Anyone aware of any housings that allow image downloading without opening the actual housing or any housings that are able to be modified "in house" to be able to do the same. Thanks to Matt Segal for his article and ideas. My particular interest is in housing the Canon 20D. Due to my need to access the cameras memory card frequently I,ve developed a phobia about atmospheric contamination that will almost certainly cause problems over time!

I remember that Ikelite have make a special housing for a member off Wetpixel forums.

It was a USB conection. I think every manufacture can do a housing like this.

Lambis

Depending on:

1. Whether you have a spare flash socket or blanked off hole,

2. Are good with a continuity meter, soldering iron and figuring out which lead goes where,

This could be a reasonable DIY project using Nikonos sockets and plugs, but

using the camera to download images will take power from the camera's batteries which may mean opening the housing more often to replace the batteries. I've toyed with doing this myself but would want a power in connection too and cannot do this with my camera!

Most of the newer Aquatica Housings come with a plugged spare through hole for any and all future applications. This may indeed be one of them.
I personally woudl not consider remote download. I have to change batteries at least every other dive and pulling out the card to read it is simple and quick.
I want to go into my housing as often as needed. I need to make sure all is in order.

Mauricio Handler

Agreed. The batteries are the limiting factor. Unfortunately, I don't think any of the Canon DSLR's can charge the battery thru the camera. I would consider making the mod to the housing to do that and download if it could be recharged.

If that can be done, how often would it be necessary to open up the housing for maintaince. Is it safe to operate for months at a time if you don't need to change lens.

In a related question. I sometimes get lazy and leave the sync cord on the strobe and housing for a couple of weeks if I think I'll do another dive in that time. Can this lead to problems?

Herb and Mauricio both present good ideas. Opening and closing your housing isn't a big deal if you have everything ready to change, do it DRY (i.e. - away from splashing divers) and have practiced sealing it until you can do it almost blind folded

As far as Herb's note on cords, I've left cords attached to housing / strobe bulkhead for two weeks of contiual diving many times. The secret is to put some o-ring grease on the metal to metal threads of the connections. Even two weeks of immersion will not seize this connection making disassembly easy once you're done diving.

YMMV

David Haas

Hi Herb,

Good question. I've left cords attached and tended to have salt buildup around the outside of the o-ring - especially with Nikonos type bulkheads. This is with GOOD rinsing habits too.

Cheers
James

There are liveaboards where space is tight and it's hard to keep an open housing away from splashing divers or splashing red wine . It would be nice to have the option of not opening the housing.

I think that it would be possible to combine the fake battery from the AC adapter and a custom built battery pack to fit in the bottom of the housing. This battery pack could be built to be able to charged while still connected to the camera.

That may work. There are safety issue concerning heat and gas release in charging batteries to consider, especially in an air tight container. Probably not a good DIY project unless you really understand these problems.

Try away from wet golden retriever also, damm beast almost ruined my day

I have issue with the charging of batteries in a confined and sealed environment. My concern is not so much about gaz built up (altough the SB 103 recall was for that purpose), but the heat combined with ambient (salty) humidity, bad chemistry!

On most housing replacing the card is a matter of a minutes or two max, I have a Fuji S2pro in a housing which eat AA batteries like corn flakes, I have to replace thoses every dive and I have Nikon D100's that last so long you sometime forget you have batteries. still I much prefer swapping card and batteries in a minute than exposing a laptop to salty air for half an hour.

Regards

On the contrary, for the current line of dSLRs, I hardly consider the battery to be a limiting factor. In P&S cameras, yes, they have to be changed after a dive or two. However, (at least with my 20D) I can get more than a full days worth of shooting (5+ dives) on a single charge. Stated specifications for the 20D battery is something like 700 shots/charge.

On a liveaboard, I download after every dive. If I continue to shoot with the same lens, I am able to download my photos five times without ever having to open the housing (with the USB modification I made to my housing). Even if I do have to change the lens, I can remove the front port and switch, and not have to deal (additionally), with the main housing seal. I open the main housing seal once a day (at the end of the day) to swap batteries, and then it's sealed for another 24hrs. In terms of increasing reliability and failure protection, this is an ideal solution.

For reference, here's a page on the modifications: Adding USB Connectivity to your U/W Housing

~Matt Segal

The 20D may be more efficient. However, I wouldn't just go by the specs. With the Rebel, if I'm shooting macro where the focus motor gets a workout, I don't think I can get more than a couple hundred shots. A 1GB card will hold almost that many raw files. If I get a 2GB card, I'm fairly certain that I'll run out the battery before the I fill the card. Since the cost of memory has fallen so much, I think I'd buy a 4GB card before spending much time on housing mods.

Quote: "I think that it would be possible to combine the fake battery from the AC adapter and a custom built battery pack to fit in the bottom of the housing. This battery pack could be built to be able to charged while still connected to the camera."

This might well be possible and if combined with a firewire/usb connection might be a solution on dSLRs like the EOS1D range where the AC adapter merely accepts an input voltage - of course you would still need a custom built battery pack which could deliver a stabilised voltage. Whilst I can see applications for this - they are probably few and far between so it would certainly be an expensive custom built unit.

Charging batteries in sealed environments not designed to do this in is asking for trouble if care isn't taken, there's off-gassing, heat (and expansion of gas in the housing, and so on). I wouldn't be keen.

On the strobe connection query. I've had one customer leave a cord connected for 6 months - I had to use a (Mole Grip) wrench to remove it - amazingly, other than a small bit of corrosion (which had caused it to sieze) and marks from the wrench, it showed no other problems. He now disassembles it regularly!

I would add that on my last trip someone had a camera flood when they hadn't opened their housing between dives. Sometimes leaving an o ring undisturbed is not always best.

Alex

Was it damaged in the rinse tank? If I'd have seen that, I would start claiming I've seen it all...