Anyone have experience with Meikon Aluminum housing?

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Hi,

Have anyone had experience with the Meikon aluminum housing? I am looking for something for the Sony RX100.

Meikon Top Quality Of Aluminium Waterproof Digital Camera Case For Rx100,Up To 100m - Buy Waterproof Digital Camera Case For Rx100,100m Waterproof Housing For Rx100,100 M Ultra Rugged Camera Housing For Rx100 Product on Alibaba.com

Meikon aluminium housing - Lloyd Clearihan Imagery

They seem to have implemented the dial (unlike the cheaper plastic one), and has dual o-ring, a pet peeve that I have with some of the more expensive alum housings. Before going on about chinese junk, don't forget, Nauticam is a chinese brand too. And Meikon makes housings for alot of different camera (and I'm not talking about using a generic plastic cube and drilling holes left and right for the buttons, circa 1950's Sea Hunt, and current day Ikelite).

Direct from china pricing seems to be in the $400-$500 range, but if one only feels safe buying $1000 housings, then one can buy it here for that:

Meikon Aluminium Alloy Underwater Case for Sony RX100 UW-Fotopartner.de - buy online

 

[markkmarkk]

dear Lwang
I have been in close contact with Meikon, awaiting their housings. As a new comer to the market, their first batch of metallic housings have already offer better ergonomics than older inexpensive player like 10 Bar. Still have no idea how they perform under water. Nauticam is undoubtedly one of the best players in this field.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Hi markkmarkk,

Have you heard from Meikon regarding this and other alum housings and their planned distribution? They seem to be making a plethora of housings now, but with no reputable distributor, its a little risky. But then, if there are US distributors, the markup would probably mean the housing would be similar in price to other alum housings.

 

[tamas970]

I was considering the mkIV housing, but adding up all taxes and shipping, the price would end up a mere 10% lower than the NA-RX100IV bought locally with local support/warranty. HUGE advantage in case you have to send in the housing for anything...
Besides, there is no real experience around for the alu housing. E.g are there provisions for zinc anode? My 10bar housing shows corrosion marks after ~50 dives (no zinc+steel elements on the port, perfect recipe for electrochemical corrosion).

I also miss provisions for a vacuum system: the nauticam has the sensor inside, only a 95€ Valve & Pump combo is what you need for a piece of mind. The Meikon doesn't even have any bulkheads to attach a vacuum valve - this is a dealbreaker for me
in case there is no clear visual on the o-ring.

 

[RobertLyndonDavis]

I just got back from a Trip to Thailand where I tried out my new Meikon housing. It wasn't an aluminium one, it was a poly-carbonate one but very similar design as far as I can tell. It was for a Sony A7s and I can only say good things about it. It worked perfectly. No leaks, so easy to put the camera in and controls worked wonderfully. I took it down to 22m and no problems at all.

Couple of things to mention though. I put a light on it, which made it almost perfectly neutrally buoyant. With out this it would have been a little annoying to handle. Also I mounted a handle to it (part of the light mountain grip) which also made it much easier to manage. That being said I would still highly recommend it. I used to have a SPL Surf housing for my Canon 7D and this housing was in a league (or two) above that.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

I got to use the plastic Meikon housing for my Sony RX100 also, and it worked out mostly fine. I was hyper cautious when cleaning and lubing the o-ring since I've had a few of my panny flooded in their single o-ring mfg housing. The o-ring has a seam on it, whereas I don't ever remember encountering seams in any of my other o-rings, so it made me wary, and I even went to the spare o-ring when I saw what looked like a scratch on it (even though I tested the housing with that o-ring in the sink). But water tightness all went well. There isn't much space to put a silica pack, I was able to squeeze a skinny one in the air space where it protrudes out to form a small handle, but I definitely cannot throw the supersized ones that comes with some packaged items.

The 67mm thread is made out of metal, so there should be no worry of it stripping like on some other brand's expensive plastic housing, but the lack of holes made re-screwing on wet lens somewhat tedious. Requiring re-engaging the threads, and constant screwing out and in in order to push out the excess water between the ports. I even dropped my dome port while performing that task while I was free descending. Luckily I was only around 15ft from the bottom and it landed on the sand unscathed. That's one task I won't be doing casually again.

My housing did not have provision to use the dial on back, and I might need it in the future since I shoot strobe shots in manual and might need to adjust the shutter speed, but this time, I was just getting shooting away with my pre-defined settings. It was only after looking at some of the pix later on where I thought I could have made this or that adjustment.