Underwater Glass

Hello all! I'm looking to build an underwater camera housing, and I need some advice. The camera will be controlled via USB from the surface, and we have our box. The problem I'm trying to get around is: What to use for the front. I'm very concerned about image quality, and I need this to be documentary quality. What glass or plastic would you use for the front? Will flat glass distort?
I (quite painfully obviously) cannot buy or rent an Ikelight or anything similar or I would.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Being in the reef aquarium hobby I would suggest acrylic as inorder to get crystal clear glass you will be spending allot more money. I currently use a acrylic box as a window under the surface of my tank and I don't have any issues with it. Your thickness will depending on your depth under the water and make sure to water test it at a little deeper then you target depth to make sure it does not leak.

Thanks for the recommendation! do you have a favorite supplier? I anticipate maximum depth is 6 feet. It's not a deep water thing at all.

I'd look at the biggest UV filter I could find. The whole front doesn't need to be clear, only the part the lens sees through.

Check out surfphotographersunite​d.com there is a thread there about building custom waterhousings. Maybe you could find some info there that might be useful as far as what and where to buy it.

Short answer, glass or acrylic. Flat for macro, dome for stand/wide. Dome dia will depend on lens MFD and IIRC dome alignment should have the radious in line with the lens nodal point(dome also doesn't need to be a full 180°, so a 8" dome can only be 3" deep and still be good for a fisheye).

You may be able to find a sweet deal on a dome port on ebay, I'd imagine some of the old screw on ports for aquatica might be really cheap since all the newer housing use bayonet mounts. Minor scratches on outside could give a low price as well even they it won't show in photos.

You can also buy now optical grade acrylic dome quite cheap but I'm not sure perfect the dome shape would be so it might not give the best IQ but for the price it might be worth a try. I was going to use some for DIY speedlite housings.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of connection do you use as most wireless connections are meant to be used in open air and degrade really quickly through walls or indeed in water?

It will be tethered. If we ever get around to making it. It will be used in small streams for trout. The camera would be controlled viaUSB ran through liquidtite or something similar.
Thas for the heads-up on the aquatica ports, Lovemyram.

It may be worth checking on ebay for some old Nikonos glass and botching a mount directly to the front of the camera. Works well with the Sony A7 series and a few others.

Did you try a Dicapac style housing? It's cheap (so worth a try!) and certainly sturdy enough for trout. I use a Chinese knock-off, and while it does have flat acrylic port, the image quality seems to be pretty good.

DoughnutPhoto wrote in post #17482387
Did you try a Dicapac style housing? It's cheap (so worth a try!) and certainly sturdy enough for trout. I use a Chinese knock-off, and while it does have flat acrylic port, the image quality seems to be pretty good.

What a great product idea, thanks for the post. Going to try one of these!