Understand that hands on experience is lacking on this setups, but I'm sure the question is bound to be asked so I figured I'd start a thread:
I've been looking to put together a nice P&S system. My budget is $2,000 with say +15% buffer for all the accessories that will inevitably pile on so $2300 all in. I'd like to split the outlay into two phases.
Phase 1 in the near future: Camera, housing and wide angle wet lens
Phase 2 at xmas: 1 nice strobe or 2 cheaper ones, maybe macro wet lens, tray and arm etc
From what i've read here the main options for Phase 1 inline with my budget would be
$400 Canon S95
$200 Factory housing
$100 Inon LD mount
$440 UWL H100
$1,140 Total
$500 Oly ZX-1
$300 Factory housing
$400 Fisheye Fix UWL-04
$1,200 Total
Leaving me $1,100 or so for strobes, arms etc later.
I dive clear tropical waters. I plan on shooting raw, and don't print. I'm leaning towards the Oly for no reason other than the fact that I see way too many G12's and S90's floating about. Comments welcome.
I am not a fan of Canon OEM housings, I think the Oly housing is a better unit but neither are in the same league with either the FIX or Recsea products. The housing is at least as important as the camera in an underwater system. In fact, some would say it is more important. It must interface the camera with the user (you) and with the photo environment and to do that it must support lenses, strobes, brackets, handles etc. Here is where the plastic Oly and Canon housings are likely to disappoint, neither have the critical rear dial control for example and the lens choice is likely very limited.
You say you want to use the Fisheye UWL-04 lens with the Oly?, Where did you read that to be a functioning pairing? I have serious doubts that the UWL-04 will work with the XZ-1 and you should know that the native thread on the UWL-04 is 52mm and the Oly XZ-1 housing is 67mm. This will require a step down adapter which comes with the lens but also positions the lens well forward of it's optimal position. My estimation based on what little I have gathered about the XZ-1 and it's matching housing is that it will be required to zoom to approximately 35 to 45mm to eliminate vignetting whereas that UWL-04 lens requires no zooming with the Canon S series in the FIX or Recsea housings.
The Canon DC-34 housing will support the new Inon H series lens which also has an optional dome unit. I don't know of any lens that will work with the XZ-1 though I suspect, as a educated guess, the Inon WAL100-67mm will work just fine with the camera zoomed to 35mm.
This all assumes the Oly has a "compact" lens like the S series Canons. The Canon lens racks rearward from 28mm to approximately 50mm where it then racks forward to full zoom. This keeps the lens travel very small and allows close positioning of the port and lens, great for accessory lenses and it is why the Canon works so well with these lenses. If the Oly lens is of the type that continuously racks forward as it is zoomed, that is bad for use of wide angle lenses because it will require a very long housing port.
Lets look at this, why buy an Oly over the S series Canon, frankly, there is no good reason if you intend to use accessory lenses and are willing to spend the money to get a solid and versatile FIX/Recsea housing. Yes, the XZ-1 has a very slightly larger sensor, I would say that is insignificant:
The Oly is 1/1.6 and the Canon is 1/1.7, big difference huh? Like two ants fighting over a crumb, who cares. Unfortunately for Canon haters, the S90 and S95 are a rare thing for underwater photographers in that they have a small zoom range, compact lens design and short rack distance, small lens diameter and generally the housings have very short ports that allow them to use a wide variety of accessory lenses effectively, wide angle and macro. That is why they are so popular. To avoid a camera/system because it is popular is to ignore why it is popular to begin with--because it works. These things are not yet known/proven with the XZ-1.
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