Amphibico Invader Video Housing Review

On our first trip we were provided with a Bruder BUW-5 carbon housing prototype, which faced some limitations as the LAN-C did not support access to the white balance control. We found this is an issue almost any housing manufacturer (BS Kinetics, Sealux, Silverfish etc.) is facing as the SONY HC-1000 only provides access to the white balance via the inbuilt touch screen. This also eliminates the chance of essential mechanical controls for this camcorder as promoted by competing manufacturers.

In January 2005 marine video housing specialist Amphibico informed us about the availability of their newly designed Invader Housing for the SONY HC-1000. During DEMA 2004 they claimed to be able to crack the white balance control and announced their plan to make it available for the Invader. Not the easiest task as we knew from our housing research. Exited to see the housing in real live operation we agreed to take it on an extensive test during our Red Sea live aboard in March 2005. We are happy to present you our in-depth review.

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When you order an Invader standard kit Amphibico will provide you with the housing aided by an internal clour-correction flip filter and a Super Wide Angle (120°) lense. The Super Wide Angle lense comes with a robust rubber cap. Also included are two trim weights, spare o-rings and grease. The housing has a removable camera tray that easily connects the electronic controls, hydrophone and optional external monitor.

The manufacturer’s philosophy was to favour a compact design with an optical viewfinder. Therefore the integrated camera’s LCD cannot be unfolded inside the housing. For optimal image control Amphibico provides you with an external video monitor that can be connected via a 3 pin wetlink port. The external monitor hosts own batteries and does not drain power from the camcorder. For our test we enjoyed this optional accessory and highly recommend it to anyone who takes the Invader housing into consideration.

With all this gear you are basically ready to dive and shoot excellent underwater movies. However you should not forget to buy tapes and batteries for the external monitor. First time camcorder users might be annoyed that the HC-1000’s batteries cannot be used inside the external LCD monitor. If you do not own at least one of the various SONY batteries suitable for the monitor you will be forced to additionally invest up to $200 into two batteries and a charger. By the way: we did not invest in additional batteries or chargers for the HC-1000 and did not regret it. The whole setup is extremely frugal on batteries. More about that later… The Monitor ships with grease, spare o-ring and an anodized metal LCD hood. Be careful with the last one as it is very sharp.

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After fiddling around with various types of underwater video and photo housings we have to credit Amphibico for creating an outstanding everyday handling of the housing and camera. Most remarkable is the easy-to-use locking mechanism and double o-ring seal on the “main door” as we liked to call it. Here is what we did when arriving in Sharm el Sheikh after taking everything out of our Pelicase:

1. Charge the two batteries for the external LCD
2. Charge camera battery via the SONY HC-1000 cable
3. Insert a MiniDV Tape in SONY HC-1000 camera
4. Insert batteries inside external LCD housing
5. Inspect LCD housing o-ring seals and lock (very easy!)
6. Mount trim weights underneath the Invader housing
7. Mount (very sharp!) LCD hood (an be careful with your fingers)
8. Mount LCD on top of the Invader housing (and adjust properly)
9. Connect external LCD’s 3 pin wetlink
10. Remove camcorder tray
11. Mount camera and plug 3 camcorder tray cables
12. Slide in camera tray until it connects with serial pins
13. Inspect “main door” o-ring seals and lock
14. Make some test shots and go diving

Some remarks on the above:

• You can charge the camera inside the housing without
  having to remove it
• For a series of 4 days diving we never had to recharge
  the external monitor
• Your limiting factor will usually be the miniDV tape,
  everything else lasts for ages!
• Un-sliding the tray, inserting new tape with inspection
  and re-locking is usually done in less than 30 seconds.

It’s worth mentioning that the underwater lense system is interchangeable. We did not use this feature during our tests as we only shot with the Super Wide Angle (120°) lense. But we noticed that this bayonet has features and design elements we would welcome with many DSLR photo housings on the market. With the Amphibico design you just have to push an external button and turn the lense anti-clockwise. Of course it is not recommended to use this flexible feature while submerged. When re-mounting the bayonet a nice click sound assures you that everything is in place.

SIDE NOTE: We found that you have to frequently change lenses and ports with photo cameras but rarely with video. We always have a tear in our eye to see that many photo housings take longer to assemble than a good video setup. Maybe this review will motivate some housing manufacturers to do better with their next products.

One more thing: As many users do not read the instructions prior to diving we’d like to point out that the camera and electronics should always be TURNED ON when you have your housing handed into the water. Otherwise the moisture sensor will not work! This can turn out to be very sad experience and should be avoided.

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Amphibico officially credits the following features to their Invader housing.
We can confirm the list after some practical tests:

• Ten Electronic Push Button Controls on Right & Left Hand Grip
• Record/Standby
• Variable Speed Telephoto
• Variable Speed Wide Angle
• Photo
• White Balance
• Special Effects
• Review
• Toggle between Manual to Auto Focus
• True Manual Focus
• Mode Change
• Off
• Playback Mode: Navigate and play back recorded scenes
• Flashing Green Tally Light when Recording
• Electronic Moisture Sensor Alarm

However we would like to recommend that you deactivate the cameras internal popup flash for the photo mode. The internal flash is not able to fully popup in the housing. Also the strobe’s flash is reflected from the silver shining housing interior and will generally ruin your photos if not deactivated prior to the dive. For us the photo mode and special effects have turned out to be of lesser value. However if you just got into digital imaging you might want to play with it before investing in a real digital still camera.

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Enclosed is what you will find
at hand when you enter the water:

Left Hand Grip Controls

• Focus +, Focus -
• Review
• Special Effect
• Execute

Right Hand Grip Controls

• Record/Standby/Photo
• Wide-Angle/Telephoto with Variable Zoom Speed
• White Balance / Mode
• Manual/Auto Focus

We have been using video housings that did not have every control right at hand and where pretty much annoyed. Usually it will limit you creativity and produce a lot of post production work when you have to cut out beginning and end of a scene. Reaching for a button will result in not holding the camera steady. With everything in reach of a finger-tip you can avoid this easily and save time. Hence, the invader perfectly meets our requirements. Therefore we generally favour electronic controls if they are not prone to humid sea-water corrosion. After one week of bad housing treatment in the Red Sea (the saltiest diving waters in the world) we can state that the electronic controls are very robust and nothing to worry about on the Amphibico Invader housing.

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This leads me to a very special control as mentioned in the introduction. I would like to spend some extra sentences on this very important topic. To those of you reading this and who are just about to get started with underwater video. White Balance is the most important feature on an underwater video housing unless you want to film at night! If anyone tries to consult you different for daily dives in a tropical area she/he either does not know much about underwater video or is just trying to increase her/his revenue. If you do not want to film in deep waters or at night go for a video housing that offers white balance and a red filter.

So how does it work with this housing? A little bit strange we must say but it definitely works. The Amphibico manual suggests that you hold down the Mode button to initiate the white balance procedure. Unfortunately this is also the button to switch to photo and edit mode, so sometimes you might get confused. The duration of your thumb press will decide how the button will perform.

We found that it generally performs well but as the cameras power supply is getting near its end it will start to act strange. For example it switches modes or completely shuts down the camera instead of re-adjusting the white balance.

Furthermore the first white balance after switching on the camera will take up to 10 seconds. The next white balance will perform normally and take only 1-3 seconds. We think that the source of this strange behaviour is the electronic hack into SONY LAN-C code and do not know if it could have been done better or not. We decided to prefer these two small flaws instead of not having white balance at all.

Practically it is quite easy to handle. As we started our dive we usually left the camera in standby mode and performed a first (the long one) white balance during while descending. You can do this together with the usual camera checks. After that we were always able to re-calibrate quickly during our dive and get the colours right. In the Red Sea we got the best results above sandy dive sites, shallower than 12 metres after white balancing with the red-filter flipped down.

*** UPDATE - START ***

I just received an email from Amphibico officials that I'd like to share with you. Actually I was not sure if Amphibico is the only manufacturer to provide White Balance or not. But here comes the confirmation:

Ron Hand, Amphibico President: "[...] In fact, we are the only underwater video housing designer and manufacturer to provide access to white balance on this particular camcorder. As you are aware, the white balance on the camcorder is a "touch screen" feature and therefore unavailable to mechanical housing designers but is likewise unavailable through the LAN-C and therefore not readily available to electronic housing manufacturers either. Our electronics engineer was able to work his way into the actual programming of the camcorder itself (I think your review refers to it as "hacking") and access white balance control through a completely different electronic route. That's why it takes longer initially (about 10 seconds) to "get into" the white balance than it does (1-3 seconds) to activate it.

I thought this might be of further interest to you and appreciate your sincere review of our product. Unfortunately, SONY prematurely cancelled the camcorder and it is no longer available but it was an affordabe, good quality camcorder / housing combination for the upper echelon of underwater videographer."

As you see the company was really passionate to make this camera 100% work while submerged. I personally have to thank them for their enthusiasm because we can count ourselves among the "upper echelon". Even as the camera has been discontinued it might still be waiting for you in a local electronic store. If not, we think that this review gives a good insight into the precision and dedication you can expect from other current Amphibico products. We might be able to validate this statement with a test of the brand-new PHENOM FXZ1 HDTV Underwater Housing in the not to distant future.

*** UPDATE - END ***

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Generally the housing performed stable with not major electronic failures underwater. We consider the electronic controls 100% stable and no need to worry about. However we have to rant about three minor issues.

7.1. Staggering

The compact and fashionable design is certainly an advantage but on the second look it can cause you headaches when mounting the external video monitor loaded with two heavy batteries. It may make the housing stagger and give you a hard time to shoot steady. Maybe Amphibico will provide optional stabilizing pivots to assist you. We like to raise this recommendation as a result of this review. Generally pivots are not mandatory as the housing is very stable if you do not have the external monitor mounted on top. It would just be nice to have them available as optional accessory.

7.2. No full 16:9 compatibility in wide angle

On our first dive we intended to try the HC-1000’s 16:9 wide angle mode. On the first look everything seemed great. But when we reviewed the footage we were disappointed to find out that the “more wide” 16:9 mode is not supported by the Invader housing. The lense hood showed up on the final footage and resulted in strong vignetting. We did not discover this with the external monitor while being in the water. What a pity, because you can easily solve the issue by zooming a little bit – if you discover it! However we conclude that the 16:9 mode is generally suboptimal with the Invader and Super Wide Angle (120°) lense. You might run into the same trap as we did if somebody (or you) touches the preconfigured zoom without noticing. Instead of accidentally ruining a whole dive’s footage we recommend to shoot 4:3 and cutting it to 16:9 during postproduction if required.

[view our 5.5 MB MPEG example]

7.3. Flare issues

The provided optics claim to be extra calculated for underwater use. Generally we agree and are happy with the good coverage the Super Wide Angle (120°) lense provides but under certain conditions we found that the setup is prone to flare issues. The following video clip [5.5 MB Quicktime] demonstrates the sunflares disturbing the scene. We were not able to determine if this is a general issue of the SONY HC-1000 or if the underwater lense is the main source. If you know more than we do please [click here] to leave your comment on this. We have seen flares occurring with other housings before but they seemed less intense. Practically we recommend to prioritize the extreme good coverage. 98% of all scenes we shot were benefiting from the Super Wide Angle and did not show flares. Also other lenses offered by Amphibico might offer a better solution when shooting directly against sunlight. Unfortunately we cannot come up with practical test results at this point.

[view our 4.7 MB QuickTime example]

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We did several test dives with this housing and enjoyed the overall performance very much. During our comparison at DEMA and from some field tests we found that it is the premium underwater housing solution for the SONY HC-1000 digital camcorder. If your budget allows it you will have a professional tool for your underwater video career and enjoy many dives with it.

What we liked…

• Quick and easy surface handling and sealing
• Real underwater White Balance with HC-1000!
• Excellent eye-catching and compact design
• Supreme image control with external monitor
• All essential controls on you fingertip
• Stands stable everywhere you leave it on the boat
• Very robust and sturdy design
• Moisture sensor and lense at no extra costs
  

What we did not like…

• “White Balance” and “Mode” mix on one button
• Super Wide Angle Lense is not 100% flare proof
• Very sharp aluminium LCD hood (may be replaced with plastic version soon)
• Monitor with two heavy batteries will make it hard to hold the camera
  still (we recommend additional pivots to make the setup more steady)

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