Fogging problem with Camera Housing

[texey]

Hello fellow divers,

Would anyone care to offer some suggestings on keeping fog off of the inside of my sealife DC500 camera housing. It seems to fog up after about 50 minutes of diving. Usually happens when I come to surface and change battery out. But lately it has been happening even if I DON'T open the housing after surfacing.

Maybe I can use a thin film of mask defogger? But I worry it would blurr the pictures. Do I have to keep the camera in a bucket of cold water always after surfacing? That isn't always available or convienent. I just changed the silica packet inside the housing so I don't think that is it.

What do YOU think?

Thanks for your advice.

texey

 

[mikerault]

I had that problem as well, never did solve it, finally got an ikelite and haven't had a problem sense.

 

[bperrybap]

There are several things you can do all of which will help prevent fogging.
I've got about 150+ dives with my dc-500 and I no longer have any fogging issues.
Here are the things you can do:

1. Use Moisture Munchers
I always use these and they do help but these alone will not solve the problem.

2. Use anti-fog on the lens.
This helps but it can leave residue and while it will help prevent fogging it
also can cause blurriness when there is no fog. I no longer do this as it is
too much effort for little benefit.

3. Set the screen timeout and power-down fairly aggressive.
Sleep at 30 secs, and powerdown at 3 Min.
These will help, but even these will not totally prevent fogging.
Also, I disable the picture preview.

4. Put the camera in the camera bucket/barrel prior to the dive.
This helps equalize the temperature of the camera with dive water.
If no bucket, at least keep the camera out of the sun.

5. When changing batteries between dives (yes I change batteries between
every dive), open the camera, drop the camera out quickly, then immediately
close and secure the housing.
I do this in attempt to preserve any dry air inside the camera.

6. Shoot pictures with less resolution.
Shooting in say 3 MP rather than 5mp uses less power which creates less
heat in side the camera.
This did help but very very slightly, i.e. don't pick your resolution in attempt
to prevent fogging. It will extend your battery life a bit though.

--------------------
The biggest thing that causes fogging on this camera is heat. The camera really
pulls on the battery. Thats why the battery life is so short compared to other
similar cameras on the market.
All the things mentioned above help but still won't prevent fogging on 40-50+
minute dives.
The only thing I've found that really works is to shut off the camera during periods
when you know or think you won't be shooting any photos for a while.
Yeah, its kind of pain but it really does work.

Also, I have noticed that shooting movies really eats the batteries and hence generates
quite a bit of heat. Just something to keep in mind.

When turning the camera off and back on. One thing to keep in mind is that
there is some kind of error in the camera s/w that will cause the camera
to lockup every 1 out every 300-400 power on cycles. I have no idea what causes
it; even SeaLife doesn't know!. They came out with a patch to fix it and it did
help (it used to lock up quite a bit more). The reason that this is important
is that if it locks up on you while underwater, DO NOT just stow your camera
and complete your dive. The camera will overheat and ruin the CCD. The camera
gets so hot that it literally cooks the CCD and ruins it. (The camera will
work just fine but all pictures will have a whiteish blur/fog in them.)
If the camera locks up happens just end the dive, ascend, do the safetystop and
surface and open the case and remove the battery as soon as reasonably possible.
The first time this lockup happened to me, I let it go, and it ruined the camera.
SeaLife replaced the camera for me. It has happened several times since and
each time I surface and remove the battery and the camera has been fine.

Hope that helps.

--- bill

 

[texey]

Hi Bill,
Hey thanks for all that useful information. Some of it I've done and other things I had not thought about. I will try your suggestions and see how it goes. I appreciate your time and effort in explaining so much about your experiences with the DC500.

Sincerely,
texey

 

[gert7to3]

Load the camera in a dry air conditioned environment. Even a car is ok if the AC has been on awhile.

Shoot tank air into your housing if you opened it between dives.

 

[randini]

All great info. What has worked best for me is using the silica gel tabs (like those moisture muchers, but cheaper (for free since I take them out of shoe boxes and the sealed bags that computer parts come in), inside the housing and keeping the housing out of the sun as much as possible. I've used my camera while running around on the rocks tidepooling a lot and what I do is keep it in the housing in a camera bag over my shoulder and just take it out to take some pictures, then back in the bag it goes. I can usually go through about 3-4 hours this way in the sun without it fogging up too much.

 

[texey]

I like the shooting tank air into housing idea. I had not thought of that. Loading in A/C environment is something I haven't tried yet, but I did think of that. Just need to act on it instead of thinking about it.

Saving the Silica tabs - getting them out of other items is a good idea. I do do that. Thing is you don't know how old they are and if they've outlived their usefullness.

Keeping camera out of sun and in camera bag as much as possible is always a good idea.

THANKS everyone for your ideas!!

Nick

 

[BurBunny]

For silica pacs, I either get from Preservation Station (they can be recharged in the oven, so are reusable many, many times) or I ask my pharmacist to save some for me out of the prescription bottles. You know those are pretty fresh, and they just throw them away otherwise. Every time he sees me he asks when my next trip will be and saves them up.

 

[philmayer]

I always try to only open/close my housing inside an air-conditioned space. It helps tremendously.

The problem with opening/closing your housing on a dive boat is that it is a VERY humid environment and it's very difficult to close the housing and get the moisture out. Moisture in the housing is what causes the fogging.

Try the solutions folks have posted here, they have some very creative ideas! I'm certainly going to be trying them out.

 

[SeaHorseWoman]

Great thread for me! I bought my long awaited DC500 two days ago, dived with it yesterday. Since I'm completely new at this I didn't expect much, but some pics were OK.
The housing did fog after about 20 minutes, but I hadn't used any of these ideas, so I'll try them all. Question: if I use the little silica gel packets , say from medicine containers, where in the housing can I safely put them?