Underwater Case for Epic/Scarlet

[Kevin Gansemans]

Does anyone know where I can rent a underwater case near belgium/netherlands. Or how much it cost to buy one?

Cheers,

[David W. Jones]

While this does not help finding a housing, be sure to watch your camera temperature when enclosing an Epic/Scarlet in a sealed environment without any air circulation.

[Ross Isaacs]

While this does not help finding a housing, be sure to watch your camera temperature when enclosing an Epic/Scarlet in a sealed environment without any air circulation.

Not really a problem as the housing is externally water cooled. I have never had my Deep Red over heat underwater and I live in the tropics.

[C.H.Haskell]

I am taking delivery of an EPIC housing this week and am located in france, I could make it available to you in Paris by friday. Email me via clay (at) haskellfilms (dot) com if your interested.
cheers

[bryanpapierski]

What housing is water cooled. Any pictures?

[Jason Sinclair]

All housings are water cooled no? They go under water.

I personally would try deep x if i was going to buy.

It's great size. It's built by a underwater cinematographer and deep sea diver who is also an engineer. It's a very good price point. It uses nikonos lenses which can be interchanged underwater and are easy to buy and low cost. Also these lenses were built for underwater use.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Nikonos-V...9#ht_500wt_949

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Nikkor_IC.html

The nikon lenses also mean no dome port is needed so the light refraction from the glass at angles means greater edge resolution.

"An air-corrected wide-angle lens behind a dome port, no matter how expensive, will always give lower edge resolution than a properly water-corrected lens. This is due to the introduction of chromatic aberration at the air-water boundary"

From: http://www.camerasunderwater.co.uk/nikonos

"Many Nikonos lenses, the "UW" series, were specifically designed for underwater use with water directly contacting the lens. It is said that, even to this day, no underwater camera system matches the Nikonos lenses for sharpness and color saturation underwater."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikonos

That's what i would buy.

http://achtel.com/DeepX/index.htm

[Pawel Achtel]

Thanks Jason,

Yes, we have just released DeepX. It is the smallest housing for the Epic/Scarlet available. It is also the only housing that can resolve 5k underwater and the only one that does not introduce any distortions.

[Will Keir]

Hey Pawel, how much are you selling these for?

[Pawel Achtel]

Hey Will,

They are $20k without the lens and $21k with a serviced Nikonos 15mm. They are now sold by Band Pro, Burbank.

The package includes titanium side handles and titanium bottom (or top, they fit either way) rails.

If you are quick, there is one listed on eBay that is still at the introductory price of $15,750 and, if you are really quick, I have one with me in LA now. I'm going back to Sydney tomorrow (Wednesday) late afternoon.

I had a pleasure diving with Bob Cranston and Peter Kragh off Catalina yesterday and Bob absolutely loves it. He said that this is what he wants to use for his Epic, which he took underwater for the first time inside the DeepX. He thinks it is the best housing for the Epic, so I'm obviously very happy to hear this coming from Bob.

[Michael Hastings]

All housings are water cooled no? They go under water.

I personally would try deep x if i was going to buy.

It's great size. It's built by a underwater cinematographer and deep sea diver who is also an engineer. It's a very good price point. It uses nikonos lenses which can be interchanged underwater and are easy to buy and low cost. Also these lenses were built for underwater use.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Nikonos-V...9#ht_500wt_949

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Nikkor_IC.html

The nikon lenses also mean no dome port is needed so the light refraction from the glass at angles means greater edge resolution.

"An air-corrected wide-angle lens behind a dome port, no matter how expensive, will always give lower edge resolution than a properly water-corrected lens. This is due to the introduction of chromatic aberration at the air-water boundary"

From: http://www.camerasunderwater.co.uk/nikonos

"Many Nikonos lenses, the "UW" series, were specifically designed for underwater use with water directly contacting the lens. It is said that, even to this day, no underwater camera system matches the Nikonos lenses for sharpness and color saturation underwater."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikonos

That's what i would buy.

http://achtel.com/DeepX/index.htm

Quite a bit of misinformation there...

Nikonos lenses aren't interchangeable underwater. (And no zoom lenses - so always stuck with a single focal length.)

You also fail to mention that the widest non-fisheye - the famous 15mm - is really a 20mm and has an angle of view of 94 degrees on full frame 36x24 mm 35mm SLR sized film but only 75 degrees on Epic 5K and only 63 degrees on 4K. (this is a very significant reason why you should consider keeping your epic and not swapping for a 4K only Scarlet). 94 degrees would be sufficient however even then it is not as wide as almost all modern (i.e. 1990s and later) professional underwater rigs where 100 to 110 degrees is common with rectilinear lenses.

You also should have put the whole quote for the "An air corrected..." quote, it paints a much different picture for digital photography:

Full quote:
"One of the principal advantages of the Nikonos system was the availability of water-corrected lenses, which (before the advent of software radial correction) always gave a higher resolution than an equivalent air-corrected lens mounted behind a port.

An air-corrected wide-angle lens behind a dome port, no matter how expensive, will always give lower edge resolution than a properly water-corrected lens. This is due to the introduction of chromatic aberration at the air-water boundary. If the camera is a digital camera however, or if the film is to be scanned, it is possible to correct for chromatic aberration using software. If software correction is applied, a good air-corrected lens can be turned into a good water-corrected lens, and results similar to or better than those obtained with UW-Nikkor lenses can easily be achieved."

And this quote may have been true a long time ago when it was written:

"Many Nikonos lenses, the "UW" series, were specifically designed for underwater use with water directly contacting the lens. It is said that, even to this day, no underwater camera system matches the Nikonos lenses for sharpness and color saturation underwater." and this part of your post "The nikon lenses also mean no dome port is needed" is misleading since the Nikonos 15 also uses a dome, with additional internal correction for the refocusing and aberrations. In fact the reason the actual 20mm lens is called a 15mm Nikonos is that when it was introduced decades ago there were almost always only flat ports - so they called it a 15mm since it was equivalent to a 15mm behind a flat port! But in the past 15 years or so (since the Nikonos died) there have been several fully corrected optics sold that approach or exceed the Nikonos 15 (Expensive, but not as much as a Deep-X). Since the overwhelming majority of professional underwater motion pictures were being shot with 2/3" or smaller sensors, it is only recently that those designs are being scaled up to work with the larger sensors in our Scarlets and Epics.

I know this is repetitious, but you and Pawel are also being repetitious in promotion to newcomers without adequately acknowledging the serious limitations of using lenses designed for a much larger format - in a medium (underwater) that demands getting as wide a field of view as you can reasonably get. In most situations the much greater color saturation and overall clarity you get with shooting with 90+ degree field of view and therefore through a shorter water column, will outweigh the increased sharpness on the edges that you might get with the Nikonos lens.