Olympus C-4000 questions

[MikeC]

Greetings all, a few questions for a friend who got a C-4000 as a gift.

First, does anyone take these underwater? If so, which housing?

Second, are there other lens you can buy/use? (Like you can with a Nikonos)

Finally, does anyone have experience with both the C-4000 and the new C-5000 series? Is the 5000 worth the $$ to replace the 4000?

 

[Gilligan]

Lots of folks take them underwater. I'm one of them. The 5000 series you are referring to is the 5050 which is very popular and is already replaced in Japan by the 5060. They both are more advance featured cameras than the 4000. However you already have the 4000 and it takes great pictures. All you need is a housing for it. The lowest cost housing is the Olympus PT-010. They run around $200 but don't wait too long to get one as they are no longer in production. The 5050 required a new housing so Olympus discontinued the PT-010. You can find one on eBay direct from Quinlan in Japan. He is a very reliable person and I have ordered from him. This PT-010 is a "buy it now" for $182.95 with about 8 hours left. He will have more to offer.
You can add a wide angle lens to the housing.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Olympus as well as third party suppliers sell both macro and wide angle attachments for the C-4000/PT-10 housing. Unlike an entirely new lens for a Nikonos, the lens is screwed onto the housing like a filter.

The C-5000 series allows the user to disable the pre-flash which makes it more versatile when used with strobes. With the C-4000, you need to use it with a strobe optimized for digital cameras and designed to ignore the pre-flash which limits your strobe options significantly. If you already own a good strobe, it would be cheaper to upgrade to a C-5050 than it would be to replace a good quality strobe like a Nikonos SB-105.

I use my C-4000 for general land photography, I use it on my 6 inch refractor for astronomical photography and in a PT-10 housing for underwater photography. Strobe concerns aside, I like it a lot more than my Nikonos due to the instant gratification and the ability to know immediately if you got it right. The internal strobe is also suprisingly effective at short range and even on longer ranged pics, you can do some great stuff layering in photoshop to correct the color balance.

I have also found at depth in low light conditions that I can get a well exposed shot without a strobe using my OMS phantom dive light with a 30 watt bulb for illumination.

 

[Dee]

I don't have anything to add to what Gilligan said. Get that housing now!