Clarke Image Products

Into the Pit.
Aqualenz Sport Housings vs Mavericks

Proexhange met with some top Mavericks shooters a few days prior to opening day (predicted October 8) at Mavericks Road House Cafe/surfshop. On hand were Don Montgomery, Bill Clarke, Doug Acton, Jeff Clark and special guest Alan Love of Aqualenz Camera Housings. Alan had come with his brother Greg from Australia to promote Aqualenz' new line of housings for the Canon EOS models. And beautiful products they are. Alan's job was to convince these Northern California lensmen that Aqualenz housings could take any beating that Mavericks could dish out. These water housings would be a logical step in reaching "the next level" that these photographers constantly strive to attain ..

BC: Alan, how long has Aqualenz been making housings?
AL: I've been making these housings for about 5 years. As a business, Aqualenz has been going for about 2 years. They're manufactured in Australia and we have a base here in Huntington Beach, a distribution outlet. We're trying to establish the U.S. area now. This (EOS housing) was pretty much our first housing. Everything else before this was hand made. Drawing off allot of other information.
DM: What did the first one that you made look like?
AL: Like a square box. I had a guy in Southern California making housings for me. I got used to always repairing the ones he made for me. I just got used to it. Got used to using the material. That was Dale Kobetich. He's been doing it for allot of years. He used to make mine. Because I was in Australia, I found it very difficult to send to him and have it get back to me within a year. So I started repairing them and making them myself and this is where we're at.
BC: Does Aqualenz make housings for video cameras also?
AL: Yeah, we do custom housings for any camera. But these housings are our generic stock because they're built for the 35mm still camera of choice internationally, the CANON EOS 3 or EOS 1N. It just doesn't pay off to do the tooling to make the housings for a lot of other different cameras. You take a pick and this is CANON's best, so that's what most of the pros are using, that's what we make the housings for.
BC: What does Don King use?
AL: Well I've made Don's housings for about 2 years so it depends..which camera. He's got allot of cameras. I just recently finished a 16mm motion picture camera. But he's got one of these (for the EOS) I've made a couple of other still housings for him. He predominantly shoots allot of film now, but he did start off shooting stills.
BC: What sets Aqualenz Sport Housings apart from the competition?
AL: Up until now, if you wanted a housing for surfing, you went to a guy in a garage and he made your housings so the availability of a sport housing....I mean, I could never find one that's why I started making them. Scott Priess, Dale Kobetich, Ron Barbish. They make housings but they can't make the volume because they're making them by hand in their garage. They're good units but it's difficult. What we have here (with the 3 EOS housings on display) this is made with a proper mold which costs allot of money, we can produce about 10 per month. Now when I was making them by hand a year ago, we could make 4 per month. And this is the problem when you go to manufacture.
DM: They're so light and compact. That is the ticket. Back in the late 80's I had a housing made by Ikelite, but it was an underwater housing and it wasn't designed for shooting above water. So it was heavy and cumbersome. It even had a weight in the bar to create the neutral buoyancy.
AL: There's a huge difference between surfing and diving housings and it's growing more and more You need to be between eight and ten pounds to get that neutral buoyancy. That's heavy outside of the water. We want to think that we're using what technology has to offer here.
BC: Where are you located in Australia?
AL: Located in a small town south of Sydney, a place called Thirroul, NSW. I've got allot of the Aussie guys using my stuff. They've got pretty good reputations; John Franks is using our stuff, and Bill Morris, Bill Alexander, Dean Wilmont, Sean Davey. He lives in Hawaii now; he's married to a Hawaiian girl. They're pretty well known guys and get pictures published in international surfing publications. Hawaii and Australia have been by main areas, but I'm trying to get the Californians involved. Do many guys get in the water out there (at Mavericks)? I know you guys are on boats and on boards and stuff. But to get really close seems to be very dangerous.
DM: Yeah, Peralta gets in the water. Doug and Frank are on waverunners and in wetsuits.
AL: I think I remember Doug saying that he shot allot with a 100mm or 135mm.
DM: Now are these interchangeable ports?
AL: Yeah. I'm toying with this idea here-a bayonet fit. But I want to test it.
DM: That would certainly be allot quicker. You leave it here and we'll test it for you.... Guaranteed.
AL: (Demonstrating) we have a film roll turn around time of under a minute. This is something new. So you could be out in your Jet Ski, out in the channel. Here's how I do it. (Change your film) Unsnap the clips cross ways. Take off the backplate of the housing. You don't have to take your camera out. You put your finger in the little space there to click open the back door of the camera. Put the new film in. Put the backplate on make sure your locating pins are lined up. Bang Bang....Bang Bang: the four clips snap tight. You're back out..Back focus...continual focus.....Bang, Bang Bang. The metering in this EOS 3 is phenomenal.
DM: When you sell these, do you sell them with extra seal rings as well?
AL: I usually give you one 0-ring but that's not a problem. I just have to charge for it. They are about $20 a set. We're getting new 0-rings...30-derometer silicon 0-rings....real soft. Usually if there's a leak it's not coming from that place... but they wear out. I don't see them wearing out a whole lot in this environment. It's allot worse when you're shooting everyday in Hawaii where the sun's beaten down on the 0-ring. Give em a good wash out. Never put Vaseline on them, or WD 40. Put 0-ring grease on them. I will supply you with silicon 0-ring grease or you can get it from any dive shop. Vaseline is a bad mistake. With nitro O-rings like these O-rings here, it will actually eat it up. Marine grease is too thick. You want to use silicon grease that's real thin. I don't know if you guys dive, but it's the same stuff they use on tank seals.
JC: It actually lacks the oil abrasives in it, that regular grease has.
BC: What do these beauties run?
AL: This unit here would be $1350. That comes with 1 port, not with this bayonet port. We haven't worked out the pricing on this, because I'm still testing it.
DA: What did you seal that with?
AL: It's got an 0-ring here and an 0-ring in here.
BC: Each port would run you about what?
AL: About $180
DA: I'll take one of each.
AL: I hear you're a Nikon guy. You got that F100 yet?
DA: Actually to be honest with you, I've never had a problem with my F4. To show you how good the Nikon's are, my F4, I've had it every year I've been shooting out here on a boat, on the waverunner...and I've taken it in once to be cleaned. That's it. It's a workhorse.
AL: You don't have to convince me on Nikon. I've been a Nikon boy my whole life. I used to have the 15mm rectilinear lens. And I shot with my N90S and with my FM2 and my FE2 and every other 2. You can't beat Nikon. You should see the F100. Oh manumit is sharp.
DA: That's my next purchase. I have expenditures that I have priorities on; that housing for that video is priority. New computer, slide scanner...let's see, what else. (Ha, ha, ha)
AL: The F100 is a beautiful camera. Actually, I've made a few housings for it. It's got back focus. Its like a miniature F5. It's a really sharp camera.
DA: How come you don't do an F5?
AL: We do an F5, not in that mold and with the clips. With the F5 I've made 3 housings in 2 years. That's why we really can't go to mold.
DA: Nick-on, that's the Japanese. Never knock Nikon, their optics, Nikkor optics are probably still the best. I think.. What do I know.?
BC: Only three Mavericks covers, right? That's the record.
DM: How's the runoff on surface of these ports?
AL: Depending on what you want. Some guys like to try to keep em dry and some like to keep it wet. Everybody's different. I never give advice on that one. Some people use toothpaste.
DA: These are nice. Out here, I shoot outside of housing. I don't use housing. Cause I shoot an 80-200 zoom.
AL: By the way. We're in the process of developing a rain shield made out of silicon that will cover your body and your lens.
DA: Want me to test it out? Give it to me and I'll test it for you guys. I'm serious. You want the real test? This is the place to do it.
AL: The retail cost is only going to be about $150. It's worth it...because were talking about mist here.
BC: Where do you see the most growth for Aqualenz in the next five years?
AL: We're looking at other areas outside of surfing. Were getting allot of response especially with this new back plate, quick release, for things like white water rafting, snowboarding. Just water sports in general. Lot of guys in Australia doing fashion stuff with housings. Just mainly on a hire basis. One of the bad things was that they didn't want to undo the back plate and have it take ten minutes. Have to have tool for everything. This way you don't have to have a tool.
DM: That was the problem with the Ikelite; you had screwdrivers, wrenches, all kinds of stuff.
AL: There's logic in the way that they used to make em. We've been able with the technology of the C&C machine, vary the 0-ring path here. Because with Ikelite and allot of manufacturing materials, if you take away the weight, you get flexibility. And this stuff bends. So what we've done is put a curve in the 0-ring path from here to here, so that you get an even distribution of pressure on the 0-ring path. Where's Ikelite when they were popular in the '70s, probably didn't have access that we have to the C&C and these computerized beveling machines. Since I've been involved, people have been making housings for surfing out of garages.
DM: Do you have one designed for the EOS A2E?
AL: Yeah. We also have housings for the Canon A2. It's a little different than this. It's got the bolts on the back. I don't have one on me. I'm in the process of making five. Cause its such an old camera, I'll only make a lot of five. Six months later I'll make another lot of five. I'll always make the A2. I can see myself making the A2 housing for a while. It's the most popular camera outside of California...by far. Brazilians love it, Europeans love it. The A2 housing is $1265 or $1250, somewhere around there...We can work something out. If you guys are interested, just buy them all at the same time and I go, "Hey, wow! I can whack off a whole bunch here. The TRV and the A2 are regulars so they're not "one offs".
DA: What about video cameras?
AL: We're just finishing the mold. We'll be done November 15 for the TRV 900. The Sony 3 chip.
DA: How much are you selling that for?
AL: Right now we have it down for about $1320.... That's cheap. By the way, my mold is made for the medium sized 750 battery. You can't use the 950. It sticks out past the eyepiece. The 750 that's all you need. I think its $200 or $100 or something but it's worth it because the thing is, the precision on where you place this backplate, lines up perfectly with that battery so the camera doesn't move in and out. If you use the small one you gotta put a wedge back here.
DA: You should talk to these sports channel guys that get contracted for ESPN 2 and those stations. Cause they're using the 900's. They're using the industrial one.... The black one. It's got less bells and whistles on it. I've seen, working with those guys at the X-Games and out here, that's what they use. In fact that's all they use.
AL: The PD 100, it's called.
GL: That's a great camera, an awesome camera. That's the true shit.
DA: I jacked it in on my friends TV music S deposit cord and I'm tellin you. man....it was just...
GL: Oh S-video? Oh my God! 525 lines man. You can't get any better than that right now.
DA: Every crew that showed up here, they carried a 900 with em. The only one I saw using a water housing was the ESPN 2 crew at the X-Games for the wakeboarding. . Dyna Com probably. It was a piece of crap. It was like an Ikelite.
AL: That's Dyna Com. they're hopeless.
DA: Well the 900 would be the one I'd be really interested in, but I need it mounted on top.
AL: If you want it mounted on your head, we can do that. It's heavy; it's heavy ...on top of the head.
DA: It doesn't matter. The thing is, when I'm on a waverunner, especially in wakeboard stuff, I can follow behind the guy...and just match his speed. What they're doing now, is they're doing it with a longer rope and an inner tube. And the guy (shooter) goes in the inner tube. I think if you did it with film, it would be insane.
AL: Yeah, I just heard about that. They are starting to use these housings for wakeboarding. A guy just emailed me telling me about that. Have you heard Century's made a wide angle for that, a fisheye? Beautiful.. Beautiful. From Century optics.
DA: No. I'm not talking about tight. I'm talking about if you're shooting from a boat. In my instance, I'll be shooting from a waverunner. I won't be as close as in the tube with the guy. I'm talking about normal like shooting with my 80-200 zoom. And the camera shoots stills but I can shoot video at the same time.
AL: I've found that when I put it on the side. It's really, really awkward. Its like...your neck is gonna snap off. If we put it on top, you can barely feel the weight. The only time I would go, "Oh you can't have it on top" was like a lot of guys at Shark Island. Riding their body boards.... And if that lip hits...it'll tear their head off. The housing won't go nowhere, but their neck will break. Because I make it with Kevlar and it ain't goin nowhere.
DA: How do you do it, do you taper it with the actual helmet?
AL: Yeah. I make a mold of the helmet. And then I'll bolt with buttonhead socket screws comming out this way...so you can't feel it. Then I put the pad on the inside of the buttonhead socket screws. You just put a nut on each side.
DA: Wouldn't it be hard to calibrate so where you look is where the camera goes?
AL: Yeah that's a tough one. It's so relative to how the helmet fits on your head. That's the problem: mounting a camera on the head and calibrating it to the eye.
DA: Can you do it so you have a pressure plate where you can adjust it yourself? That way it would probably alleviate any problems. Because if you allow me the ability to level it myself with line of sight. I don't want to be looking straight and get the film back and its looking sideways! (Ha! Ha! Ha!)
AL: Yeah, we can do that. That's what you would want to do. We just made a helmet cam for a boogie boarder guy that was going to indo and we mounted it and he told us where he wanted it and I let my assistant do the whole thing. Because he was a friend of his and I thinking its gonna be too low. It looks too low for inside the barrel. And they were going, "No, No. It will work." And they came back and it was all too low. But this is different because the water isn't sucking up and you're not facing downward, right?
DA: No. I want the point of view where I look that's where I want the camera.
AL: There's ways we can do it. I can put it on his head and I can have him look through one and I can look through the same one and identify the same place. And that's where well put it.
DA: Don't charge me an arm and a leg, but make it worth your while. But also remember that working here, I meet all the guys of all the heavy hitters. On 48 hours..On all the news teams. Everything. And they see something like this; I can slip em a card. You know what I'm saying? "Jeff, how many water crews come here from different like ESPN?"
JC: Allot. Yeah, we've had like 10 different crews last year. The morning channel showed up here with a camera. I shot with the thing a little bit. I paddled for some waves with the thing and took some stuff of Jay.
AL: You guys are gonna love the 900 housing. It's nice. You don't buy housing from anybody but somebody who's been involved with surfing. That's my experience. Regardless if it's big. I don't care. But buy from somebody who knows about surfing. Its a whole other game. Sports are different than Ikelite or C&C or Sauval. They're all dive housings.
BC: And Mavericks is a different game in surfing.
JC: There's just a little more water.
DM: So what's the warranty? Two days after you leave?
AL: We warrantee them for a year. It's sort of unlimited.... On anything and subject to the type of damage. What I say is, "They've been tested". When you receive them. If you receive them by post. Test them again, in case Federal Express has thrown em across the room. And they have done that. A couple of times. Bye the way. If you get allot of water in on your first test...then something has happened in transport. Because every single unit is tested before it goes out. As you can imagine, it's very bad business to have housings leak.
JC: I've never done that. I used to work at Fed Ex.
AL: They've broken a couple of housings on me. What I do with Fed Ex now is write, "Not fragile". Basically it's subject to damage. If there's a minor leak, you'll detect it and I'll fix it free of charge so no worries. I'll even pay for the post. But if you've dropped it on the ground, I can tell. And if you drop it on the ground, don't write of email, "I didn't drop it on the ground either". I had a guy not long ago write to me and he was saying all this stuff, "I didn't do this and I didn't do that". It turned out that nothing wrong with the housing. He just had a crack in the paint. The paint had sort of peeled because he had baked it in the sun or something. No one has lost a camera yet. We haven't had to replace a camera. We've had minor leaks. I'm not going to be naive. But usually they're detected cause you get a fogging in the front element and front port. Most users are professionals and they can see, "Hey what's going on here." I've already gone through all the problems.
JC: I knew I was in trouble, I was down about fifteen feet filming these fish coming in and out of this big coral head. I was down and went up and around and watched the line of water go past the lens.... Oh man! And you know what had done it? It was being in the airplane. Pressure. Going up and down.
AL: In my instruction sheet I say, "Travel with the O-rings loosened. Separate those things when you're on an airplane. Although with the O-rings that I have now, it wouldn't matter. It's just not good practice.
DM: Well are you gonna leave us with some business or brochures?
AL: Well actually, I'm waiting for some flyers to arrive. That's why I got your cards. I'm gonna send you a flier about this and the TRV 900. You can just contact me any time via Internet (aqualenz.com), via email (sales@aqualenz.com) via phone. Since I've been here, I've got about five orders for the TRV 900. I'm giving people November 15 is the time I'm gonna be looking at shipping em out. Now with a helmet, that's a different story. All I can tell you is I'll try to get it done. I can't say it's gonna be done on November 15. You'll have a look at it...for this winter.
DA: Make it a special circumstance because I will be ready. I'm telling you...the footage we can get from that thing. "Don? On top of the head?". And there's angles that I can get that I've seen while I'm going across "the pit." Waves breaking like 30 yards away...and you're looking at it. A guy dropping in and going like this (shows angles). Your racing him and you're going, "Woohhh.am I gonna make it, am I gonna make it, am I gonna make it...Wheeeeeehhhhhh! By then I'll have my 1200 so.
ALL: Oh Yeah! (Stoked)
DA: So how long are you guys gonna be in California?
AL: I'll be here another week. I've been here for a month and I've got to get home.
JC: You could try those out Saturday.

It will be interesting to see what Doug Acton get's with his helmet video camera as he blasts accross the pit at Mavericks on his new Kawasaki 1200 waverunner. That is definitely taking it to the next level. Contact Aqualenz Sport Housings for the best surf housings

Proexchange/Bill Clarke