Olympus Housing for the E-PL3 has arrived!

[slowhands]

I hate gimmicks...why not just keep the price the same with no focus lights, they seem pretty useless.

Being cynical, I believe the main reason for the gimmicks is to slide in a 33% price increase.

The port does have a built in 67mm wet lens mount, which is quite handy, but you can buy adapters if you need that on the other housings. The 4 LEDs are so dim as to be useless for anything but very close macro in daylight. Dubious improvements, since I would use dome ports mostly anyway.

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

It appears to me that most PEN housing owners have added the excellent ZEN Underwater WA-100 PEN dome port for the Olympus 14-42 and 9-18 zooms. The added $200.00 cost for the headlights seems over the top to me and I can think of other modifications to the housing like taking advantage of the tilting LDC screen that would have added more to the housing.

With the ZEN dome you are at about $1300.00 for the Olympus PEN housing. The Nauticam PEN housings with the Olympus 14-42, 9-18 port is around $2080.00 and now includes the outstanding adjustable twin grip tray. When you add the very well priced Nauticam ports for the Panasonic 45mm macro and Panasonic 8mm fisheye/Olympus 12mm the Nauticam looks even better.

If your plan is to use only the 14-42 "kit" lens I think the E-PL2 and Olympus housing is by far the most cost effective with image quality as good as the E-PL3 and slightly slower AF speed with the older KIT lens.

Phil Rudin

 

[TheTrickster]

Photos from Today (E-PL3 + 9-18mm) with the Olympus Housing and Zen Port

10 December 2011 - Camp Bay | Facebook (Public Facebook Page)

Rich

 

[JackConnick]

We also are stocking the new 10Bar E-PL3 housing. These are a value housing at $939 that includes a semi dome port, gear set (including manual focus), spare orings and even a small carrying case. The port works with either the 14-42 or 9-18. They seem to work pretty well, 200' depth rating with double oring construction. Several ports are available.

While not nearly as light, ergonomic or to the same quality as Nauticam, they are a much better answer in nearly the same price range as the Olympus. We have a few coming in in about a week, along with more EP3 housings.

But we will stock all _3_ housings and accessories.

 

[derway]

Hi Jack, and all.

Does the 10bar for olys have a zoom flat port available?

Also, is the epl3 focus abd shutter speed improvement enough to be worth the price premium over the epl2?

Thanks.

 

[JackConnick]

The AF is very snappy. The software/menus are quite different. I don't like the "external flash", it make sthe housings quite a bit taller.

The 10Bar has support for all lenses, they have a "pancake" port that the 17mm Oly fits, and then you can use a 45mm extension that allows you to extend the kit lens to 42mm and add a diopter for macro.

I will be adding it to the web store as soon as they come in later this week, but the configuration is the same as the GF3.

Jack