The camera itself screws onto a small tray and there are three jacks which require plugging in. The user then has to access the camera's menu and assign ONE PUSH WB to the spare button on the right side of the camera, so that this will be the white balance control button once inside the housing.

The camera can then just slide into the housing, making a 'click' when locked into place. The camera does not need to be turned on.

To turn on the camera the operator presses one of the left or right trigger buttons. To turn off, the 'mode' button is held down while pressing the right record trigger button. This can be done using just one hand and without having to let go of the right hand piece.

Once the camera is on, the operator can scroll through camera - photo - VTR modes by pressing the 'mode' down for a couple seconds. This allows the operator to video, take pics on the camera's photo card or scroll to VTR mode to view footage while still underwater. The corresponding lights light up on the hand pieces to indicate what mode is selected.

The right hand piece operations:

Cam / Alarm / Photo lights

• Right record trigger button
• Zoom out
• Zoom in
• Mode control, VTR/Camera
• Manual to Auto focus button

The left hand piece operations:

Playback / Alarm lights

• Left trigger button
• Rewind in VTR mode
• Fast forward in VTR mode
• Review when on record mode to view last few seconds
• Back light to auto increase exposure.

Mechanical controls:

• Manual/Auto Exposure button
• Manual exposure control wheel
• Expanded focus button to help with focus
• Telemacro for instant macro

*On the right side of the housing you will find the assigned white balance button.

We are happy to report that all the controls worked well, although it does takes some time in to learn their functions. The EVO housing is negatively buoyant and will nose dive if you let it go, but it's so easy to hang onto it is not a problem! In fact being slightly negative allows for better shots AND the operator can park it on the bottom while fixing their hair... well that's what Kelly reports....

The EVO white balances really well, and even at 10 meters we managed to get it to WB without the URPRO filter. We can go from auto to manual focus easily and also have control of manual focus. By pushing the exposure button, the operator can wind the little exposure wheel to fine tune it, and to assist with focusing you can hit the expanded focus button.

The zoom in and out is very slow but by pressing the record trigger button while zooming in or out, it will increase then zoom speed to a high speed.

We found that pushing the 'auto focus' button to lock onto the subject, then pushing it again to lock the focus works best, but you can also manually focus using the controls on the left hand piece.

The URPRO filter lever is located in front and easy to get to.

An interesting thing we came across was that when on 'auto' the camera will the spin the shutter up before it goes for a higher f-stop in sunny conditions. What this means is that depth of field and image quality will decrease, as the f-stop remains very low (like f1.8). It even tended to kick in the gain boost to make things worse. The camera also does this out of the water and most of the time shoots slightly hot.

To overcome this, we locked the shutter to 50 (PAL) and kicked back the AE (auto exposure) setting to -2 in the camera's menu. It did indeed improve the image, making the f-stop increase instead up the shutter, however it also still kicked in way to much db gain in low light. So the operator needs to switch it to manual exposure and kick it back a bit to get rid of the excessive gain boost which is making that image grainy.. Even with a housing that has no manual exposure feature, locking the shutter and kicking back the AE to -2 in the menu helps.

Unfortunately Sony have no option to turn off the gain boost, only the FX1/Z1 have that feature. There is away around it though, and that is to look at the exposure bar and go back 6 jumps to the left which will give you a 0db @ f1.8. The further you go to the left off the bar indicator, the higher the f-stop goes and the better the depth of field and image quality. After some practice, the operator can predict where the 0db gain boost area is by just looking at the exposure bar indicator. If the indicator bar is to the full right side, camera is on 18db @1.8 resulting in a very grainy image.

We also found that even shooting in bright sun light, out of the water, the camera could still handle it with the shutter locked at 50 with the f-stop right up at near f11.

We would love to hear from other operators of these cameras and if this method improves your image quality as well. The camera really works best in areas with lots of natural light or if you have a set of lights on it such as HIDs.

Cheers for now,