U/W Housing displays at Birmingham Dive Show?

[Meldives]

Hi,

I'm moving to Ireland soon and I'm a very keen U/W photographer. I currently use a 5050 with dual Inon strobes and have all the assorted wet lenses etc. I've been planning an upgrade to a dSLR for some time but decided to wait until I was earning Euros and didn't have to worry about loosing half of it in the converstion rate!

Anyway, I would really like to look at some housings before making the final decision and was wondering if would be worth it to make a day trip over to the Birmingham dive show? Does anyone know if any housing makers will have stands and if so, which ones?

Thanks,
Meldives

[Mal Bridgeman]

Hi Meldives

Welcome to YD! Is the show worth it, depends where you are coming from.

You can check out the current exhibitors here

HTH
Mal

[GLOC]

After speaking to a couple of people who have looked for SLR housings at the show and been disappointed, I would say no. However, the smaller compact housings for the general masses normally have something discounted.

You are better talking direct to someone like Alan James in Bristol or Cameras Underwater in London/Devon.

[Meldives]

Thanks for the link Mal - I hadn't seen that and it was very useful. From what I can see it appears only Fantasea and a company who's website is www.underwater-housing.co.uk will be there. I've tried bringing up that website, but it's painfully slow to navigate (although it could be my computer tonight) Looks like it might not be worth the trip from Ireland after all.

Gloc, thankyou for the suggestions. I've found the website for cameras underwaters - they are close to where I am staying in London in October so I'll have to pay them a visit then. I haven't heard of Alan James - does he have a shop??

As an aside, what's the situation if I decide to buy outside of the UK/EU with import duties. In Australia, if it is less than $1000 then we don't have to pay the GST, but I believe this is not the case for the UK. Can you work out/estimate what the import duties would be before hand?

Thanks,
Meldives

[Pigpen]

Alan James are here Alan James - For all you need in underwater photography

Can't help on the import query.

[Meldives]

Thanks for the link Geoff.

meldives

[Janos]

Originally Posted by Meldives

As an aside, what's the situation if I decide to buy outside of the UK/EU with import duties. In Australia, if it is less than $1000 then we don't have to pay the GST, but I believe this is not the case for the UK. Can you work out/estimate what the import duties would be before hand?

There are two taxes when you import stuff into the UK. "Import Duty" which varies between 1% (my rebreather) to 10% [1]. There's also VAT, which is charged at 17.5% to pretty much everything.

So assume a rate of 20% and you won't be too far out.

Janos


[1] - ish. 10% is what they charge you if they don't know what to charge you. There may be higher rates...