Raw Transcript
in this video I’m going to run through the basics of water proofing your camera what you’re going to need to get your camera into the right situation in the water to get the right shot so we’ve been through the types of cameras that you might want to go for I’ll cover off a few of the basic types of camera first and then we’ll get into interchangeable lens cameras and the various different housings you can get for them because I think that’s going to be the biggest area of interest for the majority of people so first things first I mentioned already if you want to get your phone in the water something like this this is the axis go housing system for iPhones lots of other options out there for phones this one is has a particular advantage for surf photography because it does have a pistol grip attachment you can pop on this and having a pistol grip means you can shoot one-handed it’s a really really big advantage with surf photography you’re going to want to be swimming with one hand and shooting with the other so that’s something that’s going to crop up again and again in this video having a pistol grip is one of the key features of a surf style water housing so if you want to take surf photos with your iPhone axis goes a good option there’s other people out there like water shot and lots of people you make different types of housing for your phone so that’s that covered GoPro modern GoPros are waterproof themselves and all GoPros come with the waterproof housing there’s accessory you can get in order to basically give it a pistol grip for instance things like that there’s dome ports you can get in various other accessories you can add on I will talk about those in a bit more detail later on but essentially GoPro no worries if a bridge camera one of those super zoom cameras that we talked about is is what you’ve gone for then unfortunately one of the one of the limitations of those types of camera is there really isn’t a good option for a water housings because their lenses go from from next to nothing all the way up to really big telephoto then there’s such a big zoom range there it’s actually really hard for a manufacturer to create a housing that works throughout that range so you’ll find you’re not really going to find a really good housing for those off the shelf you might be able to get one if you get it customer it’s gonna cost a lot of money it’s one of the reasons why an interchangeable lens camera is probably a better option if you’re looking to shoot surf photos in the water you might want to go for combination of the bridge camera for on land and the different camera for water but essentially if you want to be waterproofed then you’re going to want an interchangeable lens camera ideally and a waterproof system to go with it so that’s the real basics covered let’s jump into interchangeable lens cameras and the water housings for them so probably the most common type of housing out there if you just googled water housing for put your name of your DSLR your mirrors camera in Canon 5d Mark 3 then you’re going to get back a lot of dive housings these are designed to take the camera – quite often really really deep depth so up to 100 metres or more and still have fun allow you to use all the functionality of that camera so they’re normally quite bulky they’re normally heavy because they need to be neutrally buoyant ideally because you’re taking them down deep and you don’t want them floating off to the surface or sinking down like a rock so there’s lots of different things that need to be considered when you build a dive housing which us as surf or surface sports photographers don’t need to worry about in fact you want to probably go for one which doesn’t have a deep rating because then it’s more likely to be light weight and more likely to have those type of accessories like the pistol grip that we talked about and more likely to be better ergonomically for using one-handed or even two-handed on the surface the the types of ergonomics you need for dealing with a camera on the surface or just below are different to the ones you need when you’re way down deep with a scuba kit on so the fact is dive hasn’t gone usually the best option for you you might be her to get a really good deal on one that might be one option to do it and there are meek on or a Chinese manufacturer who do make really really affordable dive housings they’re rated for quite quite deep but they’re not as economically suitable for surface work as any sort of splash housing that’s a little bit of jargon they call splash housings usually that means they’re rated to maybe ten meters which you’ll find most of the brands of surf housings like SPL aqua tech salty surf housings they’re all rated to this this kind of shallow depth because they’re really not designed to go deeper and they’ve got all of these features which require a lightweight body which we want for our surf photography so talking of aqua tech I’ve got an example of a DSLR housing it’s a little bit old but it gives you a little idea of what kind it looks like they have these latches on the back so like were texting latches so you can’t they’re not gonna accidentally come off you have to really really want to remove these latches and unseal the housing in order to get them off you’ve got housing body then you’ve got a port for your lens now some water housing don’t have removable ports which is good in some ways bad in others it’s me it’s basically not very versatile you can’t use more than a couple of lenses in them usually here’s an example another another old housing on bit of a collector of vintage water housing so some of these examples would be out a bit out of date it this one is a for a 35 mil canon eos camera and it works I don’t know how old it is it’s pretty old but it still works and still watertight this one’s a front-loading housing it’s got the latches here’s an acro tech quite an old aqua tech and and it was built specifically for the Canon 15 mil fisheye lens and the eos camera that goes inside so you can see this camera it could had a little kind of corner cut off and so it fits in like a glove no need for a big screen on the back here because it’s a 35 mil camera you got your focus button and you’ve got your dial here so you can turn the top dial little window on the top to see what your settings are and the pistol grip trigger and that’s what you needed on this so it was really built for um like to be lightweight and to allow you to swim one-handed and shoot fisheye in heavy waves where you’re going to be pulled a lot by the by the current by the waves and where you really want to to not be not have a great big heavy thing swinging around on the end of your arm you really want something compact and this is and for anyone who’s who usually shoots with the more compact like rangefinder style cameras like like myself like the AES 6000 a6 500 then it might look a little bit big but it this is much smaller than for instance this DSLR housing so that’s an example of housing which has a thick sport so you might still see them around but the majority of housings these days have a screw on or off or bayonet style port mount system so you can change the ports now as you change your lenses so talking of front loading housings this one loads at the front with latches I’ll show you another example here this is a another one that’s been gathering dust it’s bar they delmar how things didn’t think they’d make housings anymore that’s the front port literally gathering dust and it’s for an old video camera so what controls on the side here for some of the main features of that video camera it’s got some holes in the bottom so you can screw in a set of handles and you can look through there so this is a front loading housing so the o-ring goes in this groove around here all housings are gonna have an o-ring that’s thought seals the water out pop that on and then you put usually some wing nuts around there so that would that would seal the housing up that’s one way of creative building is having a front port that you take on and off um SPL use that system on the aluminium housings but as you can see aqua tech as I showed you have a rear plate that comes off and on and you drop the camera in with you wouldyou lens will set up in your port on and then you just pop the housing back on and latch it up so liquid I this sea 6,000 just you can see a little bit smaller this has got the same thing it’s got four bolts right than laches just saving space I think as much as anything on this one is the most compact housing of a lot Oh ring in the back drop the camera in lens port on the front back plate on the back screw those up usually you’ll have a clear black back plate so you can see that the o-rings got a nice seal around it I’ll go into detail on on what to look for when you’re sealing up your housing in another video but this is a quick overview so those are various different types of housing you can get I think for in strange will lens camera you’re basically looking for one that’s designed for your camera and the lenses that you use so a lot of these brands so liquid I aqua tech SPL CMT said salty surf housings etc etc will have an option which suits a particular camera model or camera series so the Accra Tech one I showed you fits three or four different cameras the this is a sea frogs which are manufactured by that Mequon brand that I mentioned who make the dive housings so you might see that this is basically it looks like a dive housing it’s got all the features of a dive housing with a pistol grip both on the bottom that’s essentially what it is so it’s one of the more affordable options for getting this pistol grip style but you do sacrifice some of the lightweight ergonomic s’ so the same camera goes on both of these although this one doesn’t does have inserts so you can put in a couple of different cameras in the same range and this one doesn’t but to give you an idea of the difference in size it’s quite different you want to get one which is designed for surf photography and that means the facility to have a pistol grip interchangeable ports and a depth rating of any about 10 metres or so so if you go for one that’s on those lines then you’re going to be quids in you’re going to have the features that you need getting into specifics about which exact housing is best for you will depend on a few different things it could just be the availability whether you can get one when you need it in the country you’re in whether you get extra ports extra pistol grips etc for it once you’ve got the basic model and there’s there’s pros and cons to each of these different brands so I will try and go into a little bit detail as I go through the lens ports and the pistol grips hopefully this has given you an idea of what to look out for if you’re going for a surf housing so if I had a checklist I’d look for pistol grip availability some controls you don’t need all the controls on the housing on the camera by any means so give you an idea there’s there’s the controls on the liquid I and that’s the controls on the sea frogs there’s lots more on this one but I’ve never felt like I needed anything more than these buttons that are on the back of this liquid I and they’ve also something like really nicely into the back so lots of different things to consider but basically go for the minimum controls that you need to get your photos and pistol grip interchangeable ports is very important to me and I think unless you’re just wishing to shoot fisheye or just going to shoot to 35 mil or whatever you happen to want to shoot then you’re going to want to change the ports out that’s important other than that see what you can find see if there’s a good deal anywhere see if you can get to the extras that you need to you on time when you need them and that’s about it I think I’ll answer a lot of questions about which housing to buy and it seems to be different in a lot of different cases it’s a bit more of a unique thing than even cameras I’d say because different people want it for different reasons and need different options with their camera housing and will actually give you a rough idea if you’ve never seen a surf housing before at least you’ve seen a few now and you know what to look out for