough for some of the dives that I wanted to do. After a bit of Internet research I decided that digital SLRs were the way to go and that the Nikon D70 in particular was the camera for me. I tried the D70 out in a local shop and was happy with how responsive it was. I bought it and started shooting above water to familiarize myself with the camera and to figure out what controls would be important to have available underwater.

 

I also made a list of what other criteria was important to me in a housing one of which was a depth rating of 300 FSW. This eliminated most housings on the market leaving only the Aquatica and the Sealux. I was quite interested in the Subal housing and contacted them about the possibility of using their housing deeper however their response was not encouraging. With about 5 weeks to go before my dive trip to Grand Cayman I decided on the Aquatica housing and ordered it along with the various ports and lens gears that I thought would be useful. When the housing arrived I gave it a careful examination and did not like some of what I saw. While the housing in general looked very solid one of the control glands wiggled when the control was used. Upon further examination it appeared that the gland was glued into the housing with something like silicon RTV which did not seem very solid to me. One of the other control buttons also did not work correctly and stuck part of the time. I emailed Aquatica with my concerns and they concured that what I described did not seem correct and agreed to send me a new housing. There was a delay and the second housing arrived on a Friday only 4 days before I was set to leave for Grand Cayman. I was eager to get in into the water on the weekend to insure that all was working before I left. The second housing was quite different from the first one. It was silver in colour instead of gold, the window for the mode control was larger and the control arm for the AE/AF Lock button was different. Upon inspecting the second housing however I found that it too had problems. The gears on the aperture control were misaligned and were skipping and the shutter release actually jammed the gears when in its rest position. While correcting these issues I noticed that the aperture control shaft had no retaining clip on it and that the control could be pulled right out of the housing. Yikes! Instant flood! I installed a retaining clip from the first housing and corrected a couple of other misaligned controls. Everything now seemed to work OK except for a slight stiffness when turning the aperture knob. Further examination showed that the retaining clip that I had installed on this shaft was catching on a lip on the inside of the housing. Short of filing this lip off there was no way to make the control work correctly. At this point I had serious misgivings about the housing and considered sending the whole works back. This left me in quite a bind as I needed a housing for my trip. I mulled over my options (not many!) all night and in the morning made a call to Cathy Church’s Photo Shop in Grand Cayman. I had previously written to her shop before I settled on the Aquatica housing asking for a quote on the Subal but had never received a response. Herb answered the telephone and confirmed that they did have the Subal housings in stock and gave me a price. The housing was a lot more expensive than the Aquatica and was not rated as deep but it was a better option than no housing at all. I then called Aquatica in Montreal not really expecting an answer on a Saturday and was surprised when Norma answered the telephone. I explained my problem to her and she offered to send out a new front half of the housing on Monday to replace the one from the second housing that I had. It would arrive on Tuesday the day before I left for my trip! I agreed to give it one last try. Norma also helped me to get the Inon strobes working with the housing. I had not been able to figure out how to make the focus light work as all of the instructions were in Japanese. I waited and to my relief the new front housing did arrive on Tuesday. I looked over the new front half very carefully and then paired it up with the existing back and everything looked OK. At this point I had no time left to try it out and just packed everything up for my trip. Worst case I could always buy the Subal in Cayman and send the Aquatica back when I returned home if I had problems.

 

Everything arrived safely in Grand Cayman and I was looking forward to diving. I didn’t get to try diving the housing empty to check for leaks for a couple of days as a brewing storm made the surf entry from the shore quite a challenge. Once the storm had moved on leaving the ocean calm I grabbed the housing and hit the water. After a nice 2 hour dive down to 140’ I surfaced with a dry housing. Yay! I also talked to the resident photographer who was using same housing and to Curt Bowen who had a few Aquatica housings and was reassured that they both liked their housings and had had no problems with them. Curt’s housing had even been considerably deeper than the rated depth. I loaded up my camera and took it for a dive. No problems and great pictures. I dove with the camera every day for the nine days and had no problems at all. The controls worked well, I got some great shots and in the end I am happy with the housing. I would hope that my experience is not typical and indeed the other Aquatica owners on the trip had had no problems with their housings. Aquatica was quick to respond to my problems and Norma in particular was quite helpful. Would I recommend the housing to someone else at this point? I would with the caveat that you buy it from a reputable dealer and that you give the housing a thorough examination before you purchase it. I’m back home now in BC and will be trying out the housing in cold water with dry gloves. I’ll let you know how it goes.

[Marcelo Krause 1]

I have an Aquatica A5 for 7 years now and never had a problem. Of course by now it don’t look great (cosmetically), but everything is working. It has seen heavy use during these years. During this period the internal o-rings where checked and replaced 3 times. I have now an Aquatica for the D70 and plan to buy one for the D2X. Many friends here in Brazil also have Aquatica housing and they like it very much.

 

Best regards,

 

Marcelo Krause.

[Rocha 0]

The long story

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hi Dave, thanks for sharing this long and detailed account. I see this is your post number 1, so welcome to wetpixels!

 

Luiz

[mondo 1]

Hi

 

I have a Nikon D100 and Aquatica AD100 setup. This is my first Aquatica housing, but for several reasons, I am pretty sure I'll be staying with Aquatica for future requirements.

 

These reasons are

1. Quality of housing - very good. I do get some paint chipping around the port area, but am glad to hear that is fixed on new housings. Hasn't caused me any problems.

 

2. Quality of ports - excellent.

 

3. Ease of Use - very good. Sometimes mounting is a bit fiddly.

 

4. Bang for buck. Best of class.

 

5. Service from Aquatica. Simply put, Blake is the man.

 

I've owned Sea and Sea and Ikelite housings in the past. Ike is also great, but I personally prefer the metal housings.

 

Sea and Sea make an excellent product, but I think that their digital series was a serious step back. The F80 housing I had was wonderful - compact, light, well engineered, etc. But the D100 housing was all the opposite things.

 

I know Nexus have a good product, but would highly recommend the Aquatica product.

 

Best wishes

 

Des

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Des Paroz

Sydney, Australia

www.BlueBeyond.com.au