Underwater housing for Sony A6000?

ChrisR

ChrisR

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Happy New Year, folks! My son has hinted he'd quite like an underwater housing for his Sony A6000 (with the kit 16-50 lens). He goes surfing (North Sea, north coast of Scotland, Outer Hebrides etc, mad fool), so he's on the beach and in the water quite often, though I don't think he expects to actually take it in the water when surfing. I've had a look and prices are all over the place, eg Ikelite over $700, Sea and Sea nearly $1,800 and Nauticam over $4,000! Seafrogs and Meikon seem to be at the slightly cheaper end, but still not cheap (£150+).

Has anyone any experience and/or advice, please?
 
I have a colleague who scuba divers, and generally housings are more than the camera inside for use at depth. If he's only going to do shallow/beach stuff then a cheap (£150) housing might be ok.
 
The big question to ask is what does he intend to shoot?

The likes of the seafrogs housing should keep the camera dry but don't offer any flexibility if you want to shoot anything remotely wide angle.

It has a fixed port which is really only suitable for portraits and macro.

If you can afford the ikelite then it opens up a whole world of shooting possibilities including split shots (half over half under water) if you get a large dome.

Costs do mount up quickly with underwater gear - I've been doing it for years and have absolutely no desire to know how much I've spent!

*** most important part by a mile though ***

He MUST be 100% confident and comfortable in the water before even thinking of taking a camera in. It quickly takes your attention away from the actual process of staying alive - you have to be able to operate your camera whilst barely having to think about your surroundings

Mike
 
Don't use one of those magic - put your camera in a waterproof bag style cases - they leak!
 
pooley said:
The big question to ask is what does he intend to shoot?

The likes of the seafrogs housing should keep the camera dry but don't offer any flexibility if you want to shoot anything remotely wide angle.

It has a fixed port which is really only suitable for portraits and macro.

If you can afford the ikelite then it opens up a whole world of shooting possibilities including split shots (half over half under water) if you get a large dome.

Costs do mount up quickly with underwater gear - I've been doing it for years and have absolutely no desire to know how much I've spent!

*** most important part by a mile though ***

He MUST be 100% confident and comfortable in the water before even thinking of taking a camera in. It quickly takes your attention away from the actual process of staying alive - you have to be able to operate your camera whilst barely having to think about your surroundings

Mike
Click to expand...

I don' think he really quite knows what he'll be shooting, but it would be surface stuff I think, of his friends surfing, or the scenery from in the water, or sunrise/sunset etc. Certainly nothing deep. My feeling when we talked about this was that the 50mm end of the zoom on the APS-C sensor (roughly 75mm ffe, if that makes any sense) might be a bit on the short side in the water.

He's been surfing for 15 or so years now, and is often surfing with a friend who is a surfing instructor. I'm not too worried about that aspect (well, not more worried than we usually are!).

Must admit I'm wondering whether one of the cheaper "tough" cameras wouldn't be a better choice, though I've no idea what their focal length options are. With a housing, he'd probably have to get out of the water and put it in his car once he'd got bored with shooting, but with a tough camera he could maybe just tuck it in a belt pouch or something like that?
 
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