Underwater Photography I : Canon AW-DC50
 
So we just purchased a Canon AW-DC50 in preparation for our trip over Christmas. This is an underwater housing for the Canon SD-450 point-and-shoot, and is pretty neat. Here you can see some shots of the housing itself, with and without the camera inside. After we take the trip, I’ll post some actual pictures taken with the camera.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here’s everything in the kit:
    the housing itself
    a flash diffuser, with lanyard
    tube of silicone gel
    a neck strap
 
I have not yet applied the silicon gel to the rubber gasket around the back plate, but I suspect it will be messy. The buttons and knobs on the camera are accessible outside the housing via rubber “push-through” buttons.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You can see here that the camera just drops into the case perfectly. It fits pretty snug, and does not shake around very much at all. The back flops down, and the orange clasp on the right closes with a good snap. This shows the lanyard still on the camera: you must remove the strap from the camera before putting it in the housing:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The camera lens can telescope out just fine, and this portion of the housing is actually covered in rubber on the inside. Here, you can see the flash diffuser attached to the front too. This is removable, and connected by its own lanyard, so you can use the camera out of the water (on a boat at night, for example) without having to take it out of the housing.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Finally, you can see the cameras viewing screen through the large clear backplate:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So far, without having actually used it underwater yet, my only gripe is that it is impossible to read the labels of the buttons on the back of the camera: they are in fact labeled, but even looking very closely, in person, it is difficult to discern the label and distinguish which button is which. Better off just memorizing them all. (Honestly though, I doubt I will be messing with those buttons much underwater. Hopefully I’ll just be using the 3 controls on the top - power, shutter release, and the zoom in/out lever).
 
Oh, and I guess my other gripe is that 10ft isn’t very deep. We’re just going snorkeling, so it’ll be just fine, but you could not use this at all for scuba diving. I suspect the plastic is strong enough to go pretty deep, but the gasket is VERY DELICATE (read: thin) and the clasp doesn’t close with enough pressure. 100ft should be achievable, though even just 60ft would handle most vacation dive situations. I will do some tests (without the camera inside) while on vacation.
 
En fin, this looks like a really cool gadget, and should make snorkeling even more fun than it already is!
Underwater Photography I
Tuesday, December 12, 2006