From: "John Waddington" <waddinj_at_ripnet.com> > What underwater housing do you use? Several folks contacted me offline about this so I thought I'd expand on the gear a tad. My camera is a Canon PowerShot A40 digital camera with the Canon housing. My objectives were many, but key among them were: 1 - Generic batteries (AA format) 2 - CompactFlash memory 3 - Underwater housing made for camera. Item 3 limited me basically to Olympus, Sony and Canon, since generic housings are either not impressive or very expensive. CompactFlash isn't compact (largest type made for cameras) but it is smart (unlike Smart Media) with a built-in controller on the memory card. This means the camera is more likely to work with future CF cards. CF is also the market leader in volume, so I like the fact that it is an accepted standard (unlike new ones like Secure Digital, MMC and others). This eliminates Sony and Olympus, leaving Canon. I prefer AA format batteries (NiMH rechargeables for normal use) since that doesn't tie me to a specific and usually expensive battery source. With AA, I can recharge at home, in the car or in the kayak (tapping off my 12V pump battery!) Solar chargers are also available, something not too many custom batteries can adapt to. The AA can also be used in my flashlights, headlamp, VHF and so many other kayak & camping gadgets that they are the ones to standardize on. Once I realized that only Canon fit the bill for me, the cost and other criteria meant the A40 was the one. It's a 2 megapixel camera but it has both auto and manual settings - most small cameras only operate on auto with a few overrides. It has a 3x zoom (35-105mm equivalent). It can also take an adapter for telephoto and wide angle lenses as well as filters. The reviews were good so that was it. The camera pretty much works as described in the reviews. The focussing mechanism is fine most of the time, but it does have problems with macro or close-up photos. Battery life is very good. The zoom mechanism is like that of several other digital cameras - it allows about six different focal lengths rather than a continuous range of focal lengths - this is annoying since it limits in-camera composition. The viewfinder only covers 80% of the image (why????? - so many cameras are like this; 100% is rare). The LCD screen on the back does show 100%, but it is invisible in full sunlight. Until we get reflective screens (akin to digital paper - still in the lab :-( ), we'll have this problem. I use a 128 megabyte memory card - good for 200 photos with full resolution (1600x1200) and a bit of compression. That's roughly 8 rolls of film. Given that you can review the photos in the camera and delete the ones you don't want, you can make that last for a week-long trip. The underwater housing is generally superb. All controls are available through the housing, so anything you can do above water, you can do below. Some other housings I've seen only offer a subset of functionality (the Canon reviewed in Sea Kayaker recently couldn't be turned on and off in its housing. I've seen one housing that only had a shutter release). It is waterproof to 30 meters (100 feet). That's good enough for most scuba diving. The housing appears to be polycarbonate, so I'm not worried about toughness. There is a coated glass lens that the camera lens sees through. A pressure relief valve automatically allows air pressure equalization when you open the case - much easier than my old Minolta underwater camera, where a pressure change meant fighting to open the back. There are a few drawbacks with the housing. It took me a while to get used to the anti-fog solution that goes inside the housing lens. Since water is usually colder than air, any humidity in the housing will condense when the housing is submerged. The anti-fog solution leaves streaks on the lens unless you get it spread out just right. Canon suggests using silica gel bags in the housing if it's really humid. The viewfinder is partly blocked by the lens housing; you can only see the upper right of the field of view. Limited eye relief means that seeing thru this viewfinder wearing a dive mask is tricky. The LCD screen is washed out at snorkelling depths if the sky is relatively bright, so it's not too useful. Even if I could see the LCD, with my contact lenses in, I'd have to add reading glasses to my dive mask (these exist, but I haven't got them yet). Most of the photos I posted on my web site were shot with me holding the camera and aiming it by pointing it roughly in the direction of the field of interest and using the widest focal length - no composition. I'm thinking of making some kind of wire frame viewfinder to attach to the tripod mount to overcome these problems. The buttons are stiff, but that's to be expected since they have to resist water pressure to 30 meters. I've pointed out a lot of the negatives. That doesn't mean that this is a problem - I'm just making sure you don't get an unrealistic expectation of what such cameras and housings can do. The problems, for the most part, are typical of _all_ digital (and some film) cameras and housings. As I said, I think this housing is superb! We'd need another step up in technology to fix some of these, so if you can't live with the problems, wait a few years. Given the option of nothing versus this camera, I much prefer this camera! Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. 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