Housing for Sony A1

I am starting to do more surfing and kite boarding photography plus general water/boat sport’s photography. Mainly I have been shooting from land with the 200-600 on my Sony a9 and A1. I also used a backup Nikon D750 with a DiCAPac bag in the water.

I now would like to use the A1 in the water.  There are numerous system options out there and I have been researching (Liquid eye, aquatech, sea frogs etc)

I was thinking of using sony 12-24, 24-105, or getting a 35mm or 50mm prime so need port options.

anyone got any recommendations on a system to buy into?  As I am only starting out would like to keep cost reasonable but realize the risk of going cheap!

I can only give some general advice here as I shoot Nikon, not Sony.

First, I would suggest you actually rethink how you are thinking about this in terms of cost. It's just frighteningly expensive, even to go 'cheap'. If you are price conscious, look to the used market. Not sure how many used housings you'll see for A1's though as it is pretty new still.

The traditional 'cheap' housing is Ikelite, and you need to research any limitations there. I've not used one.

I have, however, bought 4 Nauticam housings, and I like them very much. But costs are double + more than an Ikelite. To some extent, the housing you buy can depend on the country/area you live in. Aquatica is a Canadian company that makes good housings. Isotta is Italian, and Subal is Austrian. Nauticam has a strong US presence. Can make a difference in both availability and ease of service.

Besides the housing, you need appropriate ports for appropriate lenses. For me, with Nikon, the choices are few - 105mm macro for full frame, maybe 60mm macro for DX. 16-35/14-30 for wide rectilinear zoom, and at least for f-mount, 8-16 fisheye.

If doing wide rectilinear, you are looking at big, heavy dome ports, while fisheyes get away with something half that size. A big dome port can dominate how you have to travel, by the way.

Then you need lighting, meaning at least one strobe for stills, and probably two lights for video. You can probably find lots of used options here.

None of it is cheap. Here is a new package from Bluewater that seems reasonable to me. (I just paid $7500 for just the housing for my Z9).

https://www.bluewaterphotostore.com/nauticam-sony-a1-housing-strobe-package?setCurrencyId=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAjbagBhD3ARIsANRrqEuRXfZYI0SqMguqRvw4SbYfyad8tVqddwonnaZ1EGJS58JkNHkwPaoaAjfOEALw_wcB

Padsterman wrote:

I am starting to do more surfing and kite boarding photography plus general water/boat sport’s photography.

It depends whether you want to take the camera UW or just want to make it waterproof, especially for wideangle this makes a difference. For WA UW you need a domeport that is heavy, expensive and prone to scratching (I imagine it is quite turbulent when you make photos of surfers from a boat or beeing on a surfboard yourself).

In case you want to make the camera waterproof, but take the photos over the water, a not too heavy plastic housing with flatport will suffice (the domeport is required for WA, because of the optical properties of water UW; for using a WA lens in air you do not need it). Maybe Ikelite is a good compromise between quality and weight. An aluminium housing may be to heavy for holding it all the time over the water for making photos (but also Isotta produces lightweight housings)...

The situation is different, when you plan to produce "split" photos, where part is over the water and the other part is submerged. Then you need the full UW equipment, including a big domeport, for WA (as an extension to your system; you could acquire this at a later stage, as an addition, to broaden your technical repertoire)...

Wolfgang

Architeuthis wrote:

Padsterman wrote:

I am starting to do more surfing and kite boarding photography plus general water/boat sport’s photography.

It depends whether you want to take the camera UW or just want to make it waterproof, especially for wideangle this makes a difference. For WA UW you need a domeport that is heavy, expensive and prone to scratching (I imagine it is quite turbulent when you make photos of surfers from a boat or beeing on a surfboard yourself).

In case you want to make the camera waterproof, but take the photos over the water, a not too heavy plastic housing with flatport will suffice (the domeport is required for WA, because of the optical properties of water UW; for using a WA lens in air you do not need it). Maybe Ikelite is a good compromise between quality and weight. An aluminium housing may be to heavy for holding it all the time over the water for making photos (but also Isotta produces lightweight housings)...

The situation is different, when you plan to produce "split" photos, where part is over the water and the other part is submerged. Then you need the full UW equipment, including a big domeport, for WA (as an extension to your system; you could acquire this at a later stage, as an addition, to broaden your technical repertoire)...

Wolfgang

Thanks for this. I know this is an underwater photography forum but I intend to use this housing for mainly surf / kite boarding / competitive paddle boarding so do need a lighter weight housing and most of the images would be above the water (barrel shots, wave forms etc). Some split and underwater images (surfer paddle out) will be needed so a dome port will be on my list as well as a flat port.

Liquid eye on my short list right now. Not sure if I trust the Gdome.