Canon S30 v. Sony DSC-P7 vs. Olympus 4000

[Aggie Diver]

Hey guys, I love these boards, glad I found them.

Question for all you experts out there.

The three cameras named above are the three I am looking at getting.

All seem to have *roughly* the same features imagewise, and all hover in the $300-400 price range.

My biggest concern is the cost of the housings - I like the Olympus the best but paying close to $300 for a housing is not looking to attractive to my wallet right now, especially with the Sony UW housing being under $200, same for the Canon I was kind of leaning towards the Canon at first (between the other two), but Sony seems to have a little better system.

Keep in mind I'm also planning on getting extra batteries, an A/C adapter (for charging batteries in the car), and an extra memory stick.

My big questions on these three models are 1) are the flashes effective? 2) do the cameras allow for blue filtering (I suppose they could be done with white filter setting manipulation)? 3)the availability of macro lense additions/attachments? 4) does the 4000 even have an underwater case?

Thanks in advance, I'm getting a digital, just trying to make the right pick.

Aggie Diver
scubaclub.tamu.edu

 

[AliKat]

Check out digideep .

You can search by camera or by housing and get pretty much all the info you would need.

 

[Dee]

First...Welcome to the Board!

I have an Olympus C-4040 with a PT-10 housing. I'm not sure I can help you very much. As far as I know and have been told, the C-4000 is the same camera, just re-issued under a different name. May be, maybe not.

I have a friend who has the Canon S200 and the case that goes with it. The pics look good on a screen but I haven't seen any prints from it.

That's really what you need to decide....what do you want to do with the pics? Send them in email, post on the web, etc. do you want to print them? Just regular 4x6 prints for photo albums or enlargements for the wall. Your answer here will decide what which size megapixel camera will best suit your needs. Anything lower than a 2 megapixel won't give you very good prints and then only snapshot size.

If you don't need prints, and will only share them online, then the others will be fine.

I'm sure the others will chime in and hopefully correct me if I'm wrong. But if you ever have an Olympus/PT-10 question...I can help ya!

ps...don't forget to check out the Texas Swamp Diving Team forum and join is. There are some Swampers in your area.

 

[Dee]

I can only answer for the Olympus....

1) The internal flash? Yes, it's very effective. In fact I have to lower the output for some macro shots because it will over expose.

2) There in an internal white balance. If you pay attention to your distance, the strobe or the internal flash will provide the light you need to show the colors. No strobe is going to be effective past 3-4ft. It's underwater...you'll never get rid of all the blue!

3) The PT-10 case accepts add-on lenses. Not sure about the others.

4) According to Digi-Deep, the most complete site for housing compatability available, the C-4000 is not listed. There's a C-40....sure you don't have them confused?

 

[clive francis]

the beauty about the PT-010 housing is it accepts a whole range of cameras!

20xx, 30xx 40xx, with the xx normaly meaning 20, 30 or 40.

yes the housing is expensive, but that can be offset by purchasing one of the lower spec cameras or going secondhand, then at a later date when you have the funds upgrading to the 4040.

i have the 3040 and it takes truely superb photo's, i am working in photoshop at the moment taking the blue tint out of some shots, then i will stick them on my site.

i have some dry shots taken with the 3040, go to my site and look in non-diving, England and then any of those sub hyperlinks will have some. - my favs are the baby swans, they are crystal clear, have been croped (which introduces changes in quality) and compressed. the originals were 1.5 - 2 meg and ended up 150k.

my camera was £350 instead of £500, as it was a shop demo - brand new, no scratches, everything there, even original batteries!

the lenses of the xx40 are super bright as well, which helps with flash/strobe, i have had great trouble trying to take dusk/night shots, some of them look like daylight!!!

 

[Aggie Diver]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I guess to elaborate a little more:

I'm looking at cameras that are at least 3 MP. Mainly gonna be doing web/digital work, maybe print out some stuff but all these cameras seem comparable on printouts.


Thanks for everything Dee, yeah I found the Swamp Divers forum too, just busy with school and everything, but definitely am planning on getting a camera this fall so am trying to figure out what to do with this.

AggieDiver


PS - here is a link to the specs for the Olympus C-4000.

From reading the C-4000 is a C-4040 with a little slower lens and little slower continuous operation (I'm guessing that's time to display images, etc.).

http://www.digitalfotoclub.com/sc/main_item.asp?id=964585748

 

[Eli]

I have the Canon S40, the identical camera to the S30, but with 4 megapixels. You dont need a macro attachment, as the camera will focus down to four inches. You can set the white balance manually underwater to match the light conditions. The internal flash is very bright. However, you will need an external strobe with this package as the lens port on the WPDC300 housing partially blocks the flash at the lower right corner at macro settings.
I am using the WPDC300 housing and the Sea & Sea strobe. I like this setup. My main criticism with this outfit is there is a huge tendency to fog the lensport. I think its because the Canon gets very hot in operation, which will drive any moisture out of the camera and onto the cold lensport. The Olympus and SONY have less tendency to fog. The Olympus housing is more roomy, so you can fit a silica gel pack in the housing. The Canon doesnt have as wide an aperture as the olympus. However the Canon has less shutter delay than most digitals. The Canon also has a fairly good autofocus system, and works better in low light or low contrast situations than my Nikon Coolpix 990. Some photos taken with my setup are at:
http://www.pbase.com/elif
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