Urgent: Need Underwater Housing, Splash Bag or "Dry Suit" for Epic

[Tom Lowe]

Can anyone help me to understand what my options might be right now for protecting the Epic M against water?

I would like to have either a proper underwater housing for the Epic, or a "dry suit" that could essentially act as an underwater housing. Or, at a minimum, a splash bag that could withstand a quick dip in the water.

What kinds of housings/splash bags are available right now, for a shoot this coming week?

Thanks so much for the help!!

 

[Tom Lowe]

Would something like this work with the Epic? Would it be compatible with Master Primes?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...ne_EM_VEX_3_VEX_3_Underwater_Housing_for.html

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

I've used EWA marine splashbags quite a bit - they work pretty well , for what they are...a little pricey though. I still own one from my FX-1 days.

I don't think the EX3 will work with the EPIC - definitely not with the Master Primes - the thread on the EX1R that I have is 77mm, and I believe the EX3 stock lens is the same, possibly slightly larger, maybe 80mm, but I *think* they are the same. Whereas the lens diameter for the Master Primes is 114mm - they'll never fit into the lens hole in the bag. Even when you get a good tight fit with the stock lens, when the lens slips a little, you can get some vignetting.

It might work with the 18-50mm (which is more like a 32mm-50mm on the EPIC), but even that has the issue of the lens hood getting in the way of accessing the peephole -

Depending on how deep you're going, you might want to consider shooting through an aquarium - it won't work with full submersion, but I've seen pretty good results shooting in shallow creeks and surf.

Here's some other options that might be worth a look: http://www.airsealand.com/rentals/underwater/

 

[Tom Lowe]

Does anyone know if Johnny Friday has that new Gates underwater housing? I called and left him a message.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Does anyone know if Johnny Friday has that new Gates underwater housing? I called and left him a message.

Tom: I have both PVC and aluminum housings for Epic available - we have been shooting with them for months.

Lens options for a rental unit are a bit limited (focus and iris controls are usually setup for specific customer lenses when purchased) until we get a Canon mount. We are using a Ruby 14-24 right now. If you are using the extreme wide angles normally used for actual underwater shooting (say 8mm through 14mm) you can get by with pretty simple controls due to the great depth of field. Other lenses you really need either expensive gearing or electronic motors (small Hedens or similar) or a Canon mount that controls iris and focus.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Michael, I need an extremely small and compact housing, because we are shooting basically in a confined amount of space. How large are your housings compared to, say, the Gates housing?

 

[Tom Lowe]

Can anyone confirm that those Gates Epic housings are out and available now?

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Why don't you ring Gates and ask? Phone · 800-875-1052 (Toll Free in U.S.)

 

[Tom Lowe]

They are closed on weekends.

 

[Ross Isaacs]

The Deep Epic is not available yet but they are working to get them finished

 

[Tom Lowe]

Does anyone happen to know Ken Corben's whereabouts?

 

[Michael Hastings]

Tom:

The Epic housings I have in stock are 8"ID 9"OD by 16 inch body length. While that seems a little long, it is the shortest it can be with the Red battery packs until REDVOLT module is available except for maybe an inch that you could shorten by not using the monitor internally. You could go slightly smaller inside diameter/height but you would really limit your lens options and you don't really save much volume by going to rectangular shape when you get to this small of a diameter. As far as length you have to remember that the camera is also set back about 4.125 inches for the lenses. If you put the camera closer to the front you end up having to use a long "snout" port and again you don't really save much volume and you really hamper the ability to use larger cine lenses and/or manual focus and iris controls or motors.

The only way to go much smaller is to use a custom battery that would fit alongside the camera and to use Canon lenses exclusively to allow a smaller port system with no ability to use cine lenses and manual controls. Using the side handle on the Epic makes it pretty large side to side and volume increases exponentially (as the square of the area) when you increase the cross sectional area.

I don't know if mine is smaller or larger than the Gates - haven't seen actual specs. It can't be much smaller without severely limiting lens options. Our housing for the Red Ones were quite a bit smaller in volume than the Gates.

The beauty of fabricating these housings is we can pretty easily accommodate custom lengths and diameters.

Ken Corben is somewhere in the LA vicinity - I just talked to him a couple days ago and sent him a compact housing for small recorder that got to his place in LA on Friday. He has a converted Red1 housing that I originally made so it is the exact same diameter but it is quite a bit longer - 24" or more.

Please don't judge the housing from this horrible iphone picture of a housing that isn't completed - it is just to show how it lays out with the Epic camera/lens/battery/monitor. As you can see the monitor adds very little length. This is a base housing - manual controls for power/trigger - white balance or other settable control on the LCD and a few simple controls for iris/focus/zoom. These are setup for the Ruby 14-24 - a really nice lens if you are going with PL mount. The controls are basically a rotating friction control that works against the gears, not quite as precise feel as actual gears (focus and iris precision is just fine - you just don't have the "feel" of gears) but they work pretty well and about $4K less than doing gears. Zoom control is just a bent shaft - not meant for push/pulls just a way to adjust the focal length (i.e. variable prime style).

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Ken is always happy to help, his email co-ordinates are 'ken@digital3dproductions.com'. His housing has been modified to accept an Epic, cinevised for geared iris and focus control. Had a good look at it several months ago, would recommend it to anyone needing to go underwater at short notice.

 

[Billy Summers]

I used Epic 157# in his underwater housing back in March.
Worked brilliantly. Ken is also an amazing underwater operator!

 

[Tom Lowe]

Wait, Michael, was that you I spoke with on the phone today??

 

[Ketch Rossi]

As soon as we receive them the Deep Epic, along with the Deep Atom, will be one of the most advanced UW Housings out there, if not the MOST, but currently are not yet shipping, we are all waiting...

 

[Pawel Achtel]

As soon as we receive them the Deep Epic, along with the Deep Atom, will be one of the most advanced UW Housings out there, if not the MOST, but currently are not yet shipping, we are all waiting...

My initial tests of our 3Deep(TM) housing for S3D indicate that my new design will have about 10 times higher edge resolution than Deep Atom. We are currently testing a single camera housing with a target price under $20k. Availability about December. No pictures or renderings will be published until the housing is available for immediate purchase. Expect unexpected

As for single camera housing that is available now, my RED One/Epic housing with titanium CinePort(TM) is the only wide angle housing out there that can resolve 4k. Most ports I have tested do not resolve more than 500 line pairs. Also, CinePort(TM) produces dramatically higher contrast than any other underwater optics.

 

[WesG]

Our housing sounds like it would be perfect Tom - about as compact as you can get.

Unfortunately we are a way away in Aust! Don't mind a fun trip though.

cheers
wes

 

[Ketch Rossi]

My initial tests of our 3Deep(TM) housing for S3D indicate that my new design will have about 10 times higher edge resolution than Deep Atom. We are currently testing a single camera housing with a target price under $20k. Availability about December. No pictures or renderings will be published until the housing is available for immediate purchase. Expect unexpected

As for single camera housing that is available now, my RED One/Epic housing with titanium CinePort(TM) is the only wide angle housing out there that can resolve 4k. Most ports I have tested do not resolve more than 500 line pairs. Also, CinePort(TM) produces dramatically higher contrast than any other underwater optics.

Bla Bla Bla... HA HA...

Just pulling your leg Pawel... We all want to see what you are working on, and finally put to lite what you can do, doing or have done...

 

[Michael Hastings]

Wait, Michael, was that you I spoke with on the phone today??

YEP.

Here's a nicer pic of the lightweight version of the housing - still capable of full deepwater underwater use, but much lighter. (It uses a ballast weight for underwater use to make it neutral.) That's the standard frontplate that allows interchangeable ports. Shown with the standard 6" dome, their is also an 8" dome and long macro/telephoto port. It also has a groove with threaded holes around it that allows the use of flat acrylic plate/port as well as almost any type of custom port you can imagine. The hole is large enough for cine lenses like the Arri 8R and the old 12mm as well as almost everything from 14mm on up. A few lenses like the 10mm ultraprime are still a little large and require a slightly modified version of the standard 8" glass dome frontplate.