Repairing an ewa-marine housing.

Front Port:

If the front port is scratch or otherwise damaged, we will have to replace it for you. As this involves special equipment in all current housings, it will have to be sent in to the factory. A DIY repair, and be it temporary isn't possible

Missing parts or missing or damaged closing rail:

Check with your local distributor or the factory in Germany. We can send you the spare parts you need.

Housing / pouch:

In most cases we are able to repair any damage of the plastic housing caused by wear and tear as well as force. (alas, no repair will be possible, if an attempt has been made to glue the housing. Glue damages the molecular structure irreversibly. In case of an emergency only the use of silicon-glue may be used to seal the housing provisionally) Please send the damaged housing to the following address with a note explaining the problem.

Sending the housing to the factory:

In case of shipments from outside the EU, mark the parcel "damaged goods for repair by manufacturer" and state a value of US$ 1,-- or Euro 1,-- for custom purposes. If you insist on declaring the price you paid for the unit when you bought it, we will have to pay a non refundable customs duty of around 30,- Euro / US$. Money wasted, as a leaking under water housing is of no use and therefore worthless in every meaning of the word (practically and therefore also commercially)

Also include payment for the return shipment or your UPS, DHL or FedEx customer account number

ewa-marine GmbH

Kundendienst

Blumenstr. 17

D- 82538 Geretsried

GERMANY

Please test the housing about 4-6 weeks prior to that dream holiday. That way, should damage have occurred since you last used your housing, we will be able to receive your housing, repair it and return it before you leave.

And, PLEASE, don't forget to give us you e-mail, phone, Skype or return address?

Corporate presence in the online social media

I just found this article in the online version of the New York times:

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/kodak-turns-to-twitter-for-easy-sharing/

And I must agree with Jeffrey Hayzlett from Kodak. I think the strategy they are following is correct and the way of the future. Internet has changed. It's no longer a platform for a digital version of a companies product catalog as it was back at the turn of the century. The so called "Web 2.0" has drastically changed the medium.

Todays internet is primarily an interactive medium and corporate presentation, the driving force in the web back during the 90s, has become a niche. If a company creates a nice static homepage they will end up way back on page “x” at google and no one will ever find them or their services. No matter how good or expensive it was to set up that hompage.

Whereas it was normal to go to a manufacturer homepage for information about a product, todays internet users might actually go a different route. I have had cases where people have posted tweet asking:

“I have a xyz camera. Does anyone know what ewa-marine housing I need”

Within seconds he had an answer from another user. PLUS a comment on the usability of our product. So what he got was the required information PLUS added value.

And I suppose that's what he knew to expect and the reason he did it.

Monitoring the forum ourselves, I w as able to chirp in and help him on his way.

Would he have gone to our webpage and check the cross reference list as well? And why didn't he do that in the first place. After all, he new our name and our address isn't very cryptic at www.ewa-marine.com. Oh well. That's something for specialists to investigate and analyze.

Fact is. Times are changing and we have to change with them.

Or to translate a German saying:

Those who don't go with the times, will be gone over time.

And what really surprises me in this regard: Lots of large corporations run very sad profiles on some of the social media. If I go and look at some of them in places like Twitter, I find boring standard backgrounds and less than 100 followers with a couple of short tweets / adds per month. What's a use of an expensive, cool homepage if you then go and “try to ruin” your good name with that kind of presence in the social media?

Any comments from your side about corporate presence in the online social media?
(Twitter, myspace, facebook, Flickr and Co.)

I'd really like to hear fom you.

What time of day is most suited for under water photography?

In contrast to film and photography on dry land, where the best light is generally found early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, noon offers the best light for under water footage.

The reason for this can be found in the light filter properties of water. After only 1 m (3 feet) the ray of light passing through water has already noticeably lost some of is red colour spectrum.

And please note: We're not talking about dive depth in this case! If the sun is at an angle, that ray passes threough the water at an angle. i.e. if the afternoon sun hits the water at an angle of aournd 36°, then 3 ft of dive depth adds up for 5 ft the ray has to pass through the water to reach the object your're taking a photo of. The light is then refelected from the object an has to travel another 3ft or so to get to your lens. That totals at 8 ft of water to filter out that nice, warm red light at only 3ft dive depth!

For that reason we tend to use that time of day for our footage in which the light has the shortest distance to travel through the water on its way to our lens.

That is the time, when the sun is directly above and generally speaking
between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
(and if possible, at low tide...)

Flexible housings: What's that ? And how does it realy work?

The biggest safety feature of a flexible ewa-marine housing is the fact that the air pressure inside the housing is always the same as the water pressure outside. As a result, there is no undue stress on any seal and no risk of an implosion. We are also able to use a thinner front port then comparable hard housings, thus reducing the otherwise resulting quality losses in the pictures.

The relationship between volume and pressure is described by the law of physics according to Boyle-Mariotte:

pressure x volume = constant

We have designed the housings with this in mind and have left enough air around the camera in an inflated housing for you to reach the depth we tested ourselves. The foam padding and valves supplied with selected housings help to ensure that the maximum amount of air can be included in the housing while allowing access to all the relevant controls.

Nevertheless, the volume is also the factor that determines the buoyancy. For that reason it might be preferable to reduce the amount of air in the housing for snorkeling. Also please keep in mind, that the housing will be very buoyant at the surface, but as you descend and the volume decreases, it will even develop a negative buoyancy (start to sink) with some heavier cameras or camcorders.

When you have reach the tested depth, all the air will have been pressed inside the camera or camcorder itself. If you continue your descent, the pressure sensitive parts will be affected first and at a very small pressure difference (shutter release, power, etc.), thus causing a malfunction of your camera or camcorder. Stop the descent immediately, return to a safe depth, and all will return to normal.
PLEASE NOTE:
There is a groove at the rear of the closing rail. As you submerge the housing bubbles will escape from this grove. This should last for about 1/2 Minute and before coming to an end. This phenomena is normal and has nothing to do with whether the housing is waterproof or not.

A bit more about us

Founded 1947 near Munich, Germany, our company has a long and proud history of producing accessories for photo and film-cameras. In 1970, nearly 40 years ago, we invented and started manufacturing flexible protective housings and capes for photo-, film and since 1980 also for video cameras.

These housings became known as ewa-marine housings and have been used world wide since then. After the demise of the Super-8 film industry the flexible ewa-marine housings became our core business and we have developed a large number of versions to fit almost every camera on the market.

We have a world wide reputation for high quality products and everything bearing the ewa-marine name is quality "made in Germany". All products are developed and then hand made in our factory in Geretsried, Bavaria. Each and every unit is subjected to a series of stringent tests before leaving the factory.

(picture of the factory as seen from Blumenstr.)

As mentioned above, the range of ewa-marine flexible housings offers solutions for most photo- (conventional and digital), film- and video-cameras available today (and in the past). We can offer you a product to suit your camera, whether its a simple 35mm snap shot camera or a high cost middle format photo or even a tv-camera.

Our present range covers the following products:

• video-camcorders
• SLR-cameras (AF and manual)
• compact, digtal cameras
• film- and tv-cameras
• mobile phones
• VFH- and UHF -radios
• documents, maps, car keys, etc.

The flexible housings are 100% water proof and designed to cope with water (including salt or sea water), sand, dust and other nasty conditions, while allowing you to safely operate the equipment at the same time.

The range of ewa-marine capes (or as they are sometimes called: hurricane hoods) and the under water housings provide the solution to protect your valuable equipment in all sorts of nasty weather conditions. And as a bonus, the housings combined with your very own camera allow you to explore the fascinating and colourful underwater world, because they are fully submergible and absolutely watertight.

If you want to come looking for us: Our factory and office is situated aproximately 30 km / 20 miles south of Munich, Bavaria, in Germany. Close to the Alps, diving spots in Lake Starnberger and the river Isar.

(Click on the map to get to the interactive version)

Welcome to our new Blog

After running a Twitter account since April 10th 2009 under:

http://twitter.com/ewa_marine

I have come to the conclusion, that 140 characters is too short for a lot of the things I have to say.

So, today, June 16th 2009 at 4:36 pm, local time, we are launching this, the first ever, official ewa-marine blog!

Please bear with us while we try to figure out all the details and do the tweeking and adjusting to get the page to look like we want it to.