Pressure tested before every hire

Underwater Housings, Ports and Lights for Rent

Travelling with a full underwater rig is expensive, fragile and often unnecessary. We keep housings for the current mirrorless and compact bodies, wide dome and macro flat ports, strobes with arms and clamps, focus lights and video panels, all rented by the day or the trip. Every set is stripped, greased, o-ring checked and pressure tested in a tank before it leaves the counter, and it comes with spares, a charger, a torque tool and a printed setup guide. If something floods through our fault, we replace it and refund the days.

Rental Range Check Availability

Underwater camera housing with dome port and two strobes on arms

Large grouper swimming close to the camera in blue water

About us

Started After a Flooded Housing on Day One

The company exists because of a ruined trip. Our founder arrived for a week of diving with a rig serviced by somebody who had not replaced a pinched o-ring, and lost a camera, a lens and the entire holiday in the first ten minutes of the first dive. Renting locally at the time meant a scratched dome, a strobe with a dead cell and no spares within two hundred kilometres. Everything about this business is arranged so that neither of those things happens to a customer.

Every rental set is prepared the same way: housing stripped and cleaned, all o-rings inspected under magnification and replaced on a fixed cycle rather than when they look worn, seals greased with the manufacturer's compound, controls checked through their full travel, vacuum system fitted and held for an hour, then a pressure test in the tank to the depth the customer intends to dive. The test result is printed and goes in the case. Strobes are fired two hundred times on a full charge and their batteries are load-tested rather than merely charged.

We also teach, because most flooding is caused by handling rather than equipment. Every first-time renter gets a half-hour handover covering assembly, the vacuum check, what to do if the alarm sounds, how to rinse and store between dives, and how to change a port without dropping sand into the seal. It costs us thirty minutes and has produced two floods in nine years, both traced to a customer opening the housing with wet hands on a boat.

Advantages

Why Photographers Rent Rather Than Ship

Six reasons hiring here beats carrying a rig through three airports.

Sunlit shallow reef seen from underwater

Tested to Depth, With the Certificate

Every housing is vacuum-sealed and held for an hour, then pressure tested in our tank to the depth the renter plans to dive, and the printed result goes into the case with the date and the technician's initials. O-rings are replaced on a fixed cycle rather than on appearance, seals are greased with the manufacturer's own compound, and controls are exercised through their full travel to find the sticky button before the customer does. Nobody is handed a housing that has not been under pressure since the last renter returned it.

The Right Port for the Dive

A dome that suits a fisheye is wrong for a rectilinear wide angle, and a flat port for a sixty-millimetre macro will not focus a hundred-millimetre lens. We keep the full range — large and small domes, flat ports in three lengths, extension rings, zoom and focus gears — and we ask what lens and what subject before handing anything over. Renters photographing wrecks, macro on a muck dive and wide reefscapes in the same week get three different configurations rather than one compromise.

Strobes That Fire All Week

Rental strobes are notorious for dying halfway through a trip because their cells have been cycled two hundred times and never load-tested. Ours are tested under load, replaced when capacity falls below eighty per cent, and issued with a second full set of cells, a charger and spare fibre-optic cables. Arms come with clamps already fitted and a spare of each size. Sync cords, triggers and hot-shoe adapters are included, because a trigger left in a drawer at home ends a shoot as effectively as a flood.

Spares Travel With You

Every hire includes a spares tin: two complete o-ring sets, silicone grease, a lint-free cloth, cotton buds, desiccant sachets, a torque driver, spare screws for the tray and clamps, and the small tool needed for that specific housing. Everything fits in a hand-luggage case with the housing itself, so nothing depends on finding a dive shop on an island at six in the evening. Renters keep whatever they use; we simply restock the tin when the set comes back.

A Handover That Prevents Floods

First-time renters get thirty minutes at the bench: assembly, o-ring seating, the vacuum check and what the alarm means, rinsing and storage between dives, port changes without sand, and the two situations in which a housing should not be opened at all. Regular customers skip it. We also answer messages during the trip — a photograph of a control that will not move is usually solved in one reply — and we have talked several renters through a problem on a liveaboard at two in the morning.

Clear Terms on Damage

Our terms are one page. Fair wear costs nothing. A scratched dome is charged at the price of the shield, not the port. If a housing floods and the cause is traced to our preparation, we refund the whole rental and cover the customer's camera up to a stated amount; if it floods because it was opened with wet hands on a rolling deck, the deposit covers the housing and we say so plainly. Insurance for the renter's own body is available through us at cost.

Display of diving and underwater imaging equipment

Services

What We Rent and Service

Housings, ports, strobes, video lights, full trip packages, servicing and workshops.

Housing and Port Hire

Housings for current mirrorless and compact bodies from the main manufacturers, with the matching ports, extensions, zoom and focus gears, vacuum systems, trays and handles. Rented by the day, the week or the trip, with the rate falling sharply after five days. Everything is pressure tested before collection and issued with the printed test result, a spares tin and a setup card for the exact body and lens combination the renter is using.

Strobes, Arms and Video Lights

Strobes in two power classes with fibre-optic and electrical triggering, focus lights, and video panels from compact travel units to full three-point kits with colour filters. Arms, floats, clamps, triggers, sync cords, chargers and spare cells are included rather than charged separately. Renters shooting video get a set matched for colour temperature across all units, which is the detail that ruins otherwise good footage when equipment is assembled from three sources.

Complete Trip Packages

A single package covering housing, ports, two strobes, arms, spares, a hard travel case and insurance, priced for a week or a fortnight and shipped to a hotel, liveaboard agent or dive centre anywhere we can reach with a tracked courier. Packages are configured from a short questionnaire about the destination, the subjects and the renter's experience, and we will say plainly when a lighter, simpler setup will produce better photographs than the one being requested.

Servicing and Pressure Testing

Full servicing for privately owned housings: strip and clean, o-ring replacement, control lubrication and adjustment, vacuum system fitting, leak detector installation and a documented pressure test to a stated depth. Turnaround is normally two working days, or same-day for divers travelling the following morning. We also test housings that have been flooded and produce an honest written assessment for insurance purposes, whatever it says about the cause.

Workshops and One-to-One Coaching

Evening workshops on strobe positioning, backscatter, wide-angle close focus, macro lighting and shooting in green water, plus in-water coaching days with an instructor who photographs alongside you and reviews the files afterwards. Sessions are capped at four. We also run a beginners' course covering camera settings underwater, which saves most people a year of guessing and produces immediate improvement in their first set of images.

Dive Centres, Expeditions and Crews

Long-term hire for dive centres wanting a rental fleet without owning one, equipment packages for scientific expeditions and survey work, and support for film and documentary crews including spare bodies, redundant lighting and a technician on call. We supply written maintenance schedules and train the centre's own staff to prepare and check the equipment, because a fleet that is not maintained locally becomes worthless within a season.

Contacts

Availability and Advice

Tell us the camera body, the lenses you are bringing, the destination and the dates. We will confirm what is free, recommend the port and lighting combination that suits the subjects, and say honestly when something simpler would serve you better.

Servicing, expedition packages, dive centre fleets and workshop places are arranged through the same counter.

Workshop8 Quai des Belges, 13001 Marseille, France

Phone+33 4 91 54 27 63

Emaildeepframerentals@gmx.com

OpeningMonday–Saturday 08:30–19:00; collections from 07:00 by arrangement