Review: Sea and Sea DX100 Housing
Posted By Rod Klein on 7 May 2003
Concerns
- My biggest complaint with the DX100 is while using the fisheye dome port. As reported, with this port the housing becomes positively buoyant and wants to "roll backward" with the dome port facing up. I experimented with some soft weights and while I could counteract the buoyancy problem I was never able to get the housing balanced. I was constantly turning my wrists to bring the housing into an upright position.
- I am not a big fan of the "latch" system that Sea and Sea uses. There are 4 latches: 1 on each side, and 1 on the top and bottom of the back. If 1 latch is not open in the correct position it can get caught between the back and the front of the housing and prevent it from closing properly. Even more of a concern is if a latch does get caught in the wrong position it could easily put a "ding" in the main O-ring. The latch configuration also makes it necessary to tilt the housing forward when removing the back after a dive. This could result in water drops getting on your camera if care is not taken.
- Another problem associated with the dome port is the difficulty in changing the "single-continuous" focus control. While this control is easily accessible while using the custom flat port, the lever that moves this control is very short and is blocked by the large size of the dome port, making it almost impossible to change underwater.
- While the housing controls performed flawlessly in most conditions, as soon as I reached 110 feet none of the controls would work. As soon as I moved up everything worked normally.
Finally
By and large I really like this housing. By comparison, its price point is very reasonable and if you are already using a Sea and Sea housing your current ports and accessories will likely fit. As exclusively a digital imagemaker, I found that the DX100 and the Nikon D100 are a great combination. A few modifications to the concerns listed above would make this housing really shine.
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