Complete Guide to Underwater Housings (Aquatica vs Sea Frogs vs Ikelite)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- To all the underwater filmmakers and photographers, aspiring underwater creators or just diving enthusiasts, here's a complete and comprehensive guide to underwater housings for professional cameras.
In this video, I'm comparing three main brands: Aquatica Digital, Sea Frogs and Ikelite.
I'm going in details through all the important features of a housing: setting it up, vacuum pump & leak detector, access to the camera controls, dome (acrylic vs glass), buoyancy and overall built quality in order to finally be able to give my conclusion on which one is the best and why but also which one I'd recommend depending on your situation.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I'll make sure to help !
Make sure to subscribe to the channel for the upcoming films and videos !
Follow my adventures on :
Instagram:
@zimydakid
/ zimydakid
Facebook:
Zimy Da Kid
/ zimydakid
#underwaterphotography #underwater #shark #sharkdiving #underwaterfilming #aquaticadigital #seafrogs #ikelite
Video summary:
0:00 - Intro
1:19 - Setting it up
3:21 - Leak detector & vacuum pump
6:59 - Access to the camera controls
10:46 - Domes (Acrylic vs. Glass)
15:04 - Buoyancy
16:50 - Built quality
17:25 - Conclusion 
Кино
Hi everyone !
Hope you found it interesting !
Here are a few updates:
- I forgot to mention the zoom device. On the ikelite it's a huge pain to put the lens in place with it. Moreover, once it's in place, sometimes it "jumps" and just doesn't work... On the Aquatica, it's super easy to put the lens in place with the zoom ring and never failed.
- I mentionned that there aren't any glass domes available for SeaFrogs but they now have glass domes. Have never tried them so I can't tell if they're good or not.
- Also I mentioned the fact that the blurry corners depend on the material of the dome which is correct. The blurry corners will mainly depend on the size of your dome and also on the adapter between the housing and the dome. I recommend using bigger domes. The bigger the dome, the less blurry corners you will have.
I’m sorry, but I have to correct you on your remarks about the blurriness in the corners. It has nothing to do with the material of the dome. It results from the fact that the dome works as a negative lens that produces a virtual image close to the dome. Thus infinity will appear to be about 3 times the radius of the dome in front of the dome. Whatever the material of the dome. It’s the shape of the water that is working as a lens. The problem is that this virtual image is curved. So think of infinity. It’s virtual image will be like a sphere segment with a radius 3 times the dome radius. The blurriness in the corners occurs because normal lenses are built to focus on a flat plane, not on a curved sphere segment. Therefore the lens cannot focus simultaneously on the center and the corner.
Now that we understand the problem, we can see there are 3 solutions: First: Use a bigger dome so the virtual image is further away and therefore easier to catch within your depth of field. This is why the really big domes (23cm) are optically better than the smaller domes. They are a pain in the as to travel with though. Second: Use smaller apertures. This increases your depth of field and therefore the corner sharpness will improve. This will require a slower shutterspeed or a higher ISO setting. Third and best: Use a fisheye lens instead of a regular rectilinear lens wide angle. Fisheye lenses do not focus on a plane. They focus on a curved shape that is much more similar to the curved virtual image of the dome. I have used fisheye lenses underwater, and depending on the lens used, the corner sharpness can be awesome. At any aperture. Like a Nikonos water contact lens.
Thanks for the detailed informations. This is indeed very true. I can definitely tell the difference whether I’m using a smaller glass dome or a bigger one, I have much more blurry corners on the smaller one ! Thanks for the comment !
Which one will be the best lens to shoot with? for a underwater on a swimming pool photoshoot ?
@@GPhotoFashion Good question. Normally a fisheye lens will look quite natural underwater because there are no straight lines underwater that a fisheye lens would bend. Like I wrote: Fisheye lenses will give you sharper corners, but in a pool setting, the distortion will become very obvious. Especially if the pool is tiled. Do some street photography with a fisheye lens and ask yourself if you can live with that kind of distortion. If not, use a wide-angle lens. If the pool is outside, there should be a lot of light, so you can use small apertures on the wide angle lens to improve the corner sharpness.
@@Mayadude66 got it thanks I have my first underwater photoshoot in a few weeks, which underwater lights will you recommend ? im buying the seafrog housing, or the flash lihts will be better?
One benefit you get from using an acrylic dome is that it can be polished after getting scratched up, instead of buying a new one. You can normally buy a kit including special sandpaper and polish where you buy the housings
that's true ! didn't mention it in the video
Yes. Was looking for this video for such a long time!
Merci vielmal🤣
Happy you enjoyed it !
Amazing review! Checked Seafrogs out and now they have upgraded the sealing mechanism with warning of leakage and a glass dome and other goodies.
Great video! I've been diving more than 10m with seafrog and all good! 🙌🏽
Great information on these housings. Thank you.
You are awesome ! Thank you for this information, keep crushing it !
happy you enjoyed it !
needed this video!!!
Thanks for such an informative video, with pros and cons of each housing ❤
Glad u found it interesting
thank you, it was a pleasure to watch all the footage while listening to all the informations! great work. I'm not sure which one is best for starting this journey, because i will not dive more than 1-2 times a year and i want to take some photos. So i think about the seafrogs for A7RV with the new 6" Glass Dome Option. With all of it's downsides.
Been waiting on this 🙌🏾! I can confirm all the negatives on the Ikelite housing, I've experienced ALL of that & some things you didn't mention:
• The Zoom accessories are a pain to assemble/connect & then, it's unreliable. It will EASILY pop out of place & you won't have access to the zoom. It doesn't take much to bump it out. Choppy ocean/bouncy boat? Your zoom will probably pop out.
It got so frustrating, I wouldn't use it. I just set my 16-35 lens on 20mm & crop in editing.
• The Buttons -- basically all the issues you had, but for me, also the On/Off knob at times wouldn't catch, so it'd take me multiple tries to switch the camera ON (missing action shots 🙃) & then, when I thought I turned it OFF to save battery life, it didn't & I'd end up with a dead battery** & couldn't shoot (missing shots 🙃).
The buttons not contacting the camera body was also a massive issue. Definitely due to the vacuum pressure &/or ocean pressure. Either way, I rigged up a DIY solution:
I put super glue to thicken the rubber contact points & made it "spiky" for more texture to GRIP once it contacts the buttons on my camera.
^^that pretty much fixed the issue...but I shouldn't have to DIY things just to make a product work.
I like Ikelite as a company & I do like their price points, as a mid-range introduction to full-on UW photography...but have to agree, when paying $3500-4000+ for housing, ports, accessories. You want the build quality to be better & the functionality to be reliable.
I'm looking at Aquatica (& Marelux or Sea&Sea) for upgrades. But right now, only Aquatica has a Z9 housing & that's $8000 just for the housing 😳, it'd be $12-14k to fully outfit my rig...I can't justify that (at the moment).
**I'd use the vacuum pump to pressurize my housing & wouldn't bring it with me on the boat tours, so I COULDN'T de-pressurize the housing in order to change the batteries.
Hey ! Thank you very much for your feedback !
Glad to see that I'm right and that you're having the same kind of issues.
Indeed, I didn't talk about the zoom thing but I also had issues with it: hard to put the lens in place with it and also once it's in, sometimes it was "jumping", it just wasn't working as well...
I really wouldn't recommend this brand, so over priced for what you get...
Would love to see some tips on shooting underwater! Love your vids man
Top la vidéo, merci pour ces explications simples et précises ! J’ai testé récemment un Seafrogs, ils sont top et super rapport qualité prix.
Merci content que tu aies apprécié!
Very good video!!
Always dope 🎉
thanks man happy you enjoyed it !
I'm actually curious about what you think I should get if ill just start out.
I'm not planning on using my camera for going in the ocean. But actually I'm thinking of using it to film artistic swimming/syncro or creative underwater video.
I think the Ikelite would suffice to start for me and in the future I would definitely get an aquatica.
But what do you think is best for me to start with? If anyone has an opinion on this feel free to give me your opinion. I have a zv-e1 too
Seafrogs do sell glass domes (maybe just recently?) and I'm planning to buy the case on their site and the glass dome separately on Ali bc I just can't find all of their options on their site which is really weird. 6 inch dome is the largest they're selling I think if you choose glass. Do you think I should go for the port that fits my 14mm F1.8 GM or Sigma 24-70 for underwater photography? If you had to choose 1. Thanks
What is the background track you’re using halfway through?
Hi Zimy! Thank you for the very informative video with the great shark and whale shots! I am now sure that I will buy the Aquatica housing for my new Sony! As a newcomer from Canon to Sony, I would be very grateful if you could also make a video about your camera settings when filming underwater!! The shots of the beautiful mako shark in the beautiful light are just brilliant ❣ I wish you continued good light and many sharks 👍 Martin
Hey thank you so much ! Happy to read that ! I'll make another video with tips on how to shoot underwater for sure ! Will try to do it as soon as possible. Thanks again for the support !
@@ZimyDaKid Thank you very much! I am already looking forward to the video! It's a big help!
Thaks Zimy! Your video was really helpfull! im looking for a housing for my a7sIII and it helps me a lot. What about the manual focus? Do you use it when you are shooting video? or its not so common?
I never shoot manual focus underwater. The AF on the Sony cameras is so good that I always use it underwater.
Great Job bro, i have a dream which is shoot underwater. tks for your video
Happy you enjoyed it !
will the seafront will work for swimming pools photoshoots?
How many depth Vps100 vacuum for seafrog ?
Merci pour ta review des plus complètes! Ton comparatif, vraiment pertinent, est attendu par beaucoup à mon avis!
Je galère personnellement avec les gouttelettes sur le dôme en shooting surf. Tu aurais une recommandation car le rain-x ne suffit pas 😅?
Hello ! Merci content que tu aies kiffer ! Alors pour les gouttelettes malheureusement je peux pas t'aider jai jamais tester de mettre quelque chose sur le dôme. Comme tu peux voir dans ma vidéo avec les split shot quand je parle des domes, avec le Aquatica il n'y a pas de goutelette.
Thanks for the video it was really informative. What about the Acquatech brand?
Aquatech aren’t really made for diving. They are made for surfing as u can’t go very deep with them.
Hi from franceee ! 😊 thanks so much for your advices. I have juste a question : how does the zoom behave underwater? is it easy and smooth to zoom? like on terrestrial photo or not? because I heard that on Ikelite it was laborious, the zoom freezes... thank you if you answer me! have a nice holiday ❤
Hello Marion ! Alors je parle français donc je te rep en français c plus simple ahah Alors ça dépend des boitiers: sur les seafrogs c'est l'enfer ça marche pas, 1 fois sur 2 le zoom ring est pas adapté à la lens donc jai vu des gens qui devaient mettre des bout de papier pour la caler etc donc c vrmn nul. Sur Ikelite ça marche assez bien honnêtement, ça arrive que ça saute un coup mais normalement ça marche bien avec mon 16-35 2.8. Sur aquatica aucun problème ça marche parfaitement.
great video. are you doing this underwater filmmaking full-time? or do you do other work that allows you to finance it?
happy you like it ! Yes I work as a film director and producer full time. You can see my work on IG @zimydakid or on my websites www.zimydakid.com and www.zimyzfilmz.com. Filming underwater is my favorite stuff but I don't only do underwater I also shoot outdoor stuff, sports, mountains, etc etc
I have the Ikelite Dl200 with 2 DS230 strobes. I agree 95 percent with your judgment. The buoyancy definitely an issue. Also the aperture controls not working. I don’t agree with durability overall so much. I do agree the small acrylic 8 inch dome is a NO NO 60% of its surface is not sharp. The bigger dome they sell is also not sharp at the corners but with wide angle you can get away. Knowing what I know now after one year of UW photography I would not buy into this system. Sharpness and smoothness of operation is key, more than anything when getting to the subjects is difficult. Thanks for this video. For newbies if Ikelite is on your list of option only with a simple compact camera. The case for the flagship cameras at least Sony ones do not cut it. I have to say they are not far from being much much better. They just don’t seem to have the business need I guess 😢
Merci bcp pour cette vidéo dommage que tu ne compare pas non plus avec nauticam.
Pour ma part j'ai un ikelite que j'utilise avec un a73 + 16-35 f2.8 GM.
Je photographie des orques et baleines. Je cherche à améliorer la qualité de mes photos, j'ai compris que le dôme pourrais aider mais que penses tu de l'objectif ?Une focale fixe type 20 ou 24mm offre un meilleur résultat que le 16-35 ?
D'ailleurs tu utilises qu'elle focale pour les baleines ?
Autrement pour ikelite je suis également déçu, lors d'une mise à l'eau impossible d'allumer mon boîtier, les commandes ne fonctionnaient pas correctement... Je suis obligé de laisser le boîtier allumé avant la mise à l'eau...
Encore merci pour ta vidéo et tu devrais venir faire un tour en Norvège pour les orques ... Tu vas kiffer 😉 si tu veux des infos.
Hey Jon !
Merci pour ton message ! Effectivement je n'ai pas de Nauticam à disposition mais j pense que c'est assez similaire à Aquatica.
Top pour les orques et baleines ! Perso je conseillerai pas le 20 ou 24, je pense qu'un zoom c'est mieux tu as plus de possibilité. 16-35 c'est top c'est un peu plus polyvalent que 12-24. Moi j'utilise principalement le 12-24 psk à 12 c'est vraiment cool mais c'est un peu kit ou double faut que l'animal soit vraiment proche alors qu'avec le 16-35 tu as un peu plus de reach.
Great stuff.
Just got an Ikelite for my D850. I wish your video came out earlier.
1st annoying point : Pretty disappointed with the wheels commands operated with those rubber cylinders.
2nd annoying point : The ring adapter for the Nikon 16-35 f4 is awful and hardly fits the port.
3rd annoying point : I see you've got port screws rings broken. That's quite common if they are tighten too strong.
Regarding buyoancy of the Ikelite dome. They released a way smaller one that still fits UGA lenses. But its almost as expensive as the big one.
Yeah same for me... I bought it long time ago but I really regret it. It's so over priced for what you get...
Thank you for the information
glad you found it interesting !
got any experience or opinions about nauticam?
Pourquoi j'ai envie d'acheter un aquatica et partir en expédition avec toi maintenant ? 👀
J'ai acheté un Sea Frogs il y a quelques années mais il faut clairement les spots et le temps pour se faire plaisir avec !
ahah yeah tu devrai venir a une de nos expéditions une fois tu kifferai a fond ! Je pense que le sea frogs cest bien pour débuter, ça évite de mettre trop d argent et ca permet de s entrainer. Par contre quand tu commence a bien t investir et a vouloir faire des images vrmn top tu es très vite limité.
Hey, merci pour ta vidéo! J'ai une question, est-ce que tu recommandes d'acheter le vacuum pump et leak detector du coup pour le sea frog underwater housing? Quelles seraient les accessoires que tu recommanderais?:)) (Est-ce que le aluminium tray est nécessaire) 🙏merciii
Salut je viens d’acheter un caisson sea frog également, si jamais tu as eu les réponses à tes questions, chaud de savoir !
@@mathisbarrau298 Malheureusement pas, mais je pense que c'est conseillé d'acheter le vacuum pump pour éviter tout type de leaking..
hello ! alors perso je conseille le vacum pump comme ça avant d aller a l eau tu peux etre sur qu'il y a pas de leak. Mnt comme expliqué dans la vidéo le vacum et leak detector des sea frogs sont pas ouf psk tu px pas les laisser sur le boitier si tu dive a + que 10m sauf erreur. Concernant les handle aluminium 100% il faut des poignées, tu as aucun grip sur ta camera autrement, c'est pas du tout pratique, tes shots vont pas être stable et du risque meme de la lacher.
What focal length do you find yourself shooting at primarily under water?
I mainly shoot with 12-24 2.8. But also 16-35 2.8, 90 2.8 macro and 50 1.4
What ND filter are you using on your sony 12-24 lens?
I don’t use ND filters underwater
What made you choose the Aquatica over a Nauticam? Also have you tried fitting an A7siii in the A1 housing? Thanks
The price!! And as I can see the focus wheel but just looking now
well I think both are really good. The reason is that I have a partnership with Aquatica, they decided to support our work for shark conservation while nauticam didn't care...
it wouldn't work to put the 7siii in the a1 housing. The camera body isn't the same and the cam controls aren't at the same places
top la vidéo
Merci content que ça t'aie plu !
Can't you map the shutter speed to a dial or switch between SS and Aperture by a button without going into the menu?
I'm not sure about this one. But even if you can do it without going through the menu, you'll still lose time and you don't wanna lose time underwater. You have to be quick because things usually only happen once with wildlife.
yes you can - I own A7iii and Seafrogs dive case - I map shutter speed on top wheel and aperture on back wheel and that's it
@@oliviervignau4599 thanks for clarifying!
Do you use red filter on your dives?
No I don’t. I always do a very specific white balance depending on depth and water color. I should make a new video specifically about this
seafrogs do have glass dome options!
yes that's new. they didnt have them before
Just get an Oly Tough series camera and Sea Frog carbonate housing. Easy peasy 😊
Do you have an opinion on Sea and Sea?
never tried them
❤❤❤❤❤
🙌🙌
👍
😁
I not even had to finish the video to see that he is ONLY in favour of the AQUATICA. I had two Aquatica housings for the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II and was very happy when I finally got RID OFF them both for a few reasons. The housing may be the solution if you tend to "abuse" your gear underwater. Sturdy aluminum housing with complex and unlogic controls set-ups no doubts. What really annoyed me the terrible customer service at AQUATICA/AMPHIBICO HQ in Montreal QC. Most parts I tried to order were rejected or not processed. Local (West Canada) housing service person was the worst I ever dealt with. No respond to accomodate my service schedule what so ever. Lot of internal parts fell off or broke wihout abuse, just got broken by material fatique. I could go on and on.
Ikelite housings have 2 backplates, rated at 15m and a 60m, sure you didnt have the 15m and thats why the buttons stuck at 16m?
I can confirm I have the 60m version
Seafrogs (at least now) DO offer glass domes.
That’s new. When I was recording the video they didn’t.
I also already mentioned it in the pinned comment
You should disclose up front that you have a financial relationship with Aquatica. Also, in English "LED" is pronounced by saying each letter--not like the metal "lead". Took me a while to figure out what you were talking about.
I don't have a financial relationship with Aquatica, I don't get a single penny from them... And thanks for the heads up regarding LED, sorry english is not my mother tongue.