anyway to repair a crack in underwater housing?

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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i have a small crack (i think i can see where it is) in my underwater housing for my canon s95. i am wondering if anyone knows if there is any kind of chemical that i can apply to it that will seal the crack or just another way to fix it. when snorkeling with it a few drops will be in the case after like 45 minutes, but the condensation that gets in there is what really is annoying.

does anyone have any ideas? i can try to get a pic of it and post it later. it's in a very odd spot too so it's not just like on a flat surface. it goes over a part that is curved and is just in a weird spot.

anyone?
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
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Probably need to know what housing....usually anything waterproof will work. However; is it in the FOV?
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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I would try a tube of "GOOP," a strong adhesive sealnt available at ACe or other h'ware stores. If the crack does not now leak, even a piece of clear package wrapping tape might do.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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so i was messing around with my housing a bit last night and had it sitting submerged for an hour in water. no water came through the housing. i then realized that i had lost the silicone grease for the o-ring, and i noticed how dirty my o-ring was and had sand particles and stuff in there. i lost the grease a long time ago and had been using it just fine without messing with the o-ring.

so i'm starting to wonder if the o-ring being dirty with no grease was what caused these very minor leaks and drips to get through. so i took the o-ring out cleaned it off complete and am going to get some grease before my trip next weekend and give it a go.

i was looking at the crack again, and i believe that the crack isn't even all the way through. and the adhesive i used before to try and fix it (which was some epoxy type of mix) actually looks to be holding over the cracked area just fine. it's hard to see the full extent of this crack too because it goes over edges and under the tripod plate too.

but it appears that the issue may just be that i was not taking proper care of the o-ring and i hope that is the issue. i'll find out in a couple weeks though!

i also need to look up on how to take better pictures while snorkeling. i was googling and found some pointers, and i can't believe some of the pictures that were taken with my camera underwater are from my camera. they are light years better than pics i have taken. granted, some of them have thousands of dollars worth of accessories, but still, they look damn good. i also think taking pictures while diving would be easier than snorkeling because you can control your buoyancy.
 

AnitaPeterson

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
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You're snorkeling with an S95? You're braver than I am! :D

I use a Canon Elph 300HS for this kind of activity, and it still gives me the creeps to think it might take water.

OTOH, it takes beautiful pictures and video... although it's best to stay under ISO 400.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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You're snorkeling with an S95? You're braver than I am! :D

I use a Canon Elph 300HS for this kind of activity, and it still gives me the creeps to think it might take water.

OTOH, it takes beautiful pictures and video... although it's best to stay under ISO 400.

yeah i haven't had any issues at all. when i got the s95 too it was $400 lol. i bought it right before i went to vegas and i actually got the underwater housing with at the time, and used it at the pools in vegas. it's the 3rd canon + uw housing i've had so i know how solid they are and had no fears of water getting in.

as for the pictures, i always have it in automatic mode in underwater mode when snorkeling. i've been trying to read up the past few evenings just a little bit to figure out how to get better pictures with it while snorkeling. it seems like i'll have to use manual mode in order to do that, and i don't really know jack about photography and what the settings mean. i saw some pictures someone took with the S95 on a diving trip and was dumbfounded at the quality of the pics. granted, he probably has like $2000 in accessories, but still ... really impressive.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
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tbqhwy.com
yea manual mode help. because you need to shoot wide open to get enough light in, Unless you have those hugly expensive lights with your underwater setup.

the cameras flash isnt really gonna do anything
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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yeah from what i was reading, with snorkeling, if it's a sunny day an external light isn't as necessary as if you were scuba diving and are down there for a while. i should just read up on the very basics of photography and i bet i could take some decent pics underwater with some manual settings. i'm just a total noob to all of that stuff.
 

jaedaliu

Platinum Member
Feb 25, 2005
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yeah from what i was reading, with snorkeling, if it's a sunny day an external light isn't as necessary as if you were scuba diving and are down there for a while. i should just read up on the very basics of photography and i bet i could take some decent pics underwater with some manual settings. i'm just a total noob to all of that stuff.

You've got time! It only takes a few minutes to get an idea of the 3 main settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperture) and then you play with it until you can get a feel for it.

Heck, just on the plane, you could figure out how they work. Play with the camera inside its housing. Sure, you'll get funny looks, but familiarity with the settings will help a lot.

Just make sure you have time to charge the battery before you get in the water. And at worst, go back to automatic mode if it doesn't click.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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You've got time! It only takes a few minutes to get an idea of the 3 main settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperture) and then you play with it until you can get a feel for it.

Heck, just on the plane, you could figure out how they work. Play with the camera inside its housing. Sure, you'll get funny looks, but familiarity with the settings will help a lot.

Just make sure you have time to charge the battery before you get in the water. And at worst, go back to automatic mode if it doesn't click.

yeah i have 3 batteries that i keep with me pretty much at all times. i'm thinking of reupping on the batteries too so that i can have some fresh ones just in case. i do have a book about photography too that i bought when i got the camera that i just haven't gone through. maybe i should just do some reading on the plane or before hand heh.

where we are staying has a reef right off the beach so i can go out and test out different settings pretty easily and i'll do that before we go out on the boat trips for sure.
 

Anubis

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Aug 31, 2001
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just so you know hes not doi ng much more than "auto leveling" to get the after shots,

I just did it in photoshop and the images look nearly identical to what he did in lightroom which might have simply been lightrooms "auto level"
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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just so you know hes not doi ng much more than "auto leveling" to get the after shots,

I just did it in photoshop and the images look nearly identical to what he did in lightroom which might have simply been lightrooms "auto level"

thanks that is good to know, because yeah i didn't know exactly what he did to do that. i'm going to mess around with some of my pictures this weekend, although, i didn't take them in RAW format i don't think. does that mean that there won't be as significant a difference after i filter it as there would be had it been in RAW format?
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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s95 is basically dead now. took it in the water for a bit and noticed some condensation in it after a while. i should have gotten out in hindsight, but i had seen this before so i stayed in.

when i got out there was a little more water inside than normal, although the camera was still working.

now the screen is all messed up and 1/2 the buttons don't work and the camera kinda spazzes out and doesn't know what mode it's in. luckily i got it to "stick" in auto mode so I'm at least able to use it for pictures on our trip in auto mode, but the screen is messed up and looks like pictures are taken from the predators view in heat vision. sucked i couldn't take it snorkeling today, and before my next trip this camera is going in the trash or on ebay and i'll just get a go-pro then another one for normal pictures.

sucks that it's done for, it's been a great camera.
 

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
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That sucks. A lot.

I've researched underwater cameras and see It too often across numerous models -- vocal minority probably but still. Best plan seems to be to plan for loss: only dunk something you're willing to or can afford to lose. Plan B may be to buy a waterproof camera and a second housing for redundancy.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
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yeah i have missed some great shots too :(

i saw a HUGE sting ray today probably 5-6 feet diameter and it had it's child with it that was probably 2-3 feet big. i also saw a grouper today that was awesome color wise. saw me a cow fish for the first time yesterday and a couple other fish i've never seen, as well as a fish that was literally 1/2 eaten on one side but was swimming around just fine.

this is my 3rd canon camera/housing combo and it's the first one that has had an issue. i'd buy another canon housing in a heartbeat to be honest. it almost feels like it's just not getting as tight of a seal as it used to. it used to kind of "pop" tight, and it's not doing that. i noticed that the hinge also seems a little loose, so that could explain why it's not tight.
 

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
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Did you send it in to Canon for maintenance every year or so?

I heard of at least one waterproof camera brand that had something like that in the manual.