Beneath The Sea 2007

In the U.S. the end of March brings an event called March Madness, the college basketball tournament. If you are a diver and live in the North East U.S., March Madness has a second meaning, Beneath The Sea - the large consumer diving show held at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, N.J.
It is an event that I look forward to going to every year to see what new toys are available to play with and also to pick up the occasional show special (there have been some great deals on camera gear and other items, this year's good deal for me was a Nitrox analyzer) and I picked up some cool t-shirts. But of course there was also camera and video gear.

 

One of the booths I initially visited was the Aquatica booth, and it was a great one to start with. From my conversations with representatives from Aquatica, they really do appear to be listening to what consumers want and are making sure to deliver the goods.

Aquaview View Finder
The first item was the Aquaview Finder (US$1149), which is now shipping. The finder features 100% viewing and is field replaceable. It is easily pushed into the housing and also removes easily. Taking a look through the finder was a pleasure.

New Aquatica Port
The second item is a new Dome which will fit all Aquatica housings. It a 9-1/2" GLASS Dome (not acrylic!) that features a 180 Degree view that is optically correct. The dome, which is not officially named, lists for US$1249.

Thank You Aquatica For "Getting" It
After looking at the view finder and the dome from Aquatica, I started speaking with Blake Stoughton some more about my favorite pet peeve - with the new smaller and less expensive cameras, such as the Nikon D40 and D40X, housing manufacturers seem to be missing the boat with keeping their housings larger and more expensive, which defeats the purpose of the small and less expensive cameras.

I definitely picked the right guy to bring this up with as he started smiling. He told me that Aquatica is in fact currently designing new housings for the smaller "less pro" level cameras. So you will be able to get Aquatica housings for cameras such as the Canon XTi/400 and the Nikon D40X, and not just the high end pro cameras.

In fact the plans for the housings are on his computer and they will be machining parts shortly to test things out. And the best part is the new housings will be around 1" less in width and 3/4" less in height than the current offerings. The decrease in size is welcome due to travel issues (and Blake if you are reading this and can knock off a bit more in size and weight, go for it ) The housings will also be sold at a lower price than the current offerings. The exact price is not 100% set yet, but let's put it this way - Aquatica housings for the Canon 30D run about US$2,200 and you will be able to house the Canon XTi/400 for less.

Blake is also considering adjusting the designs for the housings a bit from the standard Aquatica housing in terms of making the front portion of the housing larger than the back (current models are split in the middle) in order to make the housings easier to make (and keep costs down) for the prosumer dSLRs.

It is estimated that it is 6 months before the new housings are released. I begged to see if I could get a prototype for some trips coming up in a couple of months, but they will not be available. Bummer. But I will keep an eye out for their release.

I stopped by the Bonica booth - their Snapper Dive DV caught my eye. Ever since I have first seen Ocean Haus housings and the Epoque Sanyo combinations, I always have an eye out for portable gear to carry just in case my main gear goes down so I can get images or video to some degree or just to do a dive with less gear to carry once in awhile. The Bonica fits in your hand and has many controls for accessing camera/video camera functions, including White Balance. The video records MPEG-4 and the camera takes 5 Megapixel stills. At US$770 (street price about US$650) for everything it is something worth looking at, though I do not know how it actually performs underwater. Though the literature says it uses up to a 2 Gig SD card, in fact it will take cards up to 4 Gigs, for about 90 Minutes of video. And Bonica plans on releasing an HD version later this year.

I also had a chance to hold the Sea Tool housings (http://www.seatoolusa.com). Though some of the controls were a bit tight for my fingers, the size and the weight of the housings were very impressive for those traveling. Sea Tool also seems to be releasing more products as time goes along. If you are on a tight weight/size budget, being able to put a Sony HC3, Canon HV10 or a Rebel XTi/400 in something this small and light is impressive.

One the newest releases from Amphibico are the Dive Buddy EVO II HD Elite, which fits the Sony HC-5, HC-7, UX-1 and SR-1 by just a change in the mounting plates. The unit is portable and includes a 3.5" color monitor angled at 10 degrees, all as part of the price of US$2495. And the monitors run on "AA" batteries, which I always find a big plus. The units will be shipping in April.

A second major release from Amphibico is the Endeavor, the housing for the Sony FX-7. It is scheduled for release in June and lists for US$4,495.

Amphibico Wow Factor - HD Monitor
Amphibico is releasing an HD monitor that will work with all of its systems. and seeing thing monitor brings up one word, Wow. I took a look at in on an housing for the FX-1 and immediately started dreaming on how cool it would be to have one of these to work with underwater. The picture was large (4.3") and cystal clear. Joe Bendahan of Amphibico said the unit is expected to ship by the end of April and lists for US$2,200





 

I stopped by the Olympus booth to see what they had in store and wanted to see what information may be available for the new E-410 and E-510 models.

Olympus will be releasing the PT-E03 for the E-410. The housing lists for $999 and is designed "a la carte" so you will also need a port. Depending on the port, it will be about $475 or so. (Interestingly enough, Olympus stated that they will not be releasing a housing for the E-510 and will leave that to the other housing manufacturers.) The PT-E03 features a bulkhead to attach the Olympus strobes for TTL shooting. Another plus is that the housing is designed so that the flash can be "seen" to trigger fiber-optic connections to other strobes. The E-410 will be shipping in May and the housing and ports in June.

Olympus is releasing dedicated underwater strobes for their housings, which will operate TTL via their bulkhead connections. At this point there are no real specifications - no guide numbers, pricing or even an official name is yet available, despite the designation in the photo below, but they will be released "sometime this year." As you can see the strobe is portable and being a fan of Olympus cameras myself, I am happy to see they an underwater strobe to work with their systems.

I also had a chance to check out some of the other offerings from Olympus, including the PT-035 Housing for the Olympus Stylus 770 SW. The Olympus Stylus 770 SW is the small, tough camera that goes to 33 Feet without a housing, and the PT-035 lets you go deeper. The PT-035 will be released in June and lists for US$250. I also had a chance to play with the 770 a bit and its size and performance definitely make it the perfect boat camera as I guessed it would be when it was first announced. The Olympus representative had a good time bringing the camera to shoulder height and dropping it to the ground to see people's reactions.


 

The Light & Motion Housing for the HC-7 will be shipping May 1st and is slightly larger than the L&M housing for the HC-3 to accommodate larger battery sizes. It is priced at US$3099 just like its predecessor.

The Titan housing for the DX200 is shipping by the end of this month (March).







 

Being a fan of my YS-90DX one of the stops on the photo rounds was the Sea & Sea booth. In addition to checking out their current selection of strobes, I also had a chance to handle the Canon Rebel XTi/400 housing which started shipping about 3 weeks ago. Very light and easy to handle (lighter and easier to handle than my current housing for my Olympus 8080) and the viewfinder was large and easy to see through. The housing also features TTL built in to the housing, so no need for an extra TTL converter as the predecessors to the housing. It lists for US$2,499.

I spoke with the Sea & Sea representative for awhile and it sounds like Sea & Sea has some other things planned for the upcoming months which sound like they will be interesting and I will keep an eye out for the new offerings.

When I was a kid I loved playing with Tinker Toys. Since I had to give them up at some point, I needed a substitute and my Ultralight Arms were perfect. Between my ULCS Arms and Clamps I can build pretty much anything, and as an added bonus the are easy to set up, maneuver and break down for my lighting and cameras. With a couple of bits and pieces I use my set up on 4 different still rigs and 2 video rigs. Really like the flexibility (some pun intended).

The newest item to the catalog is buoyancy arms which have 2.5x more lift in them. The arms will be available in 8", 10" and 12" sizes and perhaps will be released in 14" & 16" sizes. The new arms are scheduled for a May release and will work with all existing clamps and connections. The only caveat was that since the tubes are larger in diameter than prior ULCS offerings, to fold the tubes flat against one another the middle connection (in red below) will require a longer clamp, though it is not necessary if you do not need the arms to fold flat.

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I would like to thank all the manufacturers and representatives who took time out of their schedules to speak with me.