Taking Care of Your Video Equipment
So It Takes Care of You

Part II:  On the Boat or at the Resort and Home Again

 On The Boat or At the Resort

Proper maintenance of your equipment while on the boat or at the resort is equally important as your pre-trip preparations. It’s not as time consuming as it may sound and is simply the wise and prudent thing to do to ensure that you have a trouble free vacation.

  1. Before entering the water, review with the boat tenders and dive crew exactly how you want your  Light & Motion housing to be handed down to you once you’re in the water. Specify what they should grab once you’re ready to pass your equipment back up to them.  Don’t assume that they’re familiar with the model of your housing or that they know not to grab the lights or monitor.  Good communication with a friendly but instructive manner will go a long way.

  2. Always rinse or soak your housing in fresh water after each dive.   Most dive boats have specially set rinse tanks just for housings and cameras. With the housing submerged, push all the buttons to flush out salt water.

  3. BE VERY AWARE of RINSE TANK DEMOLITION DERBY.  Too often dive crews will hand cameras and housings up to crewmembers who then place them in the rinse tank.  You just might find that there are other housings now placed on top of yours; damaging your unprotected lens or breaking light arms and controls.  It will serve you well to rinse your housing and then set it safely on the camera table out of harms way.

  4. With your housing on the camera table, dry off the lens and make sure to replace the lens cover. This will protect your lens from errant light arms and other scratch inducing projections.

  5. Female connections for the light pods – I use a syringe to wash them with fresh water at the end of a day’s diving and again before packing for the trip home.   You can also blow them out with a can of compressed air. (Don’t use compressed air to clean water off of the lens or housing as you may force water inside.)

  6. Always remove the light head cables from the battery pods and rinse with fresh water at the end of the dive day.

  7. Some people clean and re-grease the o-rings after every dive.  Visually inspect all O-rings prior to every dive and add a small amount of O-ring grease if necessary.

  8. Make sure the male connections to the pods are dry before putting the lights away, as there can be some air oxidation of the pins.

  9. Try not to twist the cables from the pods to the lights. Over time it might cause a break in the cable.

  10. Mark the covers to the pods so that you can put the same cover back on the same pod.  They have been factory checked at pressure as a matched set.

  11. When the housing is sitting on the camera table keep the back plate on the housing as other people may not be as careful as you are and splash water into your housing.
  12. When opening your housing (or camcorder) remember that your hair may be wet and may also drip water where it is not wanted.
  13. Double check that you have properly connected the monitor cable to the monitor.
  14. Do not wait until the last minute to get your video gear ready.  Prepare and check everything before the dive briefing, not when everyone is rushing to suit up.
  15. When all is done, double check that everything is sealed and ready to go.  The one time I ever had a flood it was because I was rushing. I didn’t check as I should have and became the proud owner of a $3,000.00 doorstop. It was entirely my own fault.  Don’t make it yours.

Home Again 

 You had a great trip, all your video gear worked just perfectly on each dive.  You’ve patted yourself on the back for doing a great job taking care of your camcorder and housing before and during the trip. Now you’ve come home with some fantastic video clips waiting for the editing bay.  WAIT! There’s still a little more to be done.   Now is the time to run the sink or tub and, making sure your housing is properly closed, soak it, the monitor, battery pods and lights in a nice warm bath.  Let those salt crystals just melt and wash away will be just the thing your Light & Motion housing will appreciate after having served you so well. It need not be all night; an hour should do just fine.  Then once your housing has been well rinsed and dried, carefully remove the O-rings. (I use half an old credit card, never a metal tool) and clean and re-grease them before storing the housing away.  Recharge your light batteries and place them out of the way of too much heat or cold.

Preparing your equipment is as important as preparing yourself.   What may seem like a lot of ‘to do’s really is not that much once you get into the good habit of proper maintenance.  These good habits will become your mantra as you mentally review and check your housing and camcorder.   Because you have taken proper care and precautions before, during and after each dive trip, you can be assured that your video equipment will continue to serve you well for many dive trips to come.

Happy Filming!

Steve

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Steve is one of the original and still active founders of the San Diego UnderSea Film Festival begun 7 years ago. He has won the 1999 Pacific Coast Underwater Film Competition, 2003 IVIE competition, 2004 Los Angeles Underwater Photographic competition, and the prestigious 2005 International Beneath the Sea Film Competition winning the Diver of the Year, and Stan Waterman Award for Video Production in 2005. Steve has sold underwater footage to the Busch Entertainment Corporation for use in their Sea World Parks Atlantis Productions, History channel's MegaDisaster productions,and worked on the major film production of 'The Deep Blue Sea'. He continues to be a major reviewer for Apple focused editing websites and a writer/contributor for ‘Asian Diver Magazine’. He leads several dive trips and safaris each year as co-owner of World Films & Travel.

See Steve’s films at www.divefilm.com and podcasts on the iTunes DiveFilm Podcast.