EASYDIVE, 7 YEARS LATER

I am a user of the Easydive underwater housings since 2015. I am constantly using them for my works as a scuba diver and marine biologist. They have never failed me, allowing me to bring home every time the fruits of my work. It is now time for a partial analysis.

I have started to photograph underwater in 1982, obviously with the analogic systems. With the new millennium and the digital revolution I started to feel the symptoms of the needs of a deep renewal of my equipment.

If the world changes, we have to change accordingly not to be left behind.

I spoke for the first time with Fabio in 2014, in Marseille, during a festival of the “Image sous-marine. Straight away I felt drawn in enthusiastically to his project, adapting my Nikon to the Leo3.

I started with a D90, moving then to the D7500, and all without having to change my underwater housing! My first impressions about this novelty are in the ScubaZone 22. 



The concept of a universal housing is definitely what has convinced me. But not just for the most obvious motive, which is not having to change the whole housing at every change of camera. My changes of camera have become more frequents since moving to digital. The photography evolution has become rapid, is a definition matter, but also of speed, of depth of colour. With Easydive changing is easy, all is needed is to update the housing’s software through a file received by email, it might be necessary to change the base (adaptor) to be  screwed underneath the photo camera, which arrives within 1  or 2 days with a courier. The connection with the digital camera is via USB (Leo3) or Wi-Fi (Leo2 Wi).

Disadvantages? The housing dimension? Well, not being a suit/dress adhering to the body of the camera, it has to have dead spaces, has to fit a little comfortably, and therefore has to be a little bigger and heavier, but the manufacturing design has contained in exceptional way the weight increase.



Someone might comment:” Eh, but all that electronic, it is not certainly salt water friendly”. The push-buttons of the Leo3 are electronic, but this a is in a positive way an advantage, actually a double advantage: mechanical push buttons have a hole through the body of the housing, a potential water entry. Many damaging floods with irreparable damage for the whole precious content of the housing, are in fact due to these holes. The electronic connections do not have any holes through the housing, and the second advantage is that they are not sensitive to the pressure. The Leo3 housings are 150 meters depth rated, hence also suitable for technical divers. They exceed the defect of the traditional housings definitely thanks to the electronic push-buttons.

Are you looking for a third advantage? Due to a rare degenerative illness, I lost the tactile sensibility of the hand’s fingers,  with which I was used to locate the original position of the shutter button on the front part of the housing. All I needed was a phone call to explain the problem to Fabio. Within a few hours I received via email the software update with which I changed the position two push-buttons. Now I shoot with the thumb which I control with my eyes from the rear of the housing. I realise that it is a problem of very few, but even this is a point in favour of Easydive customer serviced assistance.

We are in 2022 and this innovation is into place from a while back now and the fear of the interactions between sea water and electronics, brings a smile to my face…..but there is another reason that pushed me to make the change, which has to do with ecology: on the contrary of all the plastic used for the manufacturing the many underwater camera housings, aluminium is recyclable. Currently, an underwater camera housing designed and compatible with only one photo camera or video camera has a life cycle of roughly  2 years on the market, with the universal underwater housings of Easydive, instead you change the adaptor, update the recognition firmware and you continue to use the same housing that you purchased for the previous equipment without any problem, and most important, without producing refuse. Our tendency to through away what we do not use anymore is creating monsters, complete islands of exhausted plastic accumulates in the oceans. Easydive philosophy is also that of manufacturing products destined to last in time and not to become a refuse after 2 years. See also article in ScubaZone 49.



In 2019 I decided to imprint a decisive turn to my approach to digital photography getting close to the mirrorless world, which in my opinion is the future. Now I am the happy owner of a Leo3wi with a mirrorless full frame Sony a7 lll, with macro 90 lenses Zoom 12-24 mm. The article which tells my switch to a mirrorless system is in ScubaZone 47.

Evaluation after 7 years of use: I am satisfied, I recommend with no shadow of doubt to all scuba photographers the Leo 3 and Leo3 wi housings, the only real universal, with electronic transmission of the commands. It is like gripping the future.