HVX underwater

Yes, I have used some of Sonny Millers housings for Milliken super 16 cameras and Arri SR3 cameras and they worked great. I am waiting on my new housing for the HVX and should be getting it next week, so I will post updates when I get it in the ocean to shoot some surf. The only bumber is I will going to Vegas tomorrow night for 6 weeks to shoot the next season of "The Ultimate Fighter" so the housing won't see water time until the end of June. Sonny makes custom housings and is interested in making a model for the HVX to mass produce for the market, I'll keep you posted.
 
great Derek, I'd love to see a photo of the housing. Have you ever used any of Dave Kelly's housings? If so, how do they compare?

Has Sonny made any housings for bolex's?
 
HoffmanFims- I am currently having a custom housing designed for the HVX200 by the world famous surf cinematographer Sonny Miller. The housing is made out of aluminum and will have basic controls for zoom, focus,iris, record, on/off with a plexiglass front port with the stock lens and another port for a .6 or even fisheye.
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Hey Any way you could get Sonny Miller to put in the basic up down left right , menu and pause buttons on the housing as well? being able to delete clips in the thumbnail view would solve alot of workflow issues with the P2 - at least until the 16GB cards get here! and some space for one of these http://www.meritline.com/camera-mate-otg-enclosure1.html - and the ability to keep it plugged into the HVX at all times so you can dump your P2 cards to it without resurfacing would solve All the workflow isssues of P2
 
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Hi Frog, My friend Mike Hastings owner of Aquavideo (aquavideo.com) and i built his first batch of HVX200s back in early march.The first wet test went well with some oaky footage in the keys we had high winds and 7-9 ft seas which called for a five hour drive to crystal river for some calm water and some manatee action the footage looks fantastic. We used a modified fuijinon broadcast wide angle adapter for these first tests,as the centuty optics .75 WA adapter was unavaiable at the time. I am pretty sure this was the first underwater footage taken with The Hvx 200 at least in north america! The housing has room to shoot with the lcd open ( no need for external lcd housing thus keeping costs down) and room for a firestore FS 100 which i will be testing underwater next week in the florida Keys. Then on a trip to Hawaii (Big Island ) & Tahiti next month. So far it works great!! But the 17 min record time was a bit limiting thus the firestore should come in handy. We now have one century precision wa adapter so now we wre raedy to really dive in. Iused to rep. gates housing for the original owner elwin gates and love them but the new gates housing does not have room for a firestore or have a magnifier on the EVF forcing users into a 4x3 Sd external housed monitor. I could go on about the Gates but you get the picture!! If anyone wants more info about my experiences using the HVX 200 U/W please give me a call on my cell phone at 561-213 -5209 Regards Stuart Cummings Watermark Productions PS The August issue of Studio/monthly Magazine will have an interview of me about my workflow and underwater experiences using HVX 200/Furestore combo underwater!!
 
Gday frog

I have been shooting the HVX200 in the Gates housing since May, shooting almost every day in Fiji, with a bit of time in Tonga. The Gates is awsome. I am using the fathoms lens for wide angle stuff and the footage is beautiful. The Gates flatport with the flip diopters (I use +4) work great for macro. I am limited here(Fiji) in that I dont have access to a HD monitor but I have sent footage to people in the US and UK and they tell me it looks amazing, it certainly looks good on my PC.

The big boys tell us we need a better monitor but the price tag is well out of my reach and the housing is big and heavy enough as it is (22kg for my setup) - hard for an individual to lug around an extra monitor - again, its fine for the big boys with their assistants and bigger budgets.

Are we going to compete with the $250K rigs, no, but are we going to beat the pants off a the TRV900 (my previous rig), absolutely.

Low light performance is not too great but i have found with HID lights and just being careful where you shoot, you can do pretty well. I shoot macro morning and late afternoon, wide angle in the tp 40feet during the good light hours and am happy with the results.

Good luck and go Gates.
 
Hi Smart Alac,

Do you have any contact details for dave kelly? i just bought one of his housings on ebay with an FX1, and have some questions about accessories - does the guy have a website?

Thanks mate!
 
I got some kewl transitions going from 24P to 60P submerging the camera half way into the water. The transition was like a special effect in post but Real time!
 
Jeremy7 said:
Yeah, I know this sounds a little crazy, but has anyone used the Ewa-Maine VP 2? http://www.ewa-marine.com/english/camcorder/e-vp2.htm

I need an underwater casing for just a couple of shots in my project, but don't want to spend $3,000 to do it. The VP 2 is only $550. Do you think this is a viable option?
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Yes it is a viable option. I have one and have some great underwater footage from it. It is only rated to 10 meters (33 feet) so it is ideal for shallow water dives at a good price point. You will need to put some weights on the straps on the bottom of the bag to keep it balanced.
 
Jeremy7 said:
Are you able to use a wide-angle lens with your Ewa Marine?
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Well I never tried it but it may be possible as the housing glass is bigger than the HVX lens, as they supply an adapter ring that screws onto the HVX lens to step it up to the size of the ring around the glass, so that maybe about the same size as the wide angle. I dont have a WA here to try it though. It would be a tight fit length ways to get the camera and lens in the bag though as it is pretty snug with stock lens, clear filter and adpater ring.
 
Im just back in through the door after a water shoot with the ewa. I've been meaning to post a review of the unit since I got it a few weeks ago. ewa produce their own WA lens, if you check the weebsite it might offer dimensions to compare with the century optics. It really does need to be a very snug fit with the port.

Re the ewa bag - It does the job but there are a number of areas it could be improved. My bigest issue is with the viewport. The bar which seals the bag sticks out and prevents you getting your eye to the viewport, also the flexible nature of the bag means that the viewport sags down below the camera eyepiece. Im going to add my own piece of foam to the top of the camera to prevent this. It also does not feel like the most durable piece of plastic and I'd suggest great care in looking after it.

operation wise its fairly easy to shoot with the ewa bag. Controls are accessed via rubber finger holes. all the main controls are provided for focus/zoom, rec, iris. Only the iris control is badly placed and difficult to use. On the other side of things, because its a soft bag and can be squashed, its easy to push buttons through the housing whilst handling it. And as its difficult to look through the eyepiece you may not be immediately aware of what you have done.

The ewa bag does its job and does it reasonably well. Its not perfect, its far from it but its a cheaper solution than a solid housing. I'd say it is grossly overpriced for what it is, despite R&D costs and testing they are little more than a plastic bag with handles. How they can justify charging what they do for it is beyond me. Luckily I got a good price from insanityfw so I'm not complaining.

I'd say for river work, surface and gentle swells it will do the job of an occasional solution. Its really not the housing for any sort of depth work, the flexible plaastic gets pressed in under water pressure and the push auto focus button gets pressed resulting in the camera going to macro mode, amongst other issues. If you are going for anything serious, deep or long term, look to one of the solid housing manufacturers, the ewa isn't up to the job but for the odd wet job it will deliver the goods and pay for itself in a relatively short time frame.

I could find very little info on these units before I bought mine so hopefully this feedback will help out those in a similar position in future.
 
Hey, thanks for the advice fellows. Yeah, I'm kind of wandering if the Ewa-marine is too delicate for what I'm trying to do. I've been working on a documentary about Noah's Ark for several years now www.arkhunt.com . I'm taking a 5 foot model of the Ark off the shore in the waves to do some filming. Do you think the Ewa-marine can handle that type of punishment, or should I just fork out the dough for something more rugid? The waves probably won't be over 3 feet.

Either way, it's a crying shame these manufactures are charging so much for a bag to put your camera in and thousands of dollars for a plastic housing!
 
I would have no reservations taking the ewa into small swells. I would be worried taking it into overhead or double overhead swells! Couldn't you just film your ark from the boat?
 
I could, but where's the fun in that! LOL. I'll need to be right where the waves are along the shore, so you can't get a boat into those shallow waters.

I think I'll give the ewa-marine a shot and be extra careful. Thanks again.
 
I am another scuba diver. Housings for the HVX200 are also available from AquaVideo, Equinox, Fisheye, MediaSub and Sealux.
 
I've been working before with Sealux and I can't imagine a better housing for that price!! Equinox housings are much too heavy (because of the material and the badly calculated shape) and have not enough features..... For MediaSub housings, which have IMHO the BEST material ever (carbonfibre) regarding the pressure, weight of the housing and shock-resistance (much better than metal) - they need on the other hand special optics from other manufacturers that are not sold by MediaSub (Bruder). That means, that MediaSub leaves you alone with a cheap but good housing without wide-optics and special features (lenses etc.). So it's up to YOU to find an adaequat WA-lens etc. ....

Sealux offers a very good housing, with the second-best material (Aluminium) regarding shock- / pressure resistance and weight (it's "only" about 16 pounds) and a MAXIMUM of features: 100 degrees wide-angle optic directly available, sweepable macro-lens and red-filter inside the housing, all camera-features you need (MediaSub won't give 'em) : ATW, WB, ND-filt., Focus, etc. etc., and the price is still in the middle, compared to other housings. www.sealux.de

The size of the Sealux housing is just at the MINIMUM which means, that you save space and weight with it. It fits the hand-luggage rules even at Heathrow and has a handle to carry. It's shape is handy (just ordinary square) to fit any bag or suitcase of its size - no special bag needed.

There's a nice 16:9 - monitor with 3,6" optional available for the housing (with or without 7 main camera-controls).

So, what else do you need?!

With the very good experience that I had with my "old" Sealux housing (I sold it 2 months ago) and bad experience with other products, I'm gonna buy the Sealux-housing 99% just before my next trip.
 
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I think you guys might want to look into Jim bailey at Sea Research over here in FL. For 2k he builds an HVX housing that's custom with a few controls. mine accomodates my century fisheye. If you even wanted one for the Letus or whatever.. he can do that. he built one for my friend that has his video microwave transmitter in it. I'm also sure that most of the other manufacturers don't put a tripod mount on the bottom. I love jim and his housings. He used to make all of Warren Bolsters stuff.. and he was one of the biggest pioneers in surf photography.


You can contact Jim at waterhousings.com and tell him that Justyn sent you.
 
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