Underwater housing as D-Box

[wlie 0]

So I scratched my idea about building a custom d-box for my old Sony CCD-TR71 using marine fiberglass kits.

After talking to a co-worker friend who's into marine stuff and photography, he mentioned that it might be easier to find what's called a "blimp". Since my main concern is to minimize the air traveling in the camera thus fluttering the tape, anything that's watertight should also work.

So I looked, and I found one.
Anybody else ever done that?

My other ride is the relative wind.

[vidiot 0]

First off all, drill a little hole in it so the air pressure can equalize.

My Logbook

[Cajones 0]

I've used a Sony waterproof box on some jumps. There are some things to consider. I used the enclosure for a water landing during bridge day - it performed very well. I also used the box for pond swooping (also with the Bonehead Shu-Vue). It also worked very well.

The difficulties were in operating the camera. You can see the microphone and LANC connectors in your photos. Both of these work well. The real difficulty comes when you want to mount a wide angle lens.

Sony designs these enclosures to put the lens against the "porthole" in the front of the box (as does every other manufacturer of these boxes). The only lens I could fit the camera inside of the box with was the .3 Diamond. Superb lens, and very compact. To fit this required a modification of the mounting system for the camera. Wasn't as easy as I'd have liked. Additionally, the LANC controller from Sony automatically placed the camera into auto-focus. There does not seem to be a way to override this function. The .3 lens will not work with auto-focus, so the LANC controller built into the box could not be used. The camera had to be left on - and recording - and then sealed up.

These toys are also not cheap. If you can find one where you live, they are certainly more expensive than a d-box designed for skydiving.

The laws of physics are strictly enforced.

[wlie 0]

Yap. I didn't think I was going to get off easy without my Dremel.

What do you think of these Raynox .5 or .3 clip-on lenses?

I figure they're pretty thin, and if I could secure them to my camera somehow so they won't dislodge easily, I've got it made - I hope.

I actually found one for $46 total, and when I looked for ones to fit the PC style cameras they were like $200++. I figure that since I'll be spending around $60 or more by the time I'm done messing with fiberglass, then I'd have to work out any bugs, and it won't look so pretty. ++, going this route might be my best bet.

Anyway, my camera's an old Sony CCD-TR71 from 1992. It's not worth much so if I trash it, oh well. So I thought I might as well use it to learn how to fly camera without having to fork out as much $$$ as possible.

BTW, if you have pictures of your waterproof housings or setup, could you post them for us to see?

My other ride is the relative wind.

[Cajones 0]

I don't have any pictures of just the waterproof housing setup with the camera inside. Check to see how much clearance your camera has inside the waterproof box. That is, the space in front and behind the camera, mounted inside the box. This will tell me if you have enough room to mount the wide-angle.

The laws of physics are strictly enforced.