I spent some time researching what underwater set up to get for our upcoming trip to Maui. In the end I made a trip to Backscatter in Monterey. I went there intending to get a Canon G12 set up but they set me up with a much better camera and housing. I got the Olympus Pen E-PL1 with the Olympus underwater housing. This set up was not too expensive and works quite well. This is a micro 4/3rds camera. Some of the down sides are the controls are a bit clumsy to use. I shoot in aperture mode 90% of the time and setting the aperture is so easy on my D300. This camera takes a couple of button presses to do so. But it works well for most point and shoot situations.
I don't have much in the way of test time so I took a dip in the spa tonight... (Thank god our water chemistry is good and the water is clear!)
Not much in the way of art... Except for the noise the first shot might pass for the manufacturers brochure. But that was not really the point of this. The point was to verify that this equipment works as I expected or worse yet finding out something is broken... Never go on a trip with new equipment that you just bought. If you want to get the most out of fancy gear you need to know how to use it.
For example, I have a lot to learn about this flash set up. I am going to have to read the manual and do some testing. I could not get the ratio of ambient to flash correct. It is supposed to do TTL flash which it seemed to be doing but I could not dial the flash down.
Also ISO 400 is fine, 800 is ok, 1600... Not so much. So shooting in the dark was kind of pushing the limits of the camera.
Post if you have questions... I can't wait to get this in the water in Hawaii...
Light Cipher
