Underwater Camera Hire

Cheezypuf

Forgive me if there's a gazillion threads on this subject already - I searched and couldn’t find anything.

Does anyone have any recommendations about where to hire a decent underwater camera? I'm not looking for just a compact point'n'click. I hired one in Australia a while back like that and the flash was useless.

I was looking at this place.

http://www.underwatercamerahire.com/DX-1G.html

Anyone any ideas (other than random Googling)?

uprising

Why not hire from THAT place, seem's a fair price and is in the UK (well I presume as it says £), I don't think you will find anywhere in Ireland.
I was looking for underwater housing for my camera before and couldn't find anywhere in Ireland, there isn't a market here.
I've seen underwater camera's for hire in Phuket for button's (till you damage it!), but this neck of the wood's they are quite scarce.
I'd say go with your link, maybe you'll need to pay a little extra for courier but £50 per week aint bad.

joeKel73

Where are you located? And what are you wanting from the camera? What are you hoping to shoot?

I have an underwater camera but not sure what level of gear you're looking for! Huge range in price and quality out there....

Cheezypuf

I'm in Dublin, but I'm going to St Lucia and Barbados in January. I have a DSLR camera, but there's no underwater housing made for it. The main thing I want from the camera is a decent light. The built in flash with a wee Fuji Finepix or equivalent isn't powerful enough underwater.

The STG£50 in the link I posted seems reasonable. I just thought there might be somewhere in Ireland that would do something similar.

joeKel73

<snip, unnecessary>

That does look like a good price for what they're giving... I'd go with that! Haven't heard of a rental service here and can't imaging it being a better price if there were.

Cheezypuf

Actually, the guy from the link I posted has just come back to me and told me that they'll deliver to the UK only, so I guess I have to come up with a plan B.

trishw78

Why not get a Canon G10 (other cameras are ok) & waterproof housing. You'll probably get it fairly cheap.

joeKel73

You could have a look at some second-hand options here: http://divegear.ie/index.php?category=For+Sale&sub_category=Photography

.... you could buy one... use it for a few weeks, then sell it on that site again...

I can't imagine you'd need a big stobe setup for Barbados!

pete4130

Cheezypuf wrote: »

Actually, the guy from the link I posted has just come back to me and told me that they'll deliver to the UK only, so I guess I have to come up with a plan B.

I'm living in London and I wouldn't mind receiving it and sending it onto you registered mail. I'm not a thieving scumbag either. DarrenG, Fajitas, Thonda, Calina and a few others would vouch for me on here if you do need a UK address....also....think Belfast is just up the road if you have an address there, thats in the UK too!

ciano6

i'ved dived with scube steve in st lucia a good bit and they rent cameras at their base.

macrubicon

Cheezypuf wrote: »

I'm in Dublin, but The built in flash with a wee Fuji Finepix or equivalent isn't powerful enough underwater.

I have some great shots from 50M down with a wee Fuji Finepix F11 - if you get a filter and a diffusion job for the flash you can make it go a long long way in clear water. OK - a lot of them are going to close up macro ones but even the overall scene stuff is great - the filter makes all the difference.

I got the housing from camera's underwater in the UK - an Ikelite one that comes with diffusers for the flash and optional filters for blue water ( not here ! ) and green water (here !) and they delivered to here with no problems.

joeKel73

With the huge range in compact cameras, you might have used a poor one before. Most are quite good at macro, and if you're going for larger scene shots then most flashes will get lost in the water anyway - nearly better off illuminating your subject with a torch.

Here's a shot I took with a basic point & shoot (no manual mode, very little control) @ 15m in Killary (Galway/Mayo) on a fairly overcast day with onboard flash;



Have a look for second hand setups. I bought a like-new casing for a Canon powershot A570IS recently for €40, then got the camera on eBay for €40. Camera has full manual control. If you got something like that, you should be able to sell it combined for much more once you get back!

macrubicon wrote: »

if you get a filter and a diffusion job

What kind of filter? If it's just correcting the green colour a bit then you can always do that on the computer after!

macrubicon

foto joe wrote: »

What kind of filter? If it's just correcting the green colour a bit then you can always do that on the computer after!

For warmer places with nice blue water you want an amber filter - you can probably do it on the PC as well but it was fairly cheap ( about £15 if my memory serves me ) and has saved a lot of time at the PC post processing.

Below is a shot from the Fuji Finepix F11 with the amber filter and a little help from a torch ! This one is about 45m down.

Cheezypuf

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll obviously have to give this a bit more thought.

@ pete4130 Thanks for your kind offer.

Calina

Out of interest, what kind of a DSLR do you have?

I only ask because I've done a lot of research into casings and maybe can give some advice there.

I'd go with Trish's advice though regarding G10 and casing. Also, there's a very decent waterproof Olympus floating around as well - know a bunch of the kitesurfers use them.

Cheezypuf

It's a Sony DSLR-A700. There was a waterproof casing for it, but it cost $3000 and has been discontinued. Seems like quite a lot for an empty plastic box, but hey - what do I know?

Calina

While 3000 dollars is a lot even by casing standards, for a DSLR casing you're always going to be talking about 2 grand. It's not just an empty box either; it's a box that protects your camera from water and I can tell you for nothing the inside of DSLRs do not like water.

If it was just a plastic box, you could use any cheap ass plastic box, couldn't you? It's a box that protects your camera but allows you to actually use it too.

It's not just a case of the casing for the camera either; a lot depends on the lenses you're looking to put on the camera while it's in the casing. I don't know who was building for the Sony A700 but I'd be surprised if they were the only ones building. There are custom casing builders all over the shop.

Still you could try an Aquapac I guess. They're a lot less expensive; I have two, they are difficult enough to use to be honest.

twowheelsonly

Me at 30mts approx in Lanzarote ... Photography by a friend... Camera by Aldi!!!!

He actually got some very good pics and videos , only picked up the camera on spec shortly before he went over. Most of our dives were in the 30-40mt range and for €100 you can't really complain about pics like this. And the videos have sound as well!!

DK32

Hi Cheezypuf,

I have done a fair bit of diving in Barbados & Jamaica. Both locations provide good light even at maximum recreational depths. If it's a one off for a holiday, it may be worth getting a half decent point & shoot with a housing.
If you want to stay with Sony:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644518396&N=4294966188&accessory=true

Of course if you intend to get into underwater photography in a big way then I'd go for a full DSLR housing.
Check these out:
http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?op=detailsdisc&sku=IK68417
http://store.aikotradingstore.com/ik68uncahofo1.html
(Worth contacting Ikelite directly if you can't still get it)

Another thing to consider when getting a pro housing is that apart from being expensive, you also need to be able to get a good supply of O rings. If the O ring shows even the smallest bit of wear, you need to replace it or run the risk of water ingress.

Last suggestion would be to join the PADI facebook pages and put up a request there, there are divers from all over the world who may have had similar requests or know of a way of sorting something for you.