INDIANAPOLIS, USA
Originally born in the back of a dive shop, Ike molded the first Ikelite in a Westinghouse oven. The rest was history. Today Ikelite is a leading manufacturer in the underwater photographic industry with worldwide name recognition and global distribution in over 95 countries. Our products are used by amateur and professional photographers in a variety of wet environments from swimming pools to polar ice caps and everywhere in-between.
62
Years Innovating Underwater Imaging Solutions
A reputation you can trust your camera to. We bring more combined experience in designing and building camera housings and underwater lighting products than any other manufacturer.
1959
Ike's Lights
Ike owns a dive shop and dives the Great Lakes on the weekends. He gets sick of coming back home with a trunk full of flooded flashlights. While driving back to Indianapolis he decides there's a better way to create a waterproof seal.
1962
Ikelite
Ike has traveled the Midwest showing his light at local dive shows and the light has been picked up by Dacor. People keep calling and asking about "Ike's lights" and the moniker "Ikelite" is born. The Ikelite was the first underwater dive light with a sealed beam bulb.
1965
Housings
At the time, only a handful of serous photographers were shooting underwater. Ike has the notion to democratize underwater photography and quickly moves on to developing housings. The first offering is a kit with two un-mounted controls for customer adaptation to Kodak Instamatics and other cameras. Ikelite was the original seamless housing mold and the first to use lid snap closures.
1979
Strobes
Until this point Ikelite had supported everything from flash cubes to surface flashes inside of housings. Our Substrobe 150 flash was the first underwater strobe with built-in aiming light. We went on to provide underwater photographers with the first interchangeable sync cords, removeable battery packs, smart charging, and battery power indicators.
1983
Dive Computers
Ikelite designs and patents an automatic depth timer and digital dive log, the precursor to every modern dive computer. The DDL-1000 watch automaticlaly begins measuring bottom time after detecting submergence, displays dive time while underwater, and stores the dive on surfacing.
1992
Housings
Ike was always committed to making underwater photography accessible and affordable. The simple, colorful Aquashot housing epitomized this concept as it accepted a wide variety of inexpensive disposable film cameras.
1993
TTL
The cleverly named TTL Sensor made wireless automatic strobe exposure a possibility for the first time underwater. Film TTL was fairly straightforward, but digital cameras were different matter. About a decade after this product's release, we were the first manufacturer to offer TTL communication between a digital camera and an underwater strobe.
2006
New Head Light
Ike passed away leaving the Company to his children with then 25-year-old daughter Jean as the President & CEO.
2010
Video Lights
The building on our flashship DS160-series strobes, the DS161 was the first hybrid underwater strobe with built-in LED video light.
Future
Future
As we head into our 60's, Ikelite feels younger than ever with the rise of mirrorless cameras and the introduction of the powerful DS230 strobe.
After working at Ikelite through high school and post-college, Ike’s daughter Jean has been President & CEO since his passing in 2006. Jean has her hands in a little bit of everything from production to sales, marketing, and service.
Ike’s youngest son John follows in his father’s footsteps with an entrepreneurial spirit and a serious talent for translating customer needs to product design. John heads up our engineering team and brings product ideas to life.
After working at Ikelite through high school and post-college, Ike’s daughter Jean has been President & CEO since his passing in 2006. Jean has her hands in a little bit of everything from production to sales, marketing, and service.
Ike’s youngest son John follows in his father’s footsteps with an entrepreneurial spirit and a serious talent for translating customer needs to product design. John heads up our engineering team and brings product ideas to life.
The Full Story
Ike and his Company through the years.
Daughter Jean Rydberg recounts the story of Ikelite's beginnings and how we got where we are today.
Everything Ike Didn't Want You to Know
Growing up with Ike Brigham as a father didn't teach me anything about underwater photography (or even what a housing was). But it did teach me that anything was possible if you were willing to wo...
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