just got my PT-010

[Agape]

Finally got my PT-010 in the mail today but all the directions are in chinese I think it is. Can you get them online somewhere in English? There's this heavy thing that came with it and I have no idea what it is or what it's for, some english directions might be helpful

 

[Dee]

Here's the PT-10 Manual in English.. I'll also suggest you read all around the Marscuba site as there is alot of info there.

That heavy thing you mention is the counter-weight. The housing is VERY bouyant since it is filled with air. My hand and wrist get extremely tired holding it down. If you turn it loose, it will rocket to the surface. The counter-weight makes it almost neutral. You can let it go and it will VERY S-L-O-W-L-Y sink.

 

[miked]

Hi Agape,
I have a pt-010, and found some good info here:
http://www.marscuba.com/instructions.html

I hope the link(?) works. I haven't used it in a while.

The "heavy thing" is probably the weight.(is it is covered in soft plastic, and does it have a threaded knob?) If so, it is designed to thread into the other threaded knob that is used to attach the housing to the tray. From top to bottom: housing, tray, weight.
Despite how heavy it feels, when u/w, it helps the whole camera assembly be closer to neutrally buoyant.

Hope this helps. I don't have a lot of experience with my housing- -20 or so dives. The real "Scuba Board expert" on this piece of equipment is Dee. Her knowledge and experiece-and her willingness to share both-helped to really shorten my learning curve. Hopefully, she'll see your question and provide some other assistance.
Good luck,
Mike


Edit/Addition: Hi Dee, glad you were "here"- I'm such a snail like typist (2 fingers at best) that while I typed away, you got the question answered!

 

[Agape]

oh thanks that makes a lot of sense! hey one more question i was trying to find the answer but haven't found it yet. what size lenses do you need to use? I noticed it's considerably larger than I thought.

 

[Dee]

Agape once bubbled...
oh thanks that makes a lot of sense! hey one more question i was trying to find the answer but haven't found it yet. what size lenses do you need to use? I noticed it's considerably larger than I thought.

Do you mean add-on lenses like a wide angle? My wide angle lens is a S&S WAL L. The flat port on the housing is 67mm. I haven't found a reason to have a macro lens, not with the excellent macro zoom on the camera. Especially when you find the Sweet Spot!

 

[Agape]

oh wow that is wide. Yah I meant add on lenses like macro and wide angle. So you don't bother with a add on macro lense at all? ok.

I have read that if you go bigger than like 46 mm that you have a good chance of having a lot of vignetting guess that isn't the case underwater huh? I probably wouldn't want to have to buy two different sizes of lenses one for underwater and one for out of water.

 

[Dee]

Agape once bubbled...
oh wow that is wide. Yah I meant add on lenses like macro and wide angle. So you don't bother with a add on macro lense at all? ok.

I have read that if you go bigger than like 46 mm that you have a good chance of having a lot of vignetting guess that isn't the case underwater huh? I probably wouldn't want to have to buy two different sizes of lenses one for underwater and one for out of water.

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you mean. The 67mm is the physical diameter of the lens opening where it screws onto the housing. A 67mm lens cap will fit the housing port.

The S&S WAL L lens itself gives you 90 degrees of coverage. It also has negligeable vignetting around the edges, which is the main reason I chose it. That and the fact that I'm confident in the quality of S&S products.

 

[Agape]

hmm maybe I misread that then Thought I saw it on that cliffshade site I think what I was looking at is that table on that site that shows the different filter sizes and musta been looking at the viewfinder blockage and onboard flash shadowing column. I guess that just has to do with filters and not lenses.

Been reading too much about photography that my head is swimming with information.

I'm taking a series of photography classes starting this weekend to get more familiar with all the different functions and settings you can change on a camera. I've never really gotten that involved with it before I always just use auto everything so it will be nice to know what everything does and how to change them manually when I want to.

 

[Dee]

You can get digital overload real quick! I was really scared before my first dives with my camera. All those dials and settings were very intimidating! But you know what? I change settings very little! The easiest shooting mode for me is the [/b]A[/b]perture mode where I pick the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed. So if you learn how aperture and shutter speed effect each other, you're halfway there! The only other thing I change is my strobe strength on the YS-90DX and that sort of depends on my depth so one or two minor adjustments do the trick there. All that other stuff stays set like thesettings in Jeff's primer.

You're gonna do great!