ADEX 2006 Asia Dive Expo Report

by Eric Cheng Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

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We love gear. As far as I know, the gear booths represented at ADEX were:

Bonica Precision
Green Force/Hugyfot
Olympus
Patima
ScubaCam
ScubaPix
Seacam

Bonica Precision [www]

William Wai of Bonica was showing off the Digital Snapper, a 3 megapixel "camera in a drysuit." The camera itself is waterproof and dustproof for snorkeling. When placed in its underwater housing, it can then be used while scuba diving. The Digital Snapper can be purchased alone for $199 USD, or with a tray, arm, macro lens (wet), and strobe for $599 USD.

Bonica Precision booth

William Wai shows off the Digital Snapper

Green Force [www] / Hugyfot [www]

Tom Leys took me through a tour of the Hugyfot underwater housing for the Nikon D200 [discuss]. Hugyfot housings have always been beautiful and compact, designed to hug the housed camera for the smallest possibly package. Hugyfot has traditionally not been well represented in the States, but you can expect more representation in the immediate future.

I can see why the housings have been popular in their target markets: they feel great in the hand, and are well-designed. But a small, rounded package has its compromises: Hugyfot housings require an allen (hex) key to open and close, and the company sticks to this design principle, refusing to switch to any sort of latch -- until a nicely designed latch exists, they say.

Green Force lights are very popular in Europe, and are probably the only lights than can be assembled into different forms based on a modular light, cable, and battery system.

If you are interested in Green Force and Hugyfot housings, contact our sponsors at Marine Camera Distributors.

Tom Leys of Green Force/Hugyfot

Cor Bosman holds a Hugyfot D200 housing

Hugyfot housing for Nikon D200

Hugyfot housings require a hex key to open (in order to preserve the housing's rounded shape)

Hugyfot housing for Nikon D200. Camera fits like a glove.

Hugyfot housing for Nikon D200

Hugyfot has port adapters for all the major manufacturers' ports

Olympus [www]

A strong supporter of underwater photography, Olympus had a prominent booth where they were showing off E-System underwater housings & accessories and the new µ [mju:] 720SW camera, which is 7.1 megapixels and waterproof to 3 meters (10'). I'm not sure why manufacturers use weird names like "the µ". How many people out there even know how to pronounce µ? But it looks like a wonderful camera for snorkeling and dive deck use.

Olympus booth

Olympus's "mju" 720 SW - waterproof up to 10ft without a housing

Olympus E-System underwater housing and accessories

Patima [www]

My first meetings with underwater photography gear representatives is usually one of excitement (the Wetpixel name, I suppose!). When I first met the Patima executives the young translator's (Jae Kim) first words were, "[he] thought you were ... fat, from pictures on the web. but.. you are... thin!" I had to chuckle at that, because the fat thing is something that is often articulated openly in Asia and isn't meant as an insult.

Patima is a well-respected engineering firm in Korea, but has not penetrated much of the Western market yet. The first distributors are being set up in the States, and the housings will surely be successful if Patima can set up good distributors and contacts on our shores. Patima housings are machines aluminum, and have a nice feel to them. They are priced well and may end up being one of the only machined aluminum housings roughly in the same price range as plastic housings.

Patima currently only has one dSLR housing (for the Canon Digital Rebel XT / 350D) and one video housing (for the Sony HC1), but have plans t o expand their line-up soon. They also have a line of underwater lights, which seem to be high quality and flexible, with various mounting options and battery shapes.

If you are interested in Patima housings, contact our sponsors at Marine Camera Distributors, who are currently the only guys who can get ahold of them.

Patima booth

Patima staff, including President Yong-Eop Lee and Director of Sales and Marketing Michael Kim

Patima EHC-350DX housing for Canon Digital Rebel XT (350).

Patima's own bulkhead and cord interface, available in 5 or 6 pin

Patima EHC-350DX housing for Canon Digital Rebel XT (350).

Patima underwater housing for Canon 580-EX substrobe

Patima line of underwater lighting

Patima PHC-HC1 housing for Sony HC1 HDV camcorder

ScubaCam Pte Ltd [www] / Gates Housings [www]

David Cheung (ScubaCam) and John Ellerbrock (Gates Housings) were at the ScubaCam booth showing products from Ikelite, Fisheye, Gates, and others. John had the flagship Gates housing for the revolutionary Panasonic HD camera, which can shoot at high-bitrate progressive HD onto solid-state memory in addition to being able to record to tape. Gates uses the Fathoms Imaging wide-angle dome port, which is well-regarded in the industry.

David showed me a prototype of a Sony HC3 HDV camcorder housing, which was absolutely tiny. It was designed by Fisheye and will be sold under the Seatool name (thanks, Ryan!).

The ScubaCam booth was mobbed for most of the show, and I saw multiple film teams hanging out near the Panny housing. Hey, I was hanging out there, too. Larry Tackett came by and said to John, "sell one to Eric so he can let me use it!"

Scubacam booth

Ikelite D200 housing

Ikelite Substrobe 200

Prototype Sony HC1 HDV Camcorder housing, by Fisheye/Seatool

Gates housing for Panasonic HD cam

ScubaPix [www]

Peter Mooney of ScubaPix was showing the Light & Motion Bluefin HD housing for the Sony FX1/Z1U HDV Camcorder. The floor in front of the housing was covered in drool (obviously, lust for the HOUSING -- not for Peter!!)

Peter Mooney shows off the Light & Motion Bluefin HD Housing

Seacam [www]

If there's a constant at dive shows around the world, it's Harald Hordosch. I see him at every show I go to, standing in front of the aesthetically-pleasing Seacam booth with his polishing cloth. Not a single smudge mars any Seacam product for long before Harald notices it and wanders nonchalantly over to polish it off.

Consistent design is one of Seacam's goals, and it really shows. Seacam had on display their brand-new Nikon D200 housing, which has the same, luxurious feel as the rest of Seacam's products. I'll bet I could switch to a Seacam-housed D200 and barely notice.

I also played with Seacam's new strobe, which has an indicator that displays the last fired % power in order to prevent wrong settings. Harald also said that the Seacam strobe is the only strobe that can fire in E-TTL with two strobes connected at once (E-TTL support requires S6 bulkhead and cords). The Seacam strobe doesn't currently have removable batteries, but Harald assured me that we removable batteries will be a feature of the next strobe he designs.

Harald Hordosch with Lance Chen (Seacam China) and Kevin Deacon (Seacam Australia)

Lena Goh with a Seacam D200 housing

Seacam D200 housing

Harald can't stand even a single smudge

Eric Cheng and Harald Hordosch of Seacam. Photo: Paul Ng

Shiny Seacam products

Seacam strobe

Seacam strobe, the only strobe that does E-TTL with two strobes

Seacam strobe

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Hi Guys, again many thanks for some great evenings during ADEX and your hospitality. The best part however was meeting all of you in Person. Take care! Gunther http://web.mac.com/gdeichmann/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html
Posted by Gunther on 2006-05-20 06:51:37 I use these strobes for several months now. I even won the wide ange competition at Celebrate the Sea with them. I love these strobes they really do TTL very good on my D2X (with two strobes).
Posted by cronix on 2006-04-30 15:20:37 How far a fall?!? Doesn't matter, if you drunk it didn't hurt! hahah
Posted by Mike Veitch on 2006-04-27 09:33:57 Peter, you fell into the street all by yourself...Eric had nothing to do with it. You did, however, accomplish the fall with more grace and style than anyone else could have :-)
Posted by tonywu on 2006-04-27 09:30:10 I fell completely through the window and into the street - next time I,m gettin' strapped in before I go drinking with Eric !
Posted by pmooney on 2006-04-27 08:59:08 Thats not an accent... thats betelnut mumbling...
Posted by Mike Veitch on 2006-04-27 00:15:35 Mike - maybe by the time you go to ADEX you'll have lost that Yapese accent you seem to have picked up. :)
Posted by Eric Cheng on 2006-04-26 23:17:16 Mooney falls off bench... hahahahah!!!! Looks like fun Eric! Good review, maybe i go next time.. i seem to know half those people...
Posted by Mike Veitch on 2006-04-26 22:42:50