Picture Needed

[JamesK]

Just to give some clarifications on my last post.

The Snake River Prototype housing itself is very well made. It consists of a the factory housing with a flat lens adapter screwed in place. The flat lens comes from the filter that is screwed in place with an o-ring seal. The entire unit is rateed to 180". The problem is not with the housing, but with the lens. They purchase the lens from a different manufacturer. What happened with ours is at a depth of 85' the lense cracked from the pressure. You could hear it when it happened. Snake River did send a new one that same day that it was reported to them. They said that around 1% of the lenses have that issue. The lens it happened to was a red filter lense. The clear lens has not had an issue as of yet, and has been to 80'. Another Smake River setup that we tested was the do it yourself kit. We have had it to 40' without issues, but have pressure tested it down to 200' without issue. So I would have to beleive Snake River that this is a very isolated issue.

The Back Scatter housings we have tested have worked great. One is the new style with a glass lens and then either an option to screw on filters or use an o ring retainer to hold filters in place. This one works great. Buying screw in filters can cause vignetting, but very minimal. The oring setup has none. The other style is their older style that they quit producing in December of 2011. It is an acrylic port and has slight vignetting in 1080 W, but none in the medium FOV setting. However, the acrylic lens scratched easy. Very easy. You can buy polishes to remove the scratches though. The other fall back of this housing is if you want to use filters. In OW a red filter is a must in most cases. You have to use a product called Magic Filter and cut filters to fit. Cut the filter even a hair to small, and it will show in your video.

The Eye Of Mine has worked good so far, but you either need to order a red filtered housing that is not removable, or use the Magic Filters as well.

These options are not cheap. I just ordered some flat lenses from Mako. They are acrylic, so they can scratch easier then glass, but I want to try to find a cheap option to recommend to folks. Once I have them here, 2-3 weeks, I can let you know what I think if you like.

I hope this helps in some way.

[gasdiver]

Thanks for the information James, I think it will be very helpful.

Forrest, as always, your common sense advice is appreciated.
-Capel

[JamesK]

No problem. I am glad I could help.