Canon WP-DC35 Underwater Housing for Canon PowerShot S90 Digital Camera
Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at
5:30 am
- The Waterproof Case for the Powershot S-90. lets you take your camera safely out to sea in a boat, on a surfboard, in a kayak
- Available in packs of four, these weights allow the camera to stay put for steady underwater photography
Product Description
The Waterproof Case for the Powershot S-90. lets you take your camera safely out to sea in a boat, on a surfboard, in a kayak…or up to 130 ft./40m beneath the surface.For the underwater enthusiast, Canon offers an optional waterproof case weight set (WW-DC1) that is compatible with all of its underwater housings. Available in packs of four, these weights allow the camera to stay put for steady underwater photography…. More >>
Canon WP-DC35 Underwater Housing for Canon PowerShot S90 Digital Camera
Tagged with: Camera • Canon • Digital • Housing • Powershot • Underwater • WPDC35
Filed under: Canon Powershot SD
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Living in Florida gives many opportunities for underwater photography, making this Canon underwater housing a perfect present for my husband! It came quickly, just as promised, and should provide many hours of fun. We are both delighted!
Rating: 5 / 5
After buying a Canon PowerShot S90 (a great camera), I was looking through the list of accessories when I came across the underwater housing. I couldn’t justify the purchase based on how often I snorkle, so I justified it as a way to help me swim faster in Masters’ competitions. I use the housing during training sessions to record underwater videos of my stroke that I can study between workouts. That’s been a great training tool, especially because the S90 has slow-motion capability. The housing is extremely well made, intuitive to use – all the camera controls are accessible via the housing controls – and the pictures and videos are as crisp and clear as the water conditions allow. The price initially made me flinch because the material costs appear minimal – mostly plastics and rubber. However, the housing is so well designed and constructed that I knew I made a good purchase decision the moment it came out of the box. That conclusion was confirmed the first time I took underwater video. The underwater housing is simply a great product.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a terrific underwater case, extending the S90′s reach for a relatively modest price. It fits the camera like a glove, has a hefty quality to it (about twice the weight of the S90 itself), and I’d even say it looks nice (orange & blue Scuba bling). Best of all, all the controls remain accessible, except that in order to “turn” the rear wheel, you have to press “S” plus left/right. The zoom is actually easier to use with the case on than off, thanks to the big lever.
For actual SCUBA use (as opposed to rafting for example), you will also need two of the four steel plates from the Canon Weights package, something they really should have included with the case! And while we’re talking omissions, a lens cap would have been sweet, and perhaps a overpressure valve.
Still, the quality and price are stellar, so all 5 stars remain. If Canon made these for their DSLR lines, I have no doubt they’d blow the competition out of the water, so to speak.
Rating: 5 / 5
Simply fantastic — this case is superbly designed, built like a tank, easy to operate, and gives great results.
At first I was wary that my S90 was going to get scuffed by the case, but a solid week of pretty hard use in Baja (I shot 2,600 frames) demonstrated that this was unfounded. During this trip I must have inserted and removed the camera from the housing more than twenty times. The case has little “nibs” — plastic guides whose ends are covered with rubber tips — and these ease the camera into place and hold it firmly without damaging the finish.
When using the S90 in the housing, you still have access to every control and function the camera offers. The design is quite clever in that you don’t fumble with the controls; the various knobs, buttons and levers all work smoothly and crisply. Only the flash is somewhat compromised; you add a frosted plastic diffuser that pops into place on the outside of the case to improve the results you get using flash underwater. I gave up using the flash at all, as the range underwater is quite limited.
I think the results speak for themselves; I have posted four pictures from my recent Baja trip. During one snorkeling trip we were diving with sea lions. These guys are incredibly quick; they come barreling towards you and veer away at the last instant, which makes them very difficult to photograph. When I returned to our boat I was quite anxious to see what I’d captured — and the S90/WP-DC35 combo acquitted itself quite well, I think.
Now that I’m home, I plan to use this combo as my primary camera for use during kayaking trips. I am very pleased with this purchase, and highly recommend it to anyone who needs a good, simple camera for underwater use.
One last thing I recommend you purchase along with the case is a product called Moisture Munchers. These are small tubes that contain a dessicant. I found that there is room in the case for one of these, and that made me feel a lot better about keeping the camera in pristine condition while it spent a week in very humid conditions. During the week in Baja I went through two of these capsules.
Rating: 5 / 5
The case is great. It fits the S90 perfectly, and lets you operate all the controls with relative ease. You can turn the front control wheel, and you can *press* the rear control wheel in 5 different areas but not turn it. However, this is not a big disadvantage because you can still access all the features of the camera using various button presses, even if you can’t turn that rear wheel. It’s just a little slower.
Canon builds these cases for almost all their compact cameras, and they’ve got it down. You don’t want to go around dropping the case on random rocks, but it’s built pretty solidly, with thick plastic. It’s not leaked on me, nor did I ever have any problems with the very similar case for my Canon S30 that I’ve used over the past 7 or 8 years.
The flash is pretty lousy — it’s blocked by the case, though the included diffuser helps this a bit. But if you do much underwater photography you’re not going to want to use the onboard flash anyhow, and this problem is shared with every single other point-and-shoot case out there.
I wish it was wider angle — the S90 goes pretty wide, but you lose a lot of this once you put it underwater. Some SLR housings have ‘dome’ windows rather than the flat piece of glass that this one has, and that allows you to get the full wide angle of the lens. Too bad Canon doesn’t offer that option here. But considering the price and the rest of the functionality, it’s still a bargain.
Rating: 4 / 5