Subal

Subal had a magnificent stand on the edge of the Water Pixel World stage.

Owner Harald Karl and general manager Vladimir Mladenovic kindly took some time to show me their new products.

The company launched their housing for the GoPro HERO5 at the show.

Uniquely, it features the ability to be used with Subal’s Type 3 port system (or Type 4 with an adaptor). This opens up creative opportunities like split shots. The housing is rated to 300m (900 feet) and will be shipping from the end of January.

Subal has also designed a tray for the GoPro housing, which can be adjusted to suit people’s preference in terms of hand placements.

The other new model on the stand was a housing for the Panasonic GX80 mirrorless camera.

It features all of Subal’s design features, including the new “water shedding” buttons and has fiber optic bulkheads along with two accessory ports.

Vladimir says that he expects to be shipping their new housing for the OM-D E-M1 Mark II and Fuji XT2 cameras within 2 weeks.

Next he showed me their Nikon TTL Mark 2 board. This allows the triggering of Inon Z240, Sea&Sea YS-D1, YS-D2 and YS-250 and Ikelite DS160 AND DS161 strobes. It can output to an LED panel to act as a electro optical converter, or can be used with a wired connection.

Lastly, he mentioned that Subal are now able to ship housings with their own bayonet port system, but also with Nauticam bayonet and Seacam threaded systems. These are factory installed when specified on order.

Isotta

Father and daughter team, Elisa and Egido Isotta were on their booth and showed me their new products.

They feature a new housing for the GoPro HERO5.

It features the company’s trademark safety lock and dual O ring closure and has a front port that has the square profile allowing it to be used with standard GoPro filter accessories.

A useful optional accessory that Isotta produce for both their GoPro and compact housings are two shutter release extensions. One simply extend the shutter release when used with the index finger, while the second offers the option of triggering with the thumb. Both options make using the shutter release much easier with glove son, or when supporting the camera with a handled tray.

The next new Isotta housing was for the Sony RX100 V compact.

This also has all the standard features and also has a leak detector and an additional M16 port for a vacuum or other accessory.

Elisa told me that the company will be shipping their housing for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II within 3 weeks.

Although it can be tray mounted, the housing also features a special handgrip for use in situations where a large tray and handles are not required.

It utilizes the company’s mirrorless port system and the viewfinders are interchangeable, with the Inon straight and 45° versions being available. All their mirrorless housing have one M16 accessory port.

They will be shipping their housing for the OM-D E-M1 Mark II within two months.

Isotta’s housing for the Canon 5D Mark IV ships with two Nikonos or S6 bulkheads and two bider optic bulkheads for use with third party electro optical converters.

Once agin, it also has all the standard Isotta features and an additional M16 port.

Seacam

Seacam’s trademark booth was very busy, with a constant stream of visitors.

There were also talks by photographers:

Owner Harald Hordosch kindly interrupted his very busy schedule to show me his new products and to outline some future product ideas.

Seacam are offering their Silver housing for the Canon 5D Mark IV, and also offering an upgrade path for existing Seacam, 5D Mark III housing owners.

This upgrade is not retro compatible, once it has been carried out, the housings will no longer accept the 5D Mark III. To emphasize this, Seacam actually even relabel the updated housings as being Silver 5D Mark IV housings.

Another new housing on the stand was for the Nikon D500. It features 4 ports, with a labeled vacuum port on the top of the housing.

Internally, it allows for the exchange of both memory cards and batteries without needing to detach/remove the camera body.

A new product for the show are some simple buoyancy floats that can be used with Seacam’s tubular arms. They simply use O rings in order to keep them in place and can be doubled up.

Each float offer 200g of positive buoyancy and is constructed of a special foam that resists crushing down to 200m.

Harald showed me through the new Seaflash 60 strobe. Very compact and light, it offers 66 Watt/seconds of power, giving an underwater guide number of around 8.

It is powered by 4 AA batteries and testing is giving around 200 flashes at full power using Eneloop batteries. The strobe recycles between full dumps with 2 seconds and has a color temperature of 4500°K.

It can be triggered by either electrical or (standard L type) fiber optic. As such, it offers 4 exposure modes: Standard Nikon or Canon TTL, manual, slave or S-TTL. In the case of the latter, there is the option of adding an EV compensation of +0.5, +1, -0.5, -1 and -2 stops via the strobe’s control dial.

The Seaflash 60 sells at €1260, which includes a choice of either an S6 or fiber optic cable.

In response to customer requests, Seacam offers a special adaptor to allow the use of their standard MIP ports with M67 threaded wet lenses. Calle the “Adaptor 67-MIP”, it retails for around €100.

Another useful product is a three way splitter and TTL converter for use with Seacam strobes. If a housing has only one electronic bulkhead, this can be used to trigger two Seacam strobes. It can also be fitted with a Nikonos bulkhead, allowing Nikonos equipped housings to be used with S6 connected strobes.

Lastly, Harald mentioned that the company has invested in two new 3D printers, allowing them to create zoom and focus rings as well as bespoke components like sun shades quickly and efficiently.

Hugyfot

Belgian manufacturer Hugyfot were showing their new housings for the Canon 5D Mark IV and Nikon D500.

Hugyfot has redesigned their housings and they now feature a very tactile shutter release lever. Historically the company has actually used allan headed bolts to secure the two halves of their housings.

A major change on their new housings going forward is a latch style closure. This will make battery and card changes more straight forward.

In addition, Pascal Eeckhoudt showed me the company’s new dome ports. The range consists of a 7” acrylic and 5” glass fisheye, 6.5” acrylic and glass and a 9” glass wide angle domes.

BS Kinetics

Bodo Sutterer was on the stand that he shares with UW Photo Partner with his carbon fiber housings.

He is now shipping his housing for the Nikon D500 and will be shipping models for the Canon 80D and 1D X Mark II later this spring.

He has now employed electronics wizard Helmut Goerlitz and is working on control systems. They have now “cracked” LANC control for the Sony F55 AND FS700 4K video cameras and have housings offering push button access to the respective camera’s entire menu.

Orca Lights

Sadly I missed Shane Newman on his Orca Light stand. Suffice to say that it was very bright!

Day 1: Lembeh vs Gulen, Keldan, Nauticam, Easydive, Nikon.
Day 2: Subal, Isotta, Seacam, Hugyfot, BS Kinetics, Orca Light.