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Videotaping your dive
trips adds a whole new level of enjoyment to your diving.
There's so much to see and experience during most dives that
it's impossible to remember it all. It's only after watching
the video that you realize all the wonderful things that
happened during your dives. And if you do see something
unforgettable, it's great to have it recorded forever on
video. You don't need to be a camera expert or professional
diver to get great video. You need decent buoyancy control
and the ability to point the camera in the general direction
of the subject. With a little imagination and experience,
you can get some great video.
Here at UnderSea Video we've had similar experiences with underwater video, and we've rented and used various underwater video housings. The problem with renting a housing is that some of them are of poor quality, it's expensive, or as is the case in many dive locations, there are none available for rental.
After we made the decision to buy a housing, we were soon discouraged by the choices available. To get a good quality housing would set us back $1200 to $2000, and that's not even including a decent lighting system. The only housings available under $1000, were heavy, clunky, poorly-designed housings made from PVC.
There had to be a better way! We decided to design a good quality video camera housing that would enable divers to make great underwater videos, and still not cost a small fortune.
We have designed our housing
shell to conform closely to the contours of the SONY
cameras. By minimizing excess air space inside the housing,
the housing is less buoyant. The material we use is a very
high-quality (and expensive) polyurethane. It's very strong,
tough and lightweight. The housing can easily withstand a
depth of 250+', but it's still light enough to take with you
around the world.
To control the camera, we've designed our electronic controls to be very easy and reliable to use. Instead of utilizing one switch mounted on the housing shell that must be moved in three or four different directions to control the camera, we came up with a unique, magnetic push-button control system mounted on the housing's right handle. A simple press of a button sends a signal to the electronic module, which then sends your command to the camera via a cable plugged into the camera's remote control jack. You'll find it easy to control all of the camera's vital functions with just a press of your thumb. You'll find an easy-to-see red LED light that indicates when the camera is recording, a green LED to indicate the camera is on, and a yellow LED to indicate the camera is not in auto focus.
Not only are the controls easy to use, there are no seals or gaskets to maintain. The only maintenance suggested is a quick freshwater rinse of the exterior of the housing after diving.
When it comes to video, the picture you see is only as good as the camera's lens, and that's why we include a very high quality, wide-angle lens with our housing. High quality wide-angle lenses are not just simply ground out of a single piece of glass, they are made with two or more pieces of specially shaped and coated glass. Multi-element lenses cost more, but they provide the best picture clarity and resolution, with minimal distortion throughout the camera's focus and zoom range.
Our multi-element wide angle lens is attached directly to the camera so there's never any camera/lens alignment problems, and you can also use the lens outside of the housing.
For our color-correction filters we went to the best filter manufacturer in the business-UR PRO. Professional filmmakers have been using their top-quality filters for many years, and we are proud to equip our housings with UR PRO filters.