Which gen of L&M Stingray

[r3schultz]

Can anybody out there tell me which generation of Stingray housing this is?

 

[diversteve]

What's after the word Stingray on the front to the left of the port?

Or if the mfr's plate is intact it should have a model # that will identify it.

 

[r3schultz]

Thanks, but just bought off e-bay so don't have it in hand as of yet. Probably should have done a little more research but got a wild hair and decided to go ahead and purchase since it comes with a Nikon VN-750 camcorder. I was trying to figure out if it was compatable with my Sony HD HDR-UX7. Of course L&Ms website, or at least the service section when looking for manuals, keeps puking on me and telling me content could not be found.

Thanks for any help.

 

[diversteve]

Wow, that's an old one. I thought it was when I saw the black sides - more recent Stingray's have been blue.

Nikon hasn't sold camcorders for at least a decade - maybe since the mid-80's. Since they were physically larger your camera should fit inside the housing.

But you're going to have 3 potential problems:

The biggest problem is going to be that the port on that housing is in the wrong place. The old Nikon cameras - like 8MM Sony's (OEM for Nikon at the time) - have the lens near the lower right corner of the camera body. Your UX7 like all the HDR series has it top center IIRC.

You have to be able to center your camera in the port otherwise you will get vignetting and other visual aberrations in your video. And you'll likely have to re-work the mounting plate somehow.

There's a slight chance that the port is high enough and the camera mass below the centerpoint of the lens on your camera is short enough, it might work with the camera offset in the housing. But I kind of doubt it.

According to Sony's e-support site, your camera has a LANC jack. If so, you'll be able to plug the camera into it for camera control. LANC was the only standard when that housing was made so there will be a short cable mini-plug inside the housing.

The issue might be that the electronics are pretty old so it's possible that even if it works, it won't be able to control all the camera functions through the jack - LANC has changed over the years. The old L&M housings have an exposed circuit board so if it was ever flooded, it will need to be replaced/updated. I think L&M still does upgrades.

The third problem is that your UX7 is physically shorter in length than the Nikon. So that will move your viewfinder farther forward in the housing. You can't open/see the LCD when it's in the housing.

Most of the older Stingray's had a semi-oval window on the top 3rd of the back plate so you should still be able to see something. It's also possible that if you found an old back-mounted Stingray LCD monitor, it could be replaced - it just latches on. I've seen a couple sold separately on eBay the past few years.

What did the seller say about the condition of the light batteries?

I don't think you'll find anything on the new L&M website about compatibility. Since they went to the new Stingray, I think the info was removed to be less confusing. IIRC correctly their manuals back then were pretty generic so I don't think they list model compatibility either. There used to be a really handy chart on the L&M website but I haven't seen it recently.

I almost did the same thing a few years ago - found a good deal on a Stingray on ebay also. But then I bought new instead. So some of the compatibility stuff is still reasonably fresh in my mind. I made an Excel spreadsheet listing all the models that were compatible - I may still have it archived - if I do I'll contact you.

 

[r3schultz]

Thanks for response. I knew the positioning might be an issue. I'll either have to modify the mount plate or see if L&M might sell a mount plate or midifications that would support the newer models. I've been looking at e-bay and figured the Nikon was a relabeled Sony. It is possible that I might have to settle for using camcorders that the housing was designed for so I've also been researching Hi8 analog>digital conversion. I was eyeing a stingray HD at the same time but decided to go with this as the Light system was included. I'M assuming the batteries will be DOA but not too worried about it as I think they are Makita and can be gotten relatively easy. I paid $700 for the whole set-up. Nothing about being flooded but you know how that goes. I'll include more pictures.

 

[diversteve]

It does have the back monitor so that's a bonus.

I don't have the compatibility spreadsheet anymore, lost in a disk crash. I bought an old poly housing from the same era when I first started u/w video. And bought a like new CCD-TR700 on eBay for $100 - top of the line for that series. It's one that I'm pretty certain would work with your housing if the Nikon is DOA as they share the lens position. I don't have it anymore or I'd post a pic.

 

[r3schultz]

$100............man that's a sweet deal. Been looking at TR700s and the 3 proc TR1000s. I found a compatability sheet attached to another stingray for bid on E-bay. It confirms they will both fit (mechanically identical with the exception of the 2 added procs). I'll wait and see if the Nikon powers up. Either way I should be able to do pretty decent video. Thanks for all the feedback.