Housing fogging

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seabat

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Washington State
I have a S&S DX3000g and on my past two dives the housing lens port has fogged. 30 or so previous dives and no fogging. After about 15 minutes underwater the port clears and I can start taking pictures normally. Unfortunately the first time it happened I missed the opportunity to get pictures of a very friendly wolf eel and the second time I missed photos of the largest dirona I have seen (3 inches). The fog would be "thick" enough for the auto-focus to set on the fog and not the photo subject.

Weather has been hot on the surface so I am guessing the interior air was heated and the cold water caused the fogging.

What I dont know is what to do about it. I have a small dissecant (sp?) bag in the housing and I do not leave the camera in the sun prior to diving.

I am thinking about taking a bucket of cold water to immerse the camera in prior to the dive to cool the interior air. I have also thought about anti-fogging liquid on the inside of the port but I am hesitant to try it as it never works on my mask. I also am hesitant about using "spit" which does work on my mask.

Has this happened to anyone else and do you have any suggestions as to eliminating the fog?

Thanks.
 
I would not apply any liquids to the inside of the housing lens port. The problem can be the air temp at the time you inserted the camera into the housing versus the air temp it was exposed to after that, and prior to submerging it.
Several folks have suggested loading the camera into the housing in an A/C environment to prevent condensation. That alone may not solve the problem if the housing is exposed to the outside climate for a long period prior to submerging it.
I live in a hot climate and have solved the condensation problem w/o loading the camera in an A/C environment.
I use desiccant and absorbing pads inside the housing but equally, if not more important, is to prevent the housing from being exposed to the hot outside climate, even out of direct sunlight, prior to diving. I accomplished that by keeping it in a zipped closed soft beverage cooler before and after the dives. My camera rig sits in direct sunlight on the bow of my kayak in a cooler and never has a condensation or heat problem.
I do not put ice packs or anything else in the cooler.
See here.

In a reverse situation that was posted here some time ago, a person went into an aircon bar to view photos on the camera monitor after the housing had been in the hot outside temp for some period of time. Shortly after starting to view the photos the monitor cracked on the camera.

Extreme heat or cold cannot escape from a sealed housing. You can fry a camera in a sealed housing left in direct tropical sunlight for only a short period of time.
 
Several folks have suggested loading the camera into the housing in an A/C environment to prevent condensation. That alone may not solve the problem if the housing is exposed to the outside climate for a long period prior to submerging it.
The above method works! When I first started using the Canon SD400 and the matching housing, I was getting fogging inside the housing. I know that the temperature in the tropics is humid, so I tried loading the camera inside a cold room with AC, and the fogging went about. Of course, you should not open your housing during the day if you plan to dive again...that is unless you can find youself an AC room again.
 
I don't have AC and it's pretty warm and humid now where I live. I place the silica gel package in the housing with the camera and close it up the night before the dive. This allows more time for the crystals to absorb the moisture inside the housing. The water temp here is typically in the mid-high 40s at depth and so far no condensation problems. I have a pretty small rig, a canon s400 in the WP-DC800 housing. A bigger camera generating more heat in a housing with more air might be a bit more troublesome.
I never leave the housing in direct sunlight.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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