Just bought the epic water housing. need advice...

S

swilliams

Active member
well its not much to look at when you first look at it, but it should do the trick.

Whats the best way to record on the surface of the water? The manual says to leave in manual focus. If I switch to infinite will that put mostly everything in focus?

any other tips?

steve
 
Here's a number of things that we've learned:

It's a good idea to put in desiccant (Silica Gel, those little packets that super absorb moisture). It's even been suggested to use a tampon to absorb any water that may get in to the housing. We haven't had problems with leaking, the moisture absorbing stuff is a precaution.

Depending on the position of sun or lighting, you may get a reflection of the lens and camera. We put a black cloth inside strategically to minimize the light entering the housing and causing reflection.

We found that you'll need to fine tune the adjustment for the 'rod' that pushes the button. Sometimes, if it is too tight to the rubber seal, the pressure of putting the housing underwater actually causes the button to be pushed. It will turn on or off the recording when you don't mean to.

Just a few things off the top of my head. Good luck with the housing and enjoy the shot opportunities!

Robert
 
thanks for the great advice... I guess I'll go to a shoe store and see if i can find any desiccant... I did throw some tampons in there today, but I really didn't have to worry about moisture during my test shots. I did notice the reflection though. I like the idea of putting the black cloth inside....

Is rain-x on the lens a good idea? they'll be a lot of spray from the water for what I'm shooting.
 
swilliams said:
Is rain-x on the lens a good idea? they'll be a lot of spray from the water for what I'm shooting.
Click to expand...

Good question. Don't know. If the spray is a mist, that can be a problem. Full water spray seems to fall off pretty quick. Have you been able to do some tests?
 
I am considering one of these and here's what I was thinking so far.

1. The clear housing allows light to enter from every angle including the front port. This can cause unwanted reflections. If you didn't want to place light-shielding material inside the housing is it possible to get a flexible rubber lens hood and just mount the camera so that the hood pushes-up tight against the front port?

I would think that this would help prevent stray light from causing reflections. The second benefit "could" be that the camera lens would be so close to the front port that perhaps auto focus could be used as the camera would not inherently want to focus on any water drops on the lens as they are extremely close. This is of course a theory as I haven't personally tried it myself.

Any experience with these issues?
 
I haven't been able to test it out. I plan on using it in the water with a helicopter overhead (the rotor wash can be intense). The manual suggests using rain-x so i'll give that a shot.

Hundson, You could probably fit some kind of rubber hood against it. With the factory hood on the DVX the camera fits in pretty tight. I wonder if I was to get rid of the lens hood and snug it up closer to the lens if the macro setting would catch the drops on the lens...

Steve
 
I bought an Epic housing, boy what a mistake. If you have not bought one already, DON'T do it.
The drum end of mine caved inward under the pressure of only a few feet of water to the extent that it broke the internal mechanism and forced the camera hard against the housing lens . This nearly broke my camera. Also, there is no room for adding weight under the camera base so you have to add it outside the housing which makes it really awkward to use. The housing is much bigger & bulkier than most of its competition so you have to add a lot of weight to sink the thing - so much weight that it's almost impossible to move on land. Epic was no help at all when I contacted them about the problems
 
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