Personal rinse bucket for your underwater housing.

How many times have you come up from a dive and gone over to rinse your camera in the rinse bucket, only to find it full of other cameras?  Probably more than a few, I would imagine.  Somewhere along the way, the “rinse” bucket became the “soak” bucket.  And that totally “soaks,” if you ask me.

Rinsing your camera housing after a dive is an important step in housing maintenance, with the key being not to let any salt water dry on the housing.  But letting the housing soak for the entire surface interval is a bit much.  With so many cameras, and such little access to a rinse bucket, I decided to purchase a durable, soft-sided cooler bag from Bluewater Photo.  Not only does this cooler bag keep my dSLR housing and strobes protected on the boat (and while traveling), I can add some fresh water to it and have my own personal rinse bucket.  I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve been on a boat when someone pulled their rig out a rinse bucket after a “soak” and saw that it was flooded and/or damaged (usually the damage is a dome port scratch).  Having more than one rig (small or large) in a rinse bucket at a time is an invitation for trouble.  Obviously no one is out to cause damage on purpose, but more than two in a bucket is definitely a crowd.

Personally, I never leave my dome port uncovered, never leave my rig unattended in a “community” rinse bucket, and never hop on a boat without my Bluewater Photo cooler bag.  Besides, when you’re not diving, it is, in fact, a fantastic cooler!

The post Personal Rinse Bucket first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Have you checked your moisture alarm lately?

It’s good practice to test and/or change the batteries in your household smoke alarms twice a year, right?  So why not do the same with the moisture alarm in your housing?  I realize that not every housing has a moisture alarm (leak detector), but for those that do, testing it should be part of your maintenance procedure, and it only takes a few seconds.

For my Sea & Sea D7000 housing, I just put two drops of water on the sensor and watch for the red light to come on.  Others have told me that you can simply wet your finger and place it on the sensor.  Either way, you can have peace of mind that when you hop off the boat for your dive, your alarm is operational.  Be sure to throw an extra alarm battery in your kit as well, especially when you head out on a long trip. – Zig

The post Check Your Leak Alarm first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.