Featuring John Brigham
If you're one of the lucky few that has got your hands on the Sony a1 II camera body, you don't have to wait any longer to take it underwater. Ikelite Vice President John Brigham shows you how to set it up in the Ikelite 200DL Deluxe Underwater Housing with one of our favorite lenses- the power zoom Sony FE PZ 16-35mm f/4 G lens.
Follow along with John in the video, or scroll down to read the video transcript.
Featured Products
- 200DL Underwater Housing for Sony a1 II Deluxe Version with Handles, Vacuum Pump, & USB-C Charging Bulkhead # 71483-DLX
- DL 8 inch Dome Port with Neoprene Cover # 75340
- DL 20mm Port Extension # 75020
- Anti-Reflection Ring for Sony FE 16-35mm f/4 PZ G Lenses # 0923.76
Accessories Included in the Deluxe Version
What makes this a deluxe model is that it has the dual-tray and handle, the corresponding extensions for the levers, the vacuum pump, spare o-rings, as well as the USB-C bulkhead.
Now that last part is actually very nice because it lets you not only charge your camera while it's fully installed in the housing, but it also lets you offload your video and your images. So therefore, if you don't change lenses, you could theoretically put this together on day one and keep it as a system fully vacuumed for the entire dive trip.
We've set up the Deluxe 200DL Underwater Housing for Sony a9 III exactly the way we would use it with Dual Tray with Dual Handles, Trigger Extensions, Vacuum Pump, USB-C Charging & Data Transfer Bulkhead, and a set of spare O-Rings.
Installing the Camera Body in the Housing
First thing we'll do here is we will take the housing, we'll set it on our assembly mat face down. We're going to release the locking lever of the lid snap on each side as well as the top and lift up on the lid snaps up and over the hooks. That will allow us to take the back off of the front. And then we can set that to the side.
Now as we turn our attention to the inside of the housing. What you're going to notice is we have direct drive controls. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take the AF-ON lever control, I'm going to move it up and out of the way. And I'm going to push the direct drive hubs up so that they don't interfere as we slide the camera in.
Once you look inside, you'll notice that this ships with the manual hotshoe for Sony. I'm actually going to be shooting an external DS link for a TTL system. So I'm actually going to remove this manual hotshoe and keep this with my spare parts just in case. I'm going to replace the manual hotshoe with the TTL version hotshoe. What you'll do is line up the red wires and then push the connector together. I'm going to take that and put it to the side.
You'll notice that there's a camera mount slid into the camera base., pull that out. There's a 1/4-20 screw, that's going to correspond to the 1/4-20 screw on the bottom of the camera. Now to attach the camera mount to the camera body, I'm going to take the screen and I'm going to tilt it backwards. You'll notice there's an anti-rotation wall on the camera mount, that's going to correspond to this face here on your camera. Line up the screw onto your camera and using a flat headed screwdriver, make sure that the camera mount is snug down to the camera body. You're going to want to make sure it's nice and snug. Any movement that occurs between the camera mount and the camera will result in misalignment of controls.
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my TTL hotshoe, I'm going to align it onto the top of my camera. I'm going to make sure it's slid in fully forward so that we have contact.
I'm then going to open the door on the side of my camera, exposing the USB-C port. I'm going to plug in the USB-C cord and that will allow me to charge and offload images.
Now all I have to do is align the camera mount into the base and slide the camera forward into the housing.
Because I moved the controls out of the way, it just simply slides down in. I'm going to align the hotshoe wire out of the way here on the left hand side. I'm going to take my AF-ON lever, I'm going to re-rotate that back down so it makes contact with the camera. And then I'm going to push the direct drive controls down and see that they make contact with the controls on the camera body.
When installing your camera into the housing make sure the hotshoe is pushed fully forward and making a good connection, realign all of your controls, and check the sealing surface of the housing and the o-ring before closing everything up.
Now before we put the back on, I'm going to give a visual inspection of this ceiling surface here. This is a compression O-ring seal, meaning that we don’t need to apply lubricant to this. But I do want to make sure that it is clean and free of debris or anything that could affect the seal. I'm going to check to make sure that this O-ring is also clean and free of debris of anything that could affect its seal.
Now we're ready to put the back on. And it's as simple as reversing the order of how we took it off. And I'm going to align it to the front, set it down into place. And then I'm going to simultaneously take the left and right lid snap and place it over the hook, and I'll do the same thing with the top. Simultaneously on the left and right hand side, I will push down and lock the back into place, as well as the top.
Now take your time here and make sure that your lid snaps did actually lock by attempting to pull them back open. They will not open if they locked in place. And now your back is firmly installed onto the front.
Installing the Lens
Now we can take our housing and set it down on its back here and install the port. Now to do that, we're going to take the zoom ring tool and stick that into the slot of the retaining ring and turn to remove the retaining ring and dust cap. Next, remove the body cap from your camera. We're going to keep all those with our spare parts that we travel with, including the manual hotshoe that we removed.
Now it's time to install the lens. I have the 16-35mm PZ lens, this is a nice wide lens. Now I really like this lens because of the PZ (Power Zoom) functionality of it. That means that we can actually use the power zoom and zoom this lens through the buttons on the camera itself. Watch our Power Zoom Your PZ Lens video to learn how to customize your camera to utilize the power zoom function.
Next, remove the back cap as well as the front cap from your lens. You'll notice that on the front of the lens I've already installed the anti-reflection ring that is designed specifically for this lens. What it does is it's going to cover up the lettering that you would see here. If you don't, light's going to come in through your port and it's going to get to those letters, bounce off, hit the inside of the port, and then reflect back into your camera and you could start seeing these letters show up in your video and your images, which is not a very good look. So you put the anti-reflection ring on there and that should eliminate that.
Now what we do is we take the white dot that's on the lens. We take the white dot that's on the camera body, just like we would top side. Align those up and then bayonet that your lens onto your camera body. Then set that aside because we're ready to put the port assembly together.
The white lettering on this lens is fully covered by our anti-reflection ring, this prevents any unwanted reflections in your underwater photo and video.
Installing the Dome Port
For this lens I have the full 8" dome port and the 20mm extension. I'm going to start with the extension. I'm going to make sure that all three thumbscrews are backed out and not protruding into the inside diameter of the extension itself. Doing this makes sure that it does not snag an O-ring as you put the assembly together. I'm also going to do the same thing to the dome port.
Then apply a small amount of the provided Ikelite lubricant to the o-ring. Now this is a piston seal - opposed to the compression seal that we had on the back - this is a dynamic seal, meaning that the O-ring is going to slide along a surface. We put this lubricant on here to overcome the friction that that O-ring experiences. So the lubricant isn't creating a seal, it's just overcoming the friction. So as we apply it to this O-ring, we're going to feel for any imperfections or anything that might compromise the seal while simultaneously applying it along the entire surface area.
Now you'll notice that if you look at the extension, you'll see that there are not only three thumbscrews, but three pockets that correspond to those thumbscrews. You'll also notice these exact same pockets on the port mount of the housing, and those are what's going to align with the thumbscrews so that when you tighten them down, they fall into those pockets. So if we look at our dome port here, and we take a little bit of the Ikelite lubricant, we're going to run it along the sealing surface here. Not only does this allow us to apply lubricant to the sealing surface, it also gives us the opportunity to feel for anything that might affect our seal and cause a leak.
Now I'm going to align the dome port. Again, the three thumbscrews on the port are going to correspond to these three thumbscrews on the extension, which correspond to those pockets. Press down evenly across the entire circumference until the two pieces come in contact. Now as they came into contact there, that's when the seal occurred. So when we tighten these three thumbscrews down, it's not creating the seal or improving it, it's just keeping these two parts from coming apart. So we're going to tighten the three thumbscrews on the port itself until they're flush and bottomed out. Again no need to use a tool, that won't improve the seal.
Next we'll make sure one more time that our thumbscrews on the extension are not protruding to the inside diameter. We'll take a little bit of the Ikelite lubricant and apply it to that sealing surface there, just like we did on the port itself.
We're going to set our port and extension aside and we're going to put a little bit of the Ikelite lubricant on the port mount O-ring on the housing. This is just like we did on the extension. Again, applying lubricant while feeling for anything that might affect the seal.
It's important when installing a dome port and extensions that you back out the thumbscrews from the inside diameter so you don't risk nicking an o-ring during assembly.
Now you'll notice that if you look at the port assembly, we have two shades on the port. One of those shades corresponds a thumbscrew, whereas the other will not. The shade that is in line with the thumbscrew will be the top of our housing, allowing the shade to be coming from the top and the bottom.
The thumbscrews on our extension are going to correspond to the pockets in the base of the housing. Again, just like we did on the extension, firmly press down until you make contact all the way around the circumference, and then simply tighten down the thumbscrews of the extension.
Using the Vacuum Leak Detection System
Before we proceed to the next step of creating a vacuum in the housing, I do like to take the opportunity to take a few shots. I would hook up my strobe system, make sure that I have a card and that my camera is recording to the card, I didn't leave my lens cap on, anything that's going to be a problem. I don't want to come back after the dive and find that out, that's going to be a real downer. So I'll take that opportunity, shoot some shots, so I can make any adjustments, and then I'll create my vacuum.
So the last step is going to be creating a vacuum inside the housing. A question I get asked a lot is, "Do I create a vacuum to check and then release the vacuum and then go diving?" What you're going to want to do is you're going to want to create the vacuum, and you're going to want to leave it under a vacuum even while you go diving. The only reason you would release the vacuum is to open up your system.
Now, to do so, we're going to push the button on the vacuum valve of the housing, and that's going to release the cap. The cap is tethered so that you won't lose it and also to serve as a reminder to keep the cap plugged in any time you're taking your housing underwater. Then you're going to take the barbed insert of your pump and you're going to place it inside the vacuum valve until it clicks. Now we're going to use the hand pump to actually create the vacuum inside the housing.
Now, the number that you go to on the gauge isn't as critical as the fact that the needle isn't moving. If you create a vacuum and you notice that the needle is dropping immediately, that means that something is compromising the seal. You've forgotten O-ring or there's something that will allow air in, and if air can get in, it means water can get in. This gives you the opportunity to diagnose and fix this issue.
I usually recommend going to 10mmHg on the gauge. That creates a nice differential in pressure and is a nice, round number to reference. I check to make sure my gauge is not going below, it's not dropping, so then I'm going to let this housing sit. Now, I don't want to allow it sit with the pump attached because if there's a leak or a crack in the pump itself, that will give me a false reading, meaning that, oh no, my system is compromised, but it very well could have been the pump, which obviously is not something I'm diving with. So what I'll do is I will remove the pump, and obviously when you remove the pump, the needle drops down to zero.
It's important to never take your housing underwater without the vacuum valve cap in place. The valve cap is tethered to your housing as a reminder to always replace it when your vacuum is not in active use.
So what you're going to want to do is let this sit. If you can give yourself 10 or 15 minutes at minimum, but ideally overnight is best. What I usually do is arrive, assemble my system, and this is sitting out the night before, and I'll check this before I leave that next morning.
In order to do so, just like you did before, what we're going to do is we're going to push the button on the valve, remove the cap, and replace it with the barbed end of the pump. And as soon as you fully insert it and lock it into place, your needle will jump right back to where you left it. Again, in our case, we have 10. The needle jumped right back to 10, meaning that this held a vacuum no problem for that entire time. So what I'll do, again, push the button, remove the vacuum port, and replace it with a cap. Always replace it with a cap, and you're good to go.
If you need to disassemble your system, let's say you want to change lenses, you can leave this fully assembled for the entire week of diving using the USB-C bulkhead. I will note that if you take the cap off of the USB-C bulkhead to either charge your camera or release your images off the camera onto your computer, you will start to lose the vacuum through the circuit board. So every time you do that, you are going to need to redo the vacuum on the housing, which is not nearly as big of a deal as having to disassemble everything and take the camera out. So again, it still lets you leave everything put together, which is quite nice.
In addition to, of course, removing the cap from the USB-C bulkhead, if you need to release the vacuum off of your housing, push the valve, take the cap out, and you can either put the pump back in and use the release button on the vacuum pump itself. Or if you don't have access to the pump and you absolutely need to open the housing, you can insert a blunt object in the valve on the housing. You'll notice that there's a white button on the inside of the valve, if you depress that using the blunt end of a pen, for example, it will also release the vacuum.
That's everything you need to know to set up the Sony a1 II in a deluxe version of our housing. If you want to know how to set up your camera to utilize the power zoom function of the lens, we'll drop a link in the description below. If you have any questions whatsoever about this system, please feel free to shoot us an email to ikelite@ikelite.com.
Additional Viewing
Sony a1 II Underwater Results // FIRST LOOK 200DL Underwater Housing [VIDEO]
POWER ZOOM Your Sony PZ Lens Underwater [VIDEO]
Sony ZV-E1 Underwater at Blue Heron Bridge with 16-35mm PZ Lens [VIDEO]
Customizing the Dial Functions on a Sony Mirrorless Camera for Underwater Use [VIDEO]
Never Take Your Camera Out of the Housing! // USB-C Charging & Data Transfer Bulkhead [VIDEO]
John Brigham is the Vice President & head of product development at Ikelite. He was born with a flair for design and an entrepreneurial spirit as son of Ikelite founder Ike Brigham. He worked his way up in the business and is a natural fit in the R&D side of things. John dives the equipment as much as possible to test product and put himself in the "fins" of the user. You may also find him on the other end of an email or phone call when you reach out for product advice and support. When he's not underwater he's flying drones, setting off rockets, training his German Shepherd "T2", and spending time with his family.
