Surf Photo' 101- Water Housings...

Shooting from the water is what makes surf photography so special. It's arguably the most challenging form of photography there is- anyone think of any another type of photography with a fatality count apart from combat photog’s?

Death isn't your main concern when you start out... getting a decent housing is. When I started there were two options in Europe a) Get a bombproof but heavy dive housing b) Make your own. I did option-A for a year (Nimar dive housing with a Canon AE1-P manual wind and focus film body) then after my first trip to Hawaii in '96 I made my own (thanks to meeting and checking out Sean Davey’s homemade T90 unit in the Keiki shorebreak). My first attempt was an epic fail- too heavy and not watertight. Lessons learned the second attempt was a winner and the Canon T90 with a 20mm combo netted me several covers and lasted three years before the epoxy went wobbly.

SPL's basic model for 40/50D and Tokina 10-17mm...

These days there is a broad choice of dedicated professionally made housings. The leading manufacturers are SPL and Aquatech. There are other smaller operations like Liquid Eye, CMT, Essex and the custom built but insanely hard to get hold of units by Dale Kobetich. Which you go for is purely a matter of taste and wallet. I use Aquatechs, have done for 10-years now and in all that time have had two minor leak incidents- one involved the housing getting smashed on a rock in Madeira as I was getting beaten to a pulp and a hairline crack formed by the top dial control (they replaced the housing for free) and the other in Mexico was the nut on the inside of the shutter release plug being loosened by impact (it was a brand new housing so my fault for not testing it empty first). Apart from that they've been faultless. The clips are super quick and strong, never pop open and the ability to change ports (the acrylic bit the lens looks through) and grips (the optional pistol grip or longer 'pole' grip on the bottom) means you only need one housing rather than a fisheye rig, a long-lens rig, a flash-rig etc like some of the US shooters favour. Guys like Tim Jones and Mickey Smith use Aquatechs. They are however the most expensive pushing £2gs for a set up with housing body, pistol grip and a few ports (available in the UK here). SPL is the favoured unit for new guys as they are easier on the pocket (although I’m hearing prices are soaring). SPL's Sean Labrie makes good aluminium units used by many guys now like Nunn and Selway at Wavelength, GregTheEd and T-Plant. The wingnuts aren't to everyone’s taste and can be lost and I've heard of occasional issues with the removable pistol and condensation but if you are starting out their basic range of no frills dome port, built in pistol grip units are the way forward. If you are buying second hand make sure you can test the rig, a pressure test in a sink or big bucket to make sure there's no serious leaks and make sure the wiring works- Kobetich housings may be the lightest and sweetest housings around but they also have major issues with the wiring failing and it's no easy fix... Control wise most come with all the buttons you need- shutter, top dial and back dial for adjusting your exposure manually and back focus button. The jury is out on the need for all the digi buttons, being able to review images in the water to check your exposure/histogram is super useful but otherwise it can be dangerous, a lip in the head is very possible if you're too busy reviewing your next cover shot! So they are not essential. Just be glad it is the digital age where we can stay out all day on one 8gb card, time was we shot 36 frames of slide film, swam in, changed the roll without dripping into the camera, put the housing back together and swam back out. A real headache at spots like Pipe!

A brace of housings...