RX100 V underwater housing recommendations

kelpdiver wrote:

starbase218 wrote:

Question about this: I understand how a vacuum system works, but is it really necessary? I occasionally maintained the O-ring on my Meikon but didn’t really put that much effort in, and I never had a problem. Although I suppose that’s what people who never had a card fail on them say about single memory card cameras.

$230 to protect 2-5000 in gear is cheap insurance. Much cheaper than those policies, which do little for you if you're 300 miles off the Costa Rican coast.

Well, my RX100 V has cost me 630 pounds in total (350 when I bought it used and another 280 for the repair after I found out the aperture was broken). Not cheap but I wouldn’t spend thousands of pounds for a compact camera, and I wouldn’t take my DSLR under water.

But I get what you’re saying. And after having to invest 630 pounds to get a working used RX100 V, I wouldn’t be too happy if it would get destroyed on the first dive.

I've seen people lose their camera minutes into a dive. And given the weight limits in travel, it's rare that they have a backup. The camera body will be lost, the lens will be lost. The flash memory at least should be fine. The housing itself may need an overhaul.

Regarding travel restrictions, that is actually important to me. I don’t travel with checked in baggage unless absolutely necessary. I have a 37 liter backpack in which everything has to go, including the housing (I do have a separate DSLR bag though). This is also why I prefer a smaller and lighter enclosure.

It also removes much of the potential moisture, which for the more compact cameras actually could lead to a fogged port for part of the dive.

Now I went a few hundred dives on a 20D system, using the Aquatica's somewhat fudgy two buckle closure system. I never removed the main o-ring, just lightly greased it at the beginning of a trip. The only time I was close to a flood was when I didn't properly attach the electric strobe connector. A little water seeped into the port fitting, and it and the cable got a bit of corrosion, but didn't penetrate the paper thin layer into the main body. A vacuum would have detected that fault. Nevertheless, I avoided any major mishap.

All this talk of failing O-rings reminds me of a friend of mine who once said he disliked them, because they cause accidents. “It’s always O-rings”, he said.

The more consistent your routine, the less the need is. But it's difficult to maintain that sort of consistency on every sort of dive boat or resort out there, where you may have your own camera station, or work in the dining area. If you're taking the sort of trip where you flip back and forth between macro and WA, you might be doing quick setup to swap the lens and battery. If you skip steps to make the deadlines, you may bite yourself.

Deadlines? I’m not a pro. But yeah I do want to swap out batteries in particular.