Help me choose a camera

[Elizabeth Curry]

I am a vacation diver who has been using a Canon G10 with the Canon housing for the last few years. Last year I bought a Sealife Sea Dragon SL 963 from Cathy Church's store in Grand Cayman. I was told it would work fine with any camera I upgraded to.
Well my Canon G10, no longer zooms and there is a tiny scratch on the lens so I am ready to upgrade.
I have done some research and contacted Cathy Church's store to see what they recommend. My budget is $1000-1200 ish. They recommended the Olympus TG-4 or the Olympus EPL7. I was leaning to spending the extra for the EPL7, but then they said the Sealife strobe would not work well with that. Which kind of irritated me as when I bought it they said it would work fine with anything I upgraded to. I am not going to buy a new strobe when I have only used that one for 1 dive.
I also need this camera to be a good land and underwater camera.
Why would my Sealife not work with the EPL7?
So my other questions, should I go with the EPL7, TG-4, or the Canon G7x or G9x?
Or something I haven't looked in to.
Thanks for any help!!
Elizabeth

 

[AJ]

I have the same question. I'am also investigating the Sony A6000 as an alternative. So much choice, I don't know what to choose.

 

[stuartv]

I just went through pretty much this same process.

I ended up buying a nice used camera and a Meikon housing. Meikon housings run around $250 for any of the cameras they make a housing for. This is their main site, but you can buy their stuff through Amazon.

MEIKON underwater camera housing waterproof case for Sony Canon

After much searching, before I found the used camera that I bought, I had determined that if I were going to buy something brand new, I would get a Sony DSX-RX100 Mk II and a Meikon housing for it. The RX100 Mk II can be found new for in the $500 - 600 range.

If you want 4K video and are willing to sacrifice a little bit of macro capability, you can get the newer Sony RX100 Mk IV. It's $1000. The Meikon housing is still around $250.

And the Sony appears to be a really nice, high quality, but still very pocketable compact for land use, too.

I think the issue with using the strobe you have is that the camera needs a built-in flash in order to use a fiber optic cable to trigger the external strobe. The E-PL7 does not have a built-in flash. So, it's not your strobe. It's that particular camera. This review has a nice comparison chart partway down the page.

Olympus PEN E-PL7 First Impressions Review

The Sony RX100 does have a flash, so it should be able to work just fine with your strobe.

If you want a camera with an interchangeable lens system, the Olympus OM-D E-M10 is almost identical to the E-PL7. It's just a little bigger and has a built-in flash. The E-M10 is actually what I found used, for a good price.

Meikon makes housings for cameras with interchangeable lenses (which is what I got for my E-M10). But, their housings only work with the "kit" lens that comes with the camera. With a Meikon housing, you will not be able to use different lenses on the camera. I'm okay with that. Using wet lens wide angle and macro adapters, you can still get GREAT pics with a camera like that and the "kit" lens.

If you decided to go specifically with the E-M10 (or, probably, any Olympus mirrorless - aka Micro Four Thirds, aka m43 - camera), be aware that the Meikon housing says it works with the Olympus 14-42mm kit lens. But, Olympus has 2 different 14-42mm lenses and Meikon doesn't specify which one it works with. I can now tell you from experience that it works with the M.Zuiko 14-42mm 3.5-5.6 II R lens, and it does NOT work with the M.Zuiko 14.42mm 3.5-5.6 EZ (aka "pancake") lens. The II R has a manual zoom. The EZ is much shorter (front to back, when the camera is off - it extends out automatically when you power the camera on) and has a power zoom function.

This site has some good info:

Bluewater photo & video | Underwater cameras and more

And this one:

Backscatter : Underwater Camera, Underwater Video Housing, Underwater Photography, Waterproof Camera

 

[deeper thoughts]

We have a few cameras, omd em5 epl 1, and a canon.
For size and ease of use we love the tg4 with the Olympus housing. Here are some recent pix.
Tg-4pix Florida Keys
Molasses reef 6-28-16 too many pictures!!

 

[Skeptic14]

For size and ease of use we love the tg4 with the Olympus housing.

Agree with this assessment, particularly if you consider yourself a vacation diver and therefore will only be using it underwater a couple times a year.

The tg-4 is versatile; it's waterproof to 50ft without a housing for shallow dives/snorkeling when you might not need a strobe. Or you can put it in the olympus pt-056 and attach a strobe and wet lenses.

I sometimes think of upgrading to a compact with larger sensor like the canon g9x (the biggest weakness of the tg-4 imo) but I think I've got plenty of skill to improve first.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/GeUCay][/URL]

 

[tarponchik]

I ended up choosing Canon G1x Mk2 but this camera is heavier than your G10 (19 vs 12 oz). You may consider G16 (very good for a budget camera BTW) or G7x Mk2.

I've also considered Panasonics; however, both GF6 and GF7 lack image stabilization.

As for Sony cameras, most of them have a built-in battery. Meaning, if you depleted the battery in the 2 morning dives, you are going into your after-the-lunch dive w/o a camera.

 

[Elizabeth Curry]

Thanks for all the GREAT feedback! I am going to study up more on all your suggestions and I am sure I will have more questions!
Elizabeth

 

[KeithG]

I am a vacation diver who has been using a Canon G10 with the Canon housing for the last few years. Last year I bought a Sealife Sea Dragon SL 963 from Cathy Church's store in Grand Cayman. I was told it would work fine with any camera I upgraded to.
Well my Canon G10, no longer zooms and there is a tiny scratch on the lens so I am ready to upgrade.
I have done some research and contacted Cathy Church's store to see what they recommend. My budget is $1000-1200 ish. They recommended the Olympus TG-4 or the Olympus EPL7. I was leaning to spending the extra for the EPL7, but then they said the Sealife strobe would not work well with that. Which kind of irritated me as when I bought it they said it would work fine with anything I upgraded to. I am not going to buy a new strobe when I have only used that one for 1 dive.
I also need this camera to be a good land and underwater camera.
Why would my Sealife not work with the EPL7?
So my other questions, should I go with the EPL7, TG-4, or the Canon G7x or G9x?
Or something I haven't looked in to.
Thanks for any help!!
Elizabeth

knowing more about how you will use the camera will (maybe) provide more focused responses.

what type of photos do you take? what type to you want to take? is there anything aout your old g10 that you loved and always used. is there anything about your g10 that you hated? is there something missing from your current camera? do you take it on every dive? do you dive just to take pictures?, how many pictures do you take each dive?, ...

your type of question get asked fairly often and the normal responses (without any background information) is to "buy a ferrari". do you want / need a ferrari? can you afford a ferrari? maybe you really need a volkswagen?

 

[KeithG]

have you considered buying another g10? ebay has lots of them.

if you really want to "upgrade" i find it helps to make a list of new / improved features required.

 

[stuartv]

As for Sony cameras, most of them have a built-in battery. Meaning, if you depleted the battery in the 2 morning dives, you are going into your after-the-lunch dive w/o a camera.

Weird. Regardless, the RX100 series do not have this issue. They have a replaceable, rechargeable battery just like any other digital camera I've ever used.