Leo3 Smart of Easyduve - The Smartphone becomes "Fotosub"

A smartphone for the underwater photography ("Fotosub")? The cartoons that 40 years ago told us about 2000s rather focused on flying machines and butler-robots, no one had assumed that the image  would have become so important in our social life (social). We are immersed in the image and sharing era, smartphones more and more smart, constantly connected to the internet, more and more oriented towards photography. By now the smartphone is replacing the compact camera, against which it has two undeniable advantages: it combines the camera functions to the phone functions (everyone has a smartphone), and, being always online, it lets us sharing with all our distant friends the images that we like  in a few seconds.

In this context, what the underwater photography does?

To the big housings for reflex of professionals and amateurs, for those who prefer the small dimentions and the tranport ease, Easydive (first in the world) supports its international patent, Leo3 Smart, universal housing guaranteed for life and as far as a depth of 150 m, capable of accepting and using as a camera the majority of the modern smartphones. On Easydive web site you can find a list of models i-phone, Samsung, Huawei and Sony, but that is a list that gets longer everyday.    Moral, if you have a different model try to send an e-mail, to receive informations on the real compatibility. 

How Leo3Smart works? 

We try it on-site. The first impression is of a simple and clean housing, that is also essential, easy to work with, reliable and robust, carved out as it is in a singe block of aluminium. It is easy to handle with the right hand, and you can easily reach the commands. We have downloaded and installed in advance the app that enable the pair between the housing and the smartphone, and we have activated the bluetooth system for the wireless pair. The smartphone is easily positioned in a tailor-made cover for every model, and as a matter of fact it pairs (with only one cable) to a battery pack  of 10 Ah, that guarantees that the device, despite the intense use, doesn't discharge and supports the elctronnics of the housing. On the contrary the smartphone recharges, and at the end of your dive, we can start using it again as a smartphone. The declared battery life is of 10 hours if we start with a full-charged battery.                                                              The first insertion is a little bit more laborious, for the codes that we need to insert, but from the secondo the housing and the smartphone recognize themselves and we are immediately ready.                                                              The opening and closure system is the usual and very reliable one, Easydive system, with a double zipper, and a double radial O ring. It is practically impossiblee that the O-R is positioned in a bad way. You have to control it if it presents hair or water drops, but apart from that the safety is absolute.                A low powermode lets  you turn the smartphone off if you don't use it, and it prevents the smartphone's overheating, typical of these modern smatphones especially if you insist a lot with the lit display. The aluminium housing has rarely got problems of formation of condensation, anyway preventing the overheating is always better.                                                                                                          Eight electronic buttons in wet contact, easy to maneuver with the fingers of the right hand, let the transmition of all the commands that I need to take photos. Note that with Easydive app the smatrphone gains functions that normally it hasn't: with the simple pressure of the buttons we can change manually times, apertures, ISO sensibility, focus and whithe balance and stimulate our creativity... like professionals do with the big reflex! Furthermore, the wet buttons wotk also in depth, as far as 150 m, in contrast to the passing commands that usually block themselves long before because of the pressure of the water.   

As standard two wide-angle add-ons are provided, one of them transforms the lens of yur smartphone in fish eye, the other one in wide-angle lens with macro-functions. Even this is a careful choice for the "fotosub" and for the "videosub", disciplines in which it is very important to go as close as possible to the subject, to illminate it in a good way and also to put between it and us as little quantiti as possible of water, with its charge of suspension. The wide-angle add-ons lock themselves inside the housing , so I have to choose before diving if I want to take photos of the ambience or if I prefer concentrating on the macro details. Besides, isn't it what professionals do? The housing is provided with two ballpoint connections on which I can graft two little jibs for two illuminators. By playing with the aperture's openings,with the sensibility and with the tmes I'll be able to exhibit correctly in every situation by choosing if I prefer the artificial light and darkening the background or mixing it with natural light , in order to have  a more natural effect.

I want to add that Leo3 Smart is prepared to a vacuum system, safety system to reduce the risk of flooding the housing, or for an external hydrophone that records the environmental sounds, useful for those who makes mainly videos.      And at the end, once you come out of water , once you dried the housing, you're ready to remove your smartphone, to look again at what you made, to choose the  best photo shoots or videos, editing your video directly in your smartphone and send everything to the friends that remained at the office... The future is now!

And... luckily there is no signal underwater, and no one can call us...