First dive with the E 330

[SeaYoda]

My Fantasea housing finally arrived and my cold has broken a little, so in the water I went today. I'll be giving my opinion of the camera and housing after I use it for a while. I'm all thumbs with this new housing, two strobes, and solid arms . For today my tasks were to check the housing for leaks and take the camera down to play a little. I took the housing on a quick dip to 60' and no leaks so back to the car to fit the camera in. I usually do all this at home and dry, not wet, in a car, with new and larger equipment. I successfully managed to get the camera in the housing without dripping all over it, but my attention to drippage made me miss one important item that I did not notice until I got back in the water --- THE LENS CAP WAS ON!!!! Back to the car to undo my boo-boo. Once back in the water, I went to the upper cavern to see what I could shoot in low light - not much, the autofocus would not lock onto anything inside the dim cavern. I turned toward the opening and got this shot with the two strobes on full:

I checked the 14mm end of my lens inside the standard flat port with an extension to allow it to zoom to its full 54mm. This also was a test of sunball capture with F22 and 1/250 sec:

Just a couple trys at fish - not too great but not bad:

 

[divedadepths]

nice picts! where were you diving? I espically like the largemouth bass.

 

[SeaYoda]

...where were you diving?...

Morrison Springs in Northwest Florida.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Hmmm

Is that the port setup they recommended for the 14-54? I hate that you can't shoot on the wide side...

 

[SeaYoda]

The standard port does not vignette but only allows extension to 38mm. Since we don't have pretty reef scenes here, I wanted the 54mm end to work for close stuff. I got the extension ring and the dome port figuring that the vignetting would happen. The dome has no zoom control so I'll set the lens at 14mm and hit the water like it was a fixed lens. Not the greatest choices in the world but such seems to be the DSLR game.

 

[Peter Guy]

Did you "like" the live LCD? Was it viewable at all times? Was it crisp enough/big enough for focusing or were you using auto focus? (At least I think it's the 330 that has the live view, if not, Oh well.)

 

[AndyT]

Excellent first attempt !! Will be watching for more.

 

[SeaYoda]

Did you "like" the live LCD? Was it viewable at all times? Was it crisp enough/big enough for focusing or were you using auto focus? (At least I think it's the 330 that has the live view, if not, Oh well.)

Live View is great. It's just like my old C-5050 but bigger and better. I felt like I had not changed cameras as far as framing the shots. There is no manual focus available in the housing, just autofocus.

 

[alcina]

SeaYoda - Great to see your newest images and hear your thoughts on the new rig!