Thursday, March 8, 2012

DIY lens replacement

Replacing my secondary DiveBox's standard dome lens with a flat lens prototype took 25', carefully following the german manufacturer's step-by-step instructions. Now I just need to test my modified box's waterproofness, before trying it out with a camera inside.

DiveBox with flat lens
Using a DiveBox with flat lens should allow me to shoot in Full HD (i.e. with a FOV of 127°) both above and below water, without needing to manually re-focus my CamOne infinity for each medium, as would be required with the original dome lens.

Note that this flat lens solution causes heavy vignetting in all photo modes (3|5|8MP) and in 170° videos (480p & 720p), at least in air!



UPDATE: My modified DiveBox failed its first test, from the looks of it the prototype lens leaked :o( The original remained dry down to 18m.

UPDATE: Yesterday I replaced the first flat lens prototype with the second one I got in about 15'. And today I'm happy to write that this one passed its first 70' submersion down to 18m.