Pistol grip for camerahousing

General Discussion
1

Greetings Friends!

Once again I return to this great forum to seek some advice on this new project.

I'm building my second UW housing for a digital dslr. This new one will be for a Canon EOS 5D Mark 1. I've previously build a housing for the larger EOS 1Ds mark II, see pics. That one was big and heavy but worked very good and was 100% water tight. The only control it had was a shutter release button as you can see in the pic. Bought it from Ikelite and was around 20 bucks I think. The housing worked fine but was difficult to hold up out of the water because of it's weight and because of it's trigger mechanism you had to hold the housing with both hands and could not strech out very far that way. I'm now trying to figure out a way to build this second housing with a pistol grip handle with shutter release on the index finger. This will enable one hand shooting and will make it alot easier to reach out with the camera to get those inside the tube shots. I've been surfing around the internet trying to figure out some good solution on how to make this pistol grip but with no success. So I'm hoping some of you guys might have some ideas. I'm also blowing a plexiglass dome to use in front of the lens for this housing instead of the flat port I used before. Flat port works great for 35mm lenses or longer but for wide angle lenses this doessent work because of the way light gets reflected through the flat lens amkes the images unsharp towards the edges. This will be a interresting building project, but a somewhat difficult one. Hope someone has som ideas on the pistol grip thing.

 

Cheers Bramberg  

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Hey, Bramberg;nice work there.

Uhm, the shutter release is that black lever, yes? Well, what I might do is build something almost like a speargun handle, with trigger, and set it so you could use a similar lever control ( with maybe a spring return) .

I would also mount the handle and the control at the bottom of the housing, maybe have the control rod to the shutter button and such inside the housing. Control and support of the whole shebang would be easier that way.

Also- make it a bolt-on rig, so you can easily take the pistol grip off and fasten a pole mount on, similar to http://www.photosupportsystems.com/still/still.htm

hope that's of use

doc....

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Howdy Doc.

The pistol grip i'm thinking of is going to be placed under the housing as you see on most pro housing models. Thought i might take a canon remote control switch and cut away the switch and just use the wires to asemble some trigger that way. The problem is getting it watertight. Also thought about having a lever trigger like the one in the pic and making some kind of "speargun trigger" with a couppling to the lever outside of the housing some how. This will definately look hardcore and might work but i dont think the feel of snapping the shutter will be there. That was one of the problems with the leverknob wich didn't have any feel to it. It should be a pistolgrip/pole mount type of some sort with a nice distinct shutter button. I know how to wire up some new buttons to the wires of a stripped canon remote but i have no good idea as to how i would make it watertight..

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Hey, Bramberg;

Uhmmmm- now, that might be a little tougher. Not familiar with the canon remote switches, but...how about you build the remote switch button into the bottom of the housing, using something like the Ikelite button kit with covers and all.

Then, heh- here's how you could make the 'click switch effect' without having to worry about making the remote switch watertight.

Make your trigger setup and the trigger lever ( or 'rocker)  has a pivot point, around which the thing rotates. Inside the pistol grip body you have a coupla holes drilled, one for a return spring and one has a ball bearing at the end of a spring, which in turn rolls along that pivot surface. But on that path/surface is a detent, something like a faint touch of a drill, so that as it rolls it catches for just a bit before continuing enough to contact the remote button and click the shutter. Or, you could do any number of variants on that, like how the trigger lets loose a hammer in a pistol.

Being lazy, i'm not gonna try to do up a drawing, but hopefully there's enough to go on with?

best regards

doc...

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I think i know what you mean. I've though about something like that to. A bit hard to illustrate but maybe you get the idea from this sketch. The trigger is a ikelite lever knob, the kind you can bend as you like. The lever is ofcourse the black trigger. The leger gois in through a "lever housing" just aboove the pistol grip and sorta on to the side of it. The though is then that I will modify a canon switch with new buttons like in the picture. The first one will be spring loaded as to trigger the autofocus before the other one trigger the shutter. This is the best solution I have so far but i dont feel like it's perfect. There are some industry grade watertight buttons that I found online. only found the ones with two poles - on/off. Those will not trigger the autofocus and then the shutter. And i don't know how distinct they are. What i want is something like they have on the pro Essex housings. It's a small rubbered button that has a nice and distinct click feel as you press it. It aint aesy but I think I can get it done somehow. Hopefully someone who reads this will have some further ideas on how to.

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Ah, now I think I see. The Canon remote thing basicly duplicates the 'touch-autofocuus, push harder to fire the shutter' arrangement that most digital cameras use. Makes sense.

Okay, how about your trigger driving a rotating cam inside the housing? That means you can have it turn X degrees to make the autofocus happen, then a little more of a turn and the shutter fires. You could probably make something out of HDPE or similar plastic, as it doesn't take a particularly heavy load. Some model robot parts, for instance, in combination with the Ikelite lever, that'd probably work just fine.

Or...find out what the Essex people use......

doc...

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Something like an oval disk mounted on the end of the shaft of the ikelite lever might work. Really hope to get away with something else since anything based on the ikelite lever will mean little feel to it. Will probably be more like squeesing together a pair of pliers than snapping a trigger. A good reverse spring might make this work ok though. I'll give it some thought. Think I'll make a detachable grip so I can always make a new one if it doessent work out well. Any ideas on how to mold you own rubber sealings then? For the other housing i used sheets of rubber used to cut out oil gaskets for bigger engines. This was to stiff and i had to make two sealings with soft silicone in between. It worked fine but you had to tighten the housing bolts very carefully. Was thinking I would router a small track aroudg the opening of the housing and put a round o-ring type of seal there. It will be pressed out flat by the preassure from the bolts thus securing a tight seal.

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[quote="$1"]

Something like an oval disk mounted on the end of the shaft of the ikelite lever might work. 

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Exactly. Doesn't have to be a 'nice' oval either, it could be slightly 'stepped' for something with better feel to it.

[quote="$1"]

Really hope to get away with something else since anything based on the ikelite lever will mean little feel to it. Will probably be more like squeesing together a pair of pliers than snapping a trigger. A good reverse spring might make this work ok though. I'll give it some thought.

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 Well, Ikelite has some push button watertight seal setups available, see http://ikelite.com/web_pages/control_parts.html, that'd work Uhmmmmm - lemme see - if you build the feel into the trigger mechanism, you've got something that can work independantly of the particular shutter trigger setup, if you follow my thinking here.

[quote="$1"]

Think I'll make a detachable grip so I can always make a new one if it doessent work out well. Any ideas on how to mold you own rubber sealings then? For the other housing i used sheets of rubber used to cut out oil gaskets for bigger engines. This was to stiff and i had to make two sealings with soft silicone in between. It worked fine but you had to tighten the housing bolts very carefully. Was thinking I would router a small track aroudg the opening of the housing and put a round o-ring type of seal there. It will be pressed out flat by the preassure from the bolts thus securing a tight seal.

[/quote]

Ah- okay, I see what you're thinking.

What I'd work towards is something more like a single watertight control 'gland' or button or whatever on the bottom of the housing that'd be actuated by whatever your grip contains, and maybe three or four bolts ( or threaded inserts might be better)  inset into the housing, so your grip/handle just needs to be in contact with that rather than, say, the handle base flange securing a watertight membrane or similar that itself would have to be a really good fit, really stiff and pretty tricky to set up.

If you built a jig/template for the bolt pattern at the same time as you build the housing, that'd simplify it all when you wanted to make variations.

You can buy watertight controls cheap enough that'd screw in or whatever, like the Ikelite lever does. And that way, the handle/grip/pole mount  is easily changed or variations built while the basic housing itself is watertight by itself: the control mechanisms in the grip don't enter into it.

If you used threaded inserts, some care would have to be taken with the length of the screws or bolts, if they were too long that'd be a problem.

Uhmmm- drat, this is where a drawing would be useful, just for sketching out ideas. But I hope I'm making this a little clearer than mud....

doc...

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Lots of strong swedish coffe and thinking bout this. I think the idea about the ikelite pushrod button could be a good one. Have never seen one of those except on the ikelite site. Maybe a springloaded version of this would give a good feel. Always thought those pushrod things needed some force to move them (?). The idea is to snap the trigger easily with the tip of the finger. Feeling a nice click as it goes from autofocus position (halfway) to where it releases the shutter would be epic. Doing some further research on this. Thanks for the link to surfphotographers forum. Didn't even know they existed. Guess it's like a swaylocks for photographers ey, although it can't be as good as sway's.

 

The sealing I'm talking about molding or making, maybe I'm not describing this in a good way, but technical stuff is hard to explain in english.. The seal in between the housing and the grip is easy, a standard o-ring seal will work fine for this. Guess the handle will mount to the house using four or three bolts. A hole in the camerahousing, in the center of where the pistol grip mounts (that is beeing surrounded by the o-ring) will allow for the trigger release cable from the grip to enter the house. I see no problem with this. But the housing need to have a big "o-ring" or some kind of seal between the back and the front part of the housing. It wont be circular like a standard o-ring but will follow the outline of the house. I'll draw it, I think you see what I mean though. This is something i have to mold or customise somehow. The rubber sheets I used to cut out the sealings for the other house I build was not very good. They held the water out but I had to tighten the bolts so that the plexiglass almost cracked. Molding a good soft rubber seal that wont crack from beeing pressed might be difficult. I've seen DIY housings with good seals so I guess there must be some good way of making them.

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I see - lets see now if this will work

[img_assist|nid=1049136|title=Housing variation|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First off, please forgive what I've done to your sketch.

next, the idea I'm working with is that the watertight pushbutton ( labelled 'push control') is integral to the housing, not the handle. Using a simple lever or something from your trigger, so that pulling the trigger pushes the control rod up and it contacts the push control. Lots of ways to do that that would give you some feel and so on to simulate the feel of that autofocus to firing the shutter progression.

Anyhow, I have to run, but hope that's of use

doc...

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Say, that's a small picture there Doc. Can't really see what you had in mind but I think I get an idea though. Something like doing the housing as a sepparate watertight unit if the pistol grip is mounted or not. And then do a mechanic linkage from the trigger on the pistol grip to a ikelite style control that goes through the main camera housing, right?

Really appreciate your ideas. I have just been in contact with ikelite distributor to order a pushrod control. Ofcourse they didn't have it in sweden so they are checking it for me. It's not very expensive so I'm ordering one to see how it works and feels. Maybe it's a go after some special mod.

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I have always wanted to make a water proof housing but have never been able to think through the trigger mechanism. Figuring out the housing was never really the problem. Thanks for this thread.

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If you just want a trigger and don't necesarily need the pistol grip style with a doubble stage trigger then I would recomend the Ikelite "machined to bend - 4" or 6" lever knob" http://ikelite.com/web_pages/control_parts.html That is what I  used for my first housing. I'll post some close ups so you can see how it works (the camera in the house is not the cameramodel the the house was build for) The setup works good and does not leak. The downpart is that you don't get a very accurate feel for the exact moment when the shutter goes. On the camera i used for this housing, a Canon EOS 1Ds mark 2, this wasn't a big deal because it shoots over 8 frames per second. I just held the lever in and the camera  snapped away 20 or 30 pictures in a row. The Canon 5D for wich I'm building this next housing delivers 3 frames per second so I want to trigger at the right moment. Plus the obvious benefits of a pistol grip is you can handle the camera with one hand and reach out of the water much better that way. I'll post some pic's for you. I'll post a pic of where it was build to, the tipi, explains some of the ruff style of the build. Yes!

Cheers

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Damn- yeah, I uploaded it to Sways and it came through dinky on the actual post...looked fine in draft mode.

But, yes, exactly, the housing itself is watertight and then the linkage doesn't have to be. I think it would be a smaller and much simpler installation.  The other advantage is that you could do different grips, pole mounts or whatever you like, maybe even mount it on the deck and use a foot pedal trigger. You could build the detents into the trigger mechanism itself, and vary the triggers easily.

Myself, I find that the bigger an o-ring is, the more I worry about it, let alone a big flange to hold it all in place. So many opportunities for a little warp or distortion under load to let all the water in. .

Good luck with the pushrod control - hoping it's a fairly simple setup.

doc...

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I'm on a roll with this. The Ikelite knob goes for 67$! It's affordable but nothing to buy just to experiment with. Doessent matter anyway. I'm gonna go to the bottom of this and order my stuff from industrial manufacturers directlym. I'm designing a new watertight knob from scratch and doing so cheaper than the price of one ikelite knob. Also found a great solution to the internal doubble stage triggering mechanism aswell as a great way of making good sealants for the housing and port. I'm going to start experimenting with blowing plexiglass domes in a few days. Just need to get an owen and make some rims for the plexiglass. This will be epic!

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A good wide angle lens should give you a lot of depth of field, you won’t need to focus, set the focus manually. If you don’t have one already, you could get an old fast (f=2.0 or 2.8) wide angle lens pretty cheap. Then set the camera to manual focus, manual aperture setting about 5.6 or 8 and you’ll be in focus all the time. Or you could set the ISO to auto and have everything else set manually for the best shutter/aperture for time of day you’re shooting. Then you just need a simple trigger mechanism.

Canon sells a remote switch RS-80N3 for about the same cost as the Ikelite knob. You could build the handle around that.

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There you go - making the double-stage mechanism inside is the best way to go, I think, keep the outside as simple as possible and the possibility of leaks goes way down besides making the outside pistol grip a lot simpler to make.

The watertight push mechanism shouldn't really be that big a deal - dunno how familiar with boat stuff you are but if you were to make something like a stuffing box with o-rings and silicone grease substituting for the usual flax packing, I think you'd have it. Making a return spring mechanism might get interesting but there's several ways to make that work.

I was thinking about what you'd use to actually push the shutter/autofocus button. That might be interesting: something that pushed too hard could do some damage. But... something like a pencil eraser would be soft enough to act like a human fingertip and push it without pushing too hard.

Plexiglass domes: a friend of mine was in the business of making shapes out of plexi. I don't know if vaccum forming might not be a good way to go, combined with heating in an oven to where it was bendable. Trick is to do it without major distortion coming in.

Uhmmm- one thing about the pistol grip: I'd make it as rectangular as you can, in cross-section. The idea being that then you'll have less chance of it pivoting in your hand and you'll have a better grip and a feel for where it is pointing.

Heh- what we really need is some sort of optical and electronic genius, who could make a waterproof digital body for the fine old Nikonos lens series.

doc...

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I got it all figured out, almost.. Dont know if I'll make the grip and the housing in piece since i will be using it with pistol grip all of the time. This will also limit the risk of leaking and make it more rigid. The trigger will be mechanic, like a psuhrod "ikelite style" but I'm making my own wich will be better, cheaper and i think I'll make it a bit thinner. It will trigger two electric switches that are rigged up so that the pushrod first touches the one couppled to the AF and then the one that trigger the shutter. The pushrod will be springloaded and I will make it "click" somehow, dunno exactly how yet. The contacts will have a wire connected to them with a plug that connects in the cameras remote control jack. I want to have autofocus so that I can shoot with any lens and not limit myself to the use of just super wide angles. To shoot with a fisheye or other wide lens you don't really need AF, but a 50 with f-stop 1.2 or 200mm at 2.8, won't yield many keepers without AF. Went and got alot of plexiglass to experiment with yesterday. Just gotta find a cheep owen and I'm on my way. 

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Bramberg, the Canon remote switch RS-80N3 works just like a trigger, you can push it in lightly to focus before shooting.

I don’t know how hard that would be to do since the only water shots I’ve done were in the 70’s and all cameras were manual everything, and the housings were the type you hold with 2 hands. There was a guy shooting back then that had his housing mounted on a small board. We call them paipos, they’re like skim boards. He was able to use that as a platform to sit on the surface, and he could go under waves easily.

I’ve been thinking about getting the cheap Canon underwater point and shoot camera for water shots. Won’t be the same quality, but it’s a lot smaller and you don’t have to deal with a housing so that’s a plus.

Good luck!

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hay sharky. I'm familiar with the canon switches but they are not waterprof. Build into a housing with a lever pushing on it wouldn't give you any good feel for when the shot is actually taken.

Using a paipo can be good sometimes. Especially if you are swimming in the channel with a heavy telelens on your camera. For shooting close up action in the tube or in the impact zone this style does not work so well. Oldschool points though! 

I was reading your earlier post and you are right that a f-stop of 5.6 on a very wide lens will yield a big depth of field. But a fast lens (let's say a 1.8) stopped down to 5.6 yields the same depth of field as a lens with biggest apperture of 5.6 shot at 5.6. It's the same!

I've tried some cheap underwater cams aswell, like the olympus Olympus mju Tough 8000. It sells around 280$ and I think and it's waterproof to 10meters. It's fun to play around with but you don't get any really good images to print or to publish with those. But it could be a fun place to start.

 

I use full frame canon digital camerabody - 5D