Pentax k-5 And The Aquapack 458
Like the other two previous pictures, this one too has been taken by a Pentax K-5 housed into an Aquapack 458.
This underwater housing, at least for APS-C dSLR, is a cheaper alternative to the more expensive, though bigger and better engineered, Ewa Marine.
It fairly easy accommodates the camera and the DA* 16-50, but using this lens that has a 77mm filter thread forces the use a focal lenght of at least than 40-45 mm, otherwise the border of the external cap fills-in the picture.
A DA* 16-50 at 16mm (I repeat: with a 77mm filter thread) is the bigger lens that can be accommodated into the housing, but when a longer focal length is needed there is room in the camera compartment to extend the lens backward. A warning: protruding the lens is neither easy nor fast and can’t be done fully underwater. This means that you must choose the focal lenght BEFORE diving, and that there is no guarantee that the lens will stay locked at this setting.
Using the camera underwater, at a couple of meters’ depth, raised no issues. Autofocus and Aperture Priority worked properly and I didn’t miss a shot.
In retrospective, I would have gone for the Ewa Marine housing, but ignorance always comes with a price to pay.
A final note on the camera: I use the Pentax K-5 in “hostile” environments and it never let me down: a great camera, with superior image quality, tough as a SBS operative.
