Housing for Sony handycam

[poolecw]

I'm having an extremely hard time finding an economical housing for my Sony Handycam HDR-XR500. The only housing that I have found cost more than the actual camera did when bought new. It seems that I am almost better off buying a dedicated underwater waterproof camera than to try to find a housing for my current camera.

Any suggestions?

 

[diversteve]

That market has died in the past few years as most of the mfr's either shut down or converted to the various still format cameras that also shoot great video. Sony didn't help a dozen years ago by adopting a proprietary control format which meant the housing now had to be mfr, specific - a couple of the quality mfr's like L&M switched to Canon at that time. Plus Amphibico was absorbed into Aquatica leaving pretty much only Gates or Ikelite when Ocean Images shut down. Recently L&M seems to be focused exclusively on lights and Ikelite on still cameras,.

GoPro's rise didn't help either - you can buy one for a fraction of a housed system that will do 90% of what most people want.

I maintained the housed video list here for about a decade - the last 4-5 years all I've done is remove mfrs - no new company is making housings. It's no longer a ""sticky" since most of the list was dated or no longer in business.

Have you found anything besides the Aditech? Mangrove MVHS-XL (SONY) buy dive - Aditech USA

 

[poolecw]

Thanks....

I was afraid of that. I guess I should turn my attention to a new camera then. I've been reluctant to go the GoPro route. My only hands on experience was with a GoPro Session from work. I am not a fan of the fisheye video.

 

[Shasta_man]

I have the same camera with an Ocean Images housing. Haven't used for 4 years. Their website is still up but the company's apparently shut down according to diversteve. And all those years I never knew diversteve maintained a list. argh. Also used Ikelite but manual controls for everything sucks.

I'd highly recommend going with a still camera.that has 4K video. DSLR's have good housing support but housing is very expensive. However, higher end point and shoot are pretty nice now. No more lag problems. Much cheaper. MUCH easier to lug on the trip

 

[BDSC]

Are you still looking for a housing?