HCW housings: surf water housing for Sony a6000 and a6300

HCW have been making water housings for a long time. I’ve even owned one of their fibreglass housings for an old Panasonic Mini-DV camcorder.

Up until very recently the main bodies of their housings have been hand made (hence the name – HCW housings = Hand Crafted Water housings) out of fibreglass, but that’s about to change.

The latest housing is made for the Sony a6000 and Sony a6300 and is a moulded plastic style body, a bit like Aquatech or Meikon.

I got in touch with Chad Stickney, the man behind HCW, to get some details on the new housing after seeing several posts about it on the HCW housings Instagram feed.

Here are the main details:

• Price – $800 – $1000 depending on controls
• Supports both Sony a6000 and a6300 – the padding on the back plate is adjusted accordingly
• Pistol grip – two stage, removable
• Rear loading – 8 bolts on the back, not clear what kind of fasteners are used yet
• GoPro mount – there’s a nice flat space for a sticky GoPro mount right on top of the housing
• Flat port supplied – standard flat port supplied with the basic kit
• Dome port (for Sony 16mm+fisheye adaptor and other fisheyes) and telephoto zoom ports coming in the future
• Zoom control for kit lens and possibly others
• Standard controls (included in $800 kit)
  • Physical shutter button
  • Two stage pistol grip
• Optional controls (included in $1000 kit)
  • back dial
  • ISO
  • Preview
  • function
  • ael
  • video
  • top dial
• Purchase will be available direct through hcwhousings.com

The standard flat port supports a few popular lenses:

• Sony 16-50mm kit lens
• Touit 2.8 12mm
• Touit 1.8 32mm
• Sony 1.8 50mm

Here’s a gallery of the shots that have appeared on Instagram so far:

The housing should be launching soon so if you’re interested in getting hold of one of the first off the production line you should get in touch with HCW through the website: hcwhousings.com