INDIANAPOLIS, USA

Family Owned, Woman-Led

Originally born in the back of a dive shop, Ike molded the first Ikelite in a Westinghouse oven. The rest was history. Today Ikelite is a leading manufacturer in the underwater photographic industry with worldwide name recognition and global distribution in over 95 countries. Our products are used by amateur and professional photographers in a variety of wet environments from swimming pools to polar ice caps and everywhere in-between.

61

Years Innovating Underwater Imaging Solutions

A reputation you can trust your camera to. We bring more combined experience in designing and building camera housings and underwater lighting products than any other manufacturer.

1959

Ike's Lights

Ike owns a dive shop and dives the Great Lakes on the weekends. He gets sick of coming back home with a trunk full of flooded flashlights. While driving back to Indianapolis he decides there's a better way to create a waterproof seal.

1962

Ikelite

Ike has traveled the Midwest showing his light at local dive shows and the light has been picked up by Dacor. People keep calling and asking about "Ike's lights" and the moniker "Ikelite" is born. The Ikelite was the first underwater dive light with a sealed beam bulb.

Model with Ikelite film SLR and flash housing in the 1970s

1965

Housings

At the time, only a handful of serous photographers were shooting underwater. Ike has the notion to democratize underwater photography and quickly moves on to developing housings. The first offering is a kit with two un-mounted controls for customer adaptation to Kodak Instamatics and other cameras. Ikelite was the original seamless housing mold and the first to use lid snap closures.

1979

Strobes

Until this point Ikelite had supported everything from flash cubes to surface flashes inside of housings. Our Substrobe 150 flash was the first underwater strobe with built-in aiming light. We went on to provide underwater photographers with the first interchangeable sync cords, removeable battery packs, smart charging, and battery power indicators.

Ikelite DDL-1000 the first device for divers with automatic depth timer

1983

Dive Computers

Ikelite designs and patents an automatic depth timer and digital dive log, the precursor to every modern dive computer. The DDL-1000 watch automaticlaly begins measuring bottom time after detecting submergence, displays dive time while underwater, and stores the dive on surfacing.

1992

Housings

Ike was always committed to making underwater photography accessible and affordable. The simple, colorful Aquashot housing epitomized this concept as it accepted a wide variety of inexpensive disposable film cameras.

Ikelite first wireless TTL slave controller for underwater use

1993

TTL

The cleverly named TTL Sensor made wireless automatic strobe exposure a possibility for the first time underwater. Film TTL was fairly straightforward, but digital cameras were different matter. About a decade after this product's release, we were the first manufacturer to offer TTL communication between a digital camera and an underwater strobe.

2006

New Head Light

Ike passed away leaving the Company to his children with then 25-year-old daughter Jean as the President & CEO.

Ikelite DS161 the first underwater strobe with built-in video light

2010

Video Lights

The building on our flashship DS160-series strobes, the DS161 was the first hybrid underwater strobe with built-in LED video light.

Ikelite full frame mirrorless underwater housings and DS230 strobes

Future

Future

As we head into our 60's, Ikelite feels younger than ever with the rise of mirrorless cameras and the introduction of the powerful DS230 strobe.

Ikelite president & CEO Jean Rydberg

Jean Rydberg

After working at Ikelite through high school and post-college, Ike’s daughter Jean has been President & CEO since his passing in 2006. Jean has her hands in a little bit of everything from production to sales, marketing, and service.

Ikelite vice president and head of product development John Brigham

John Brigham

Ike’s youngest son John follows in his father’s footsteps with an entrepreneurial spirit and a serious talent for translating customer needs to product design. John heads up our engineering team and brings product ideas to life.

Jean Rydberg

After working at Ikelite through high school and post-college, Ike’s daughter Jean has been President & CEO since his passing in 2006. Jean has her hands in a little bit of everything from production to sales, marketing, and service.

John Brigham

Ike’s youngest son John follows in his father’s footsteps with an entrepreneurial spirit and a serious talent for translating customer needs to product design. John heads up our engineering team and brings product ideas to life.

Ikelite president & CEO Jean RydbergIkelite vice president and head of product development John Brigham

The Full Story

Ike and his Company through the years.

Daughter Jean Rydberg recounts the story of Ikelite's beginnings and how we got where we are today.

Read More
Everything Ike Didn't Want You to Know
Behind the Scenes

Everything Ike Didn't Want You to Know

Growing up with Ike Brigham as a father didn't teach me anything about underwater photography (or even what a housing was). But it did teach me that anything was possible if you were willing to wo...

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