Canon WP-V1 Housing!

[stephos]

Nice vid and good choice of music.

Please tell me, do you have the wide angle lens on while shooting the out-of-the-water scenes? I'm asking because the picture is crystal clear. No vignetting and no blurred edges. Even when you zoom-in a little, the picture quality does not suffer at all.

I was dissapointed with the earlier posts that a wal on the WP-V1 (or V2 for the same reason) is a waste of time and money. But your video proves quite the opposite.

I really need a WAL because I cover submarine technical works and I need to fit as much information inside a frame as I can (witout moving a kilometer away to widen the shot).

Among the three (almost equivalent) choices (Epoque DCL-20, Ikelite W-20 and Inon UWL-100) which would you recommend? The Inon is a bit "wider" with a 0,50 factor comparing to the 0,56 of the first two. Does this mean vignetting becomes apparent "earlier" in the zooming process or is it irrelevant? Any other pros or cons for the three lenses?

Forgive my multiple questions but it's a fair amount of money that I am going to invest and i want to make sure I make the right choice.

Thank you and appreciate your valuable feedback with your videos. I watched the over and over again scrutinizing every detail.

 

[jeja26]

Hi Stephos
I did not use the WAL top-side for the reason of distortion especially when zooming. This you can see for yourself in this video
Peter V on tour on Vimeo

This was my first video with WAL and as you clearly can see - it does not work well above water. There is clearly distortion. I have therefore decided not to use the WAL above water except maybe for some "long shots" where I want to show a larger view but no details and therefore no need for zooming. My video above water in the latest video is therefore without WAL and as you can see on the boat you cannot get too close. I would guess the distance between the camera and closest person is about 1 m.

Underwater I find getting too close to the object about 10-15 cm can cause distortion at the edges. A macro might be the best choice here. I do not zoom underwater.

As too the different possible choices I am afraid I have only used the Inon, as this was suggested to me by another diver.

I think the pros and cons can be summed up in the price. With the canon solution you have a solution which is relatively cheap but you do have tradeoffs in quality of the production in as far as you cannot white balance manually and as you see the AWL is actually designed for canons digital cameras, which does make it relativly cheap but not the optimal solution for video.

If you really need top quality I think you have to move up in price range and find video, housing and AWL which are custom made for each other - this however is expensive. If i compare my setup to some of the other divers i have met - their housing alone costs more than the whole of my setup.

Hope this helped a bit. Happy diving. Love Greece

 

[stephos]

Thank you jeja for your response.

From this video I saw exactly what you mean.
The good thing is that when all the way back to wide, there is no vignetting, so if you have no reason to zoom-in you are safe.

As for the comparative opinion, I was refering only to the prosthetic wide angle lenses.

I couldn't agree more with you (and previous posters) that the Canon deal brings almost the same results in a fraction of a cost of the more proffesional equipment.

In my company we have a Stingray ($2.800) with a HD Sony ($900) and a wide angle dome ($500) and comparing the footage from both gear, one has to look very close to spot the difference. Only good thing about the expensive set-up is you have total control of the camera settings while underwater.

Happy and safe diving.

 

[Hummari]

Anyone here that want so sell their wp-v1 housing?

 

[gunsrunner]

Just got back from a trip to Vanuatu, bought some Nocturnal SLX800i video lights for Donna's rig just before we left, I think the results speek for them selves, needless to say i'm happy with the results.
We got the flex arms from Fantasea, not real good will be swapping them for the ball joint arms as Donna found them a bit of a pain, I think if you could lock the arms in the correct position, it would be better. The housing kept turning on the tray which was also a pain, but i think a bit of rubber glued to the tray would fix this.
Still have about 180gig of video to sift through but here is a link to the first.
YouTube - PaulsRock.m2ts

Hope ya like it!!!

 

[KingTriton]

Does anyone know where I can rent a lens to use with this housing? I can't afford $300+

Hey, we're on a recession here! Trying to save money while going on vacation is tough, let alone trying to convince the missus that a $300 WAL is a necessity.

 

[H20doctor]

I used a 67 mm to 72 mm Step-Up-Ring-Adapter, that goes on the outside housing threads.. and then purchased from ebay a 72mm wide angle lens ... the Brand is zeikos .. it works great .. I aslo use the above water 37mm wide angle for topside video... the whole set up is under 60.00 US ... I got everything on Ebay ...

 

[H20doctor]

[vimeo]12225558[/vimeo]


this was shot with my HF 200.. In Puget sound .. Before I got my wide angle, Here is some of my video's useing the canon

 

[mrivken]

I used a 67 mm to 72 mm Step-Up-Ring-Adapter, that goes on the outside housing threads.. and then purchased from ebay a 72mm wide angle lens ... the Brand is zeikos .. it works great ...

Is it "wet" lens ? I looked on web and found only Amazon.com: Zeikos ZE-WA72B 72mm Wide Angle Lens: Camera & Photo and it looks like "surface" only lens.
Can you, please, give a little more info about your lens, it would be especially good if you can share underwater video shoot with those lens.

 

[H20doctor]

its a 2 piece lens , Macro and wide angle ... you can unscrew the wide angle and use only the macro for close ups... I drilled a hole in the threads to allow water into the lens ... Or just unscrew it a bit when you start your dive... Its a standard lens , dont think its a "wet " lens as i have no clue if there is a diff between the 2 other than Marketing , and jacking the price up... I am going on a shoot today and will post my video up here in a few days with the results ...