Sea Frogs Sony a7riii housing review?

Has anyone been using this case?

You could be the first! Kidding aside, looking at photos, they've taken some questionable design choices - the vacuum port is on the left side of the housing, where tray handle will interfere with pump attachment - it seems like you'll have to remove the camera from the tray to attach the pump. Zoom knob location also doesn't look optimal, way down below like that you'll have to either spin it with your pinky, or reposition your left hand off the tray handle. Also, it looks like they're only including a zoom gear for 28-70mm lens, not for either 16-35mm options or for 12-24mm. No optical fiber bulkhead for use with LED triggers either.

Semi-offtopic, but Pavel Kolpakov of UW-Technics announced a version of their TTL converter for Meikon housings a few days ago - it replaces Meikon's standard moisture detector and has both wired and optical trigger options, with profiles for Inon, Sea & Sea and Ikelite strobes. Unfortunately, for now, it only supports Canon cameras, but Pavel says that he's working on reverse-engineering Sony's TTL protocol, and a TTL converter for Sony cameras is in the works.

Barmaglot_07 wrote:

You could be the first! Kidding aside, looking at photos, they've taken some questionable design choices - the vacuum port is on the left side of the housing, where tray handle will interfere with pump attachment - it seems like you'll have to remove the camera from the tray to attach the pump. Zoom knob location also doesn't look optimal, way down below like that you'll have to either spin it with your pinky, or reposition your left hand off the tray handle. Also, it looks like they're only including a zoom gear for 28-70mm lens, not for either 16-35mm options or for 12-24mm. No optical fiber bulkhead for use with LED triggers either.

Semi-offtopic, but Pavel Kolpakov of UW-Technics announced a version of their TTL converter for Meikon housings a few days ago - it replaces Meikon's standard moisture detector and has both wired and optical trigger options, with profiles for Inon, Sea & Sea and Ikelite strobes. Unfortunately, for now, it only supports Canon cameras, but Pavel says that he's working on reverse-engineering Sony's TTL protocol, and a TTL converter for Sony cameras is in the works.

Yes, would have much preferred a zoom for the 16-35. The 28-70 gets me back to the RX100iv range which seemed useful enough. The zoom plus increased battery life, as well as other improvements in the Meikon case, could have been justification for going to the a7Riii.  The fact I now have a vacuum valve and external battery box installed on the a7Rii, and lack of fiberoptic ports on the a7Riii makes the upgrade less compelling.

I've been designing a zoom gear for my a7Rii and 16-35, and wound up locating it on the dome extension; but have not committed to making any cuts yet, pending a response from Sea Frogs on a replacement extension.  In any case,  too many questionable design choices. I even revisited Ikelite and Nauticam to solve these problems, but again, total cost put me off.

The UW Technics information is very interesting.  I'll keep my eye on that one.

Just had a thought - they do have a focus gear for the 90mm macro lens, which is basically a long cylinder with gear teeth at the base, since the focus ring on SEL90M28G is way out there at the end. Now, looking at specs, SEL1635Z is 98.5mm long and 78mm wide, while SEL90M28G is 130.5mm long and 79mm wide. The zoom ring on 1635Z is about halfway up the lens, so I'm thinking - if you take Meikon's focus gear for 90mm and wind a little tape around the focus ring on the 1635Z, it should be able to grip it without issues, and it should clear the focus ring further up the lens.  Now, I don't know exactly how long that zoom gear is, so if it's actually longer than the 1635Z, you may need to cut it down to size, but if it's not too long, you might be able to get away without any non-reversible modifications.

Hey, great idea.

The 16-35 mm focus ring is same diameter as the zoom ring and the camera on autofocus ignores rotation of the focus ring, so the two can rotate together.

I have a message to Sea Frogs to see if they can sell me the focus gear only.

Thanks,

Dave

Barmaglot_07 wrote:

Just had a thought - they do have a focus gear for the 90mm macro lens, which is basically a long cylinder with gear teeth at the base, since the focus ring on SEL90M28G is way out there at the end. Now, looking at specs, SEL1635Z is 98.5mm long and 78mm wide, while SEL90M28G is 130.5mm long and 79mm wide. The zoom ring on 1635Z is about halfway up the lens, so I'm thinking - if you take Meikon's focus gear for 90mm and wind a little tape around the focus ring on the 1635Z, it should be able to grip it without issues, and it should clear the focus ring further up the lens. Now, I don't know exactly how long that zoom gear is, so if it's actually longer than the 1635Z, you may need to cut it down to size, but if it's not too long, you might be able to get away without any non-reversible modifications.

Sea Frogs won't sell the gear alone, so I would have to buy it with the port for $189 - a little expensive for an experiment.  Plan B would be to cut my own gear out of plastic on my mini-mill.  The zoom rotates less than 90 deg, so that's only 20 teeth on a 3 mm pitch.  Plan C would be to buy a flexible plastic timing gear track for $30 and wrap it around the 16-35 mm.  Plan D, sell my a7Rii, buy an a7Riii and new housing to get 28-70 mm zoom isn't acceptable.  Plan E would be to live with fixed focal length.   Plan F, buy an Ikelite system for around $3800 has already been dismissed.

Shouldn't be too expensive to get a plastic cylinder with some gear teeth at one end 3D-printed using a service that specializes in this. Since the housing comes with a zoom ring for 28-70mm, you could use it as a reference for the required geometry.

I love mine -- anything in particular you want to know about it?

Do you follow Meikon/ sea frogs on FB. They post updates about different zoom rings they come out with from time to time there.

https://seafrogs.com.hk/collections/zoom-gears

I see gears for the 16-35mm 4 and GM there.

Adam Palmer wrote:

I love mine -- anything in particular you want to know about it?

Thanks.  Very interesting.  If I ever upgrade to the a7RIII camera and case, I'll check out these gears.  I'm still working with the a7RII and the cheap first generation Meikon case; and have made so many mods to it, I'll be keeping it for a while.

I do weddings and the underwater part is a hobby so I have the new bodies.  It's a write off.

Hey Adam:
Which lens(es) are you using with your housing?
Did you get the vacuum pump and/or handles?

I use a Tamron 17-35 and a tokina fisheye in the housing.  Never tried the vacuum pump.  I am always taking the camera in and out so it wouldn't really benefit me that much.

daveco2 wrote:

Adam Palmer wrote:

I love mine -- anything in particular you want to know about it?

Thanks. Very interesting. If I ever upgrade to the a7RIII camera and case, I'll check out these gears. I'm still working with the a7RII and the cheap first generation Meikon case; and have made so many mods to it, I'll be keeping it for a while.

Hi Dave, any serious issues with the Meikon? I have a Sony a7rii and still loving it, but can't decide which uw housing to buy.

Some people tell me to stay away from "the new Chinese brands" considering the 7rii is a great and expensive camera (I suppose it's been devalued by now, but if it got flooded it would be very expensive to replace!)

But the alternatives are so expensive! And there's no real used options around here, very few Sony a7rii users, even fewer who (free/)dive.

I'm all ears on anything you got to share. Thanks!

ALL cameras are expensive to flood!   Don't let that stop you from putting your best camera underwater.

DO let it force you to get a housing with a vacuum leak detector.   Nothing is more likely to prevent preventable floods and give you some peace of mind.

And VACUUM leak detector - not the kind of detector that works by sticking two electrodes near the base of the housing that is triggered by water hitting it.  Too late then.

Just got the vacuum leak detector for my meikon housings.  I have yet to try it.

Adam Palmer wrote:

Just got the vacuum leak detector for my meikon housings. I have yet to try it.

I've used it on my a9 housing and like it a lot when used constantly on the housing. It's a great extra safety indicator. I wish they'd certify it that way but last time I talked to support they only recommend it for a check - though they themselves dive with it on.

Give it a try.   The best way to use one is to pump down the housing the night before a dive.  If it is still holding a vacuum hours later, you're good to go.

I've had the same question.  I have the Sony A7iii and I would love to take it underwater but I don't think I can justify the cost of other housings.  I've also been nervous because SeaFrog says to remove the Vacuum leak detector prior to diving but that doesn't make sense to me.  I would love to ditch the RX100Va and keep just the A7iii.