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Products Ordering Info Common
Questions |
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Push buttons are
much easier to use than slide switches mounted in
various places on the housing, because slide
switches are hard to feel (especially when wearing
gloves) and some of them have to be moved in
different directions (as many as four) to control
the camera. Our push buttons are all conveniently
located under your thumb on the right and left
handle, with a separate button for each camera
function control. Push buttons are harder to design
and manufacture, but ours are very simple to use,
have no parts that will wear out, and they need no
maintenance other than a quick rinse in freshwater
after diving. (The entire outside of the housing
should be dunked or rinsed in freshwater after
diving.) The companies who make housings with manual controls have been doing so for at least 10 years and will tell you their rods and levers placed all over the housing shell are time-tested and more reliable than electronic controls but they don't tell you some important facts. The first important fact is that electronic controls are much easier to use. M Users of a mechanically-controlled housing will often have to release their grip on a handle in order to reach one of the control levers or knobs. This results in a noticeable jarring of the video image. Another handicap is the need to use both hands while filming because mechanical control levers and knobs must be placed on both sides of the housing. USVH Our housing controls are all push-buttons located under your right and left thumb and you will never need to release your grip on a handle in order to activate a camera control. Sometimes you may want to let go of the left or right handle grip to steady yourself or reach into a tight spot with your extended right arm. With our controls you only need one finger to access all of the important camera functions. M On a housing with mechanical controls each of the levers and knobs has its own o-ring and hardware that must be serviced properly and checked to reduce the chance of a leak that will ruin the camera. USVH Our electronic controller has no seals or o-rings to maintain. All we suggest is that you rinse or dunk the housing in freshwater after use. Changing cameras. If you decide to upgrade your camera it is unlikely that the mechanical knobs, levers, and rods customized for the camera you have now will be in the right place for your next camera. Our controller doesn't care which SONY or CANON camera you use now or in the future because the controller codes we use were developed by SONY and CANON to work with virtually all of their cameras. Another important fact is that not all electronic controls are the same. Some housing companies' electronic controls are far more reliable and user-friendly than others. For example, Light and Motion has their uncovered electronic boards mounted inside the housing shell with no protection from humidity and corrosion, and this does cause problems. Amphibico uses seals in their handle control that require very careful attention and all too frequent replacement. Quest and Seacam use a single hat button that must be pushed in four directions with your thumb just to activate the camera controls. Our controls are different and have proven to be very reliable. There are no seals needed around our buttons-they are surrounded by the water. The magnets used to activate our controller's magnetic switches don't corrode like many other brands because ours are nickel plated. Our housing controller's electronics are encapsulated in a waterproof epoxy unit mounted in the handle that can be removed easily by removing two screws. Coming out of the control module is a cable with an underwater-pluggable connector on the end that mates to an underwater-pluggable connector bonded into the housing shell. The connector design is similar to that used on submarines. You can unplug the connector underwater and it will not leak. More camera control. Mechanical housing manufacturers will tell you they offer more control over the camera than you can get with electronic controls. This is not true. Some important camera functions are accessed via buttons underneath the LCD screen and can't be reached with a mecahnical rod and lever. Many other camera functions are accessed via tiny little buttons that are are almost impossible to press reliably with mechanical controls even if you manage to get your camera positioned inside the housing with the perfect alignment required for mechanical controls. Electronic controls have none of these problems. If electronic controls fail you can still put your camera in the housing and use it. If a mechanical control fails you won't have a useable camera.
What is the purpose of a wide angle lens or dome port?They allow your
camera to see a wider field of view so more fits
onto the image. They do this by de-magnifying the
image by about 50%-70%. If your camera is 2 feet
away from a subject, it looks like you're 3-4 feet
away, and the camera is able to fit more into the
picture. You are also able to get closer to your
subject and this reduces the amount of water
between the camera and subject. Being closer
improves the color and resolution of the image. What is a dome port?Dome ports are a
single piece of ground or shaped piece of plastic
or glass and they widen the camera's field of view.
You'll find them on Quest, Ikelite, and Gates
housings as well as a few others. The dome port
focuses a virtual image about 1-2 feet in front of
the camera, which is fine for still cameras, but as
soon as you zoom (with a video camera) more than
about 20%, your focal distance goes past the
virtual image, and the camera can't focus. Hence
the zoom is almost useless with a dome port. For
this reason, dome ports are best suited for
underwater still cameras. Note: The dome ports
being used by most video housing manufacturers are
relatively inexpensive to make but their retail
price generates very high profit. How do I use my zoom with a housing that has a dome port?You need to remove
the dome port and install a flat port. Then you can
use the zoom thru it's full range, but you also
lose the wide viewing angle and the benefits of
being closer to your subject. On most housings you
will have to decide before the dive which port you
will use because they're not changeable
underwater. Is there another way to get a wide viewing angle and still be able to use the zoom?Yes. For all the
reasons mentioned above, USVH housings do
not
have dome
ports. USVH housings are equipped with a flat
acrylic port, and a wide angle lens mounted on the
camera inside the housing. Some housing
manufacturers mount the lense outside the housing
shell where it can be easily scratched, and then
you get to pay them more than $300 to have it
replaced. In side-by-side tests between our lense
and theirs, ours offered slightly better zoom range
and sharper image resolution.The lens we supply
contains two pieces of specially coated glass for
increased resolution and minimal distortion. The
resolution is better than that found on a dome
port, you are able to do macro shots, and you can
still utilize about 70%-100% of the camera's zoom
range-all without changing ports. With our optics
you can film something crawling on the port and
then zoom in on a fish 100 feet away. You can also
use the wide angle lens on the camera outside of
the housing. Why do I see more blue and less red and yellow when I go deeper underwater?Sunlight (and any other light) is made up of all different colors. Water filters light and removes some of the different colors. In the first 10 feet of water, virtually all of the colors in the spectrum pass thru the water. As you get below 10 feet, more and more of the red and yellow part of the light gets filtered out, but the blue light continues to pass thru to reflect off of objects-which makes them appear bluer than they really are. When you get below 80-100 feet, there's almost no red or yellow left, and even some of the blue is now getting filtered out. Red objects appear very dark or even black, and most everything else looks blue or black.  What does a color-correction filter do?A good color
correction filter removes some of the blue light
from the image, so that reds and yellows are
relatively stronger. Since there is plenty of red
and yellow light available near the surface, a
filter isn't used, but once you go deeper than 10
feet, the filter really helps "add back" some of
the color that would be otherwise lost. Should I use a color-correction filter all the time?No. Above 10 feet
the filter will make things appear too red. The
same thing will happen if there is incandescent or
halogen light illuminating your subject. Our filter
is removeable while underwater to eliminate these
problems. This is a very important feature. Are all color-correction filters the same?No. We use UR PRO
brand color-correction filters. They are widely
acknowledged as the best in the business (even IMAX
uses them), and they are very high-quality. Not
only do they provide the best color correction,
they also have the same light refractive index as
water, so any small scratches on the filter do not
show up underwater. UR PRO filters cost us more
than 5 times as much as the filters that several
other manufacturers use, but those other filters
scratch easily (and the scratches are visible
underwater), and are colored with a water-based dye
that fades with time. Are there different UR PRO filters for different types of water?Yes. For water that is predominantly green (North American West coast) the proper filter is a magenta color "GR". For tropical blue water the filter is a salmon color "CY". Note: most other manufacturers don't offer you a choice of filters.
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Why do
UnderSea's housings have push-button controls
instead of sliding controls like most other
housings have?