PeterN wrote:
-hh wrote:

FWIW, I’d like to stay with a housing like the Ikelite I have now, as I’ve found that their design makes
it straightforward for me to rebuild it on my own, as part of the trade-off with the old Nikons was that
some of its O-rings were not user-serviceable, whichmeant sending it out for annual service, which
in the last few years was running nearly $200 per service.

Do you mean the o rings on the Nikkonos, or the housing.

The Nikonos has o-rings which are not user-serviceable. The only user ones were the lens
(Onto body), strobe synch cord, battery compartment and film back. The o rings that aren’t
serviceable on the Nikonos include the ones on the shafts for ISO, shutter, the release latch
for the film back, plus some “Permanent” one’s, like the viewfinder. Similarly, the shaft o rings
on Nikonos lenses were also non-serviceable: f/stop, focus.

For the Ikelite housing, I can do literally everything.

In my diving days, the O rings for the housing were easily replaceable.
IIRC I would coat them with a silicon based gel before every dive.

Which was basically only the first group I listed: film back, lens-to-body, synchronized cord.
Most people wouldn’t do the battery compartment daily.

With my housing, I typically do less maintenance than with the Nikonos. i’ll dive for a couple
of days before opening the case up (refresh camera battery, memory card). The strobe
batteries get pulled for recharge every other day and their o rings done at that time. Synch cord
uses the Ikelite connectors, which is much better than the Nikkor design, so every 2-3 days for
that instead of daily. It’s a bit more work to change over from WA to Macro while on the dive boat,
as there’s the port in addition to the lens, plus I switch over to a different set of camera settings.


-hh