Building a HD water housing.

I've just gone through the process of building an underwater housing
for a Sony Z1 camcorder.

This is quite a process as there are various things that are really
important when putting a decent housing together. The most important
is robustness, which is easy. The second is size... I tend to use
breath-hold a lot in the water instead of SCUBA, so the housing can't
be too big. The Amphibico unit that I used for this camera was like
pushing a paint bucket through the water.

The third factor is optics. HD (even HDV) is more demanding than
standard def when it comes to glass, so this was a big one to
consider. My requirements were pretty specific with optics here. I
wanted a lens length that was wide enough to be flattering to the
water clarity and seascapes, but it couldn't be too wide as to be
exclusive. By this I mean that most expensive housings have fisheye
ports that are great for underwater landscape, but when individual
animals are in frame they look a million miles away. 120 degree wide
angles do this, and unless you're two feet away, the shot is basically
useless (unless its a whale...). For me this is pointless as I do a
lot of shark shooting. I need the shark to fill the frame in every
shot.

To solve all these above problems I took the Z1 and took it apart,
removed the handle which is clumsy anyway. I was left with a cylinder
form which fitted well into a robust pipe housing. I put a .7 Century
adaptor on the front which , in 16:9, gave the required lens angle
without making everything look distant. The .7, which amounts to a 90
degree angle, is also fine without a dome port; its not quite wide
enough to barrel distort. I do a lot of "wet lens" surface shooting
too, which a good glass flat port is ideal for.

I also have an optical glass dome on its way to get the true potential out of my wide angle, so I'll be covered for wide and close.

So at the moment I guess I'm really happy with my unit, especially
since I saved myself $5000.00!