Olympus on eBay (looking)

[SteveTW]

I'm looking into my first camera & housing for underwater photos. There's just too much out there so I thought I'd seek some advice. I loved my C-3000 but can't find a housing for it so it's back to the drawing board! Is a camera w/ optical zoom an advantage underwater? Or does it pick up too much scatter?

I'm thinking of spending around $600 or so for a decent camera & housing off of eBay.
Any advice out there?
Thanks, Steve

1.New to scuba-7 dives
2.Will be diving mainly at the quarry (Dutch Springs)
3.Some dives off of the Jersey coast.
4. Some wreck diving after AOW cert.(this summer)
5. Just looking for decent photos to show family & friends.

 

[jlyle]

Hey, Steve!

I have to warn you, underwater photography is a hole into which we throw money.

There are lots of point and shoot digital cameras and housings available in your price range. Anything more than a 3X optical zoom is impractical u/w - you want less, not more distance between you and the subject. While $600 will get you snapshots to show the friends, you will need a strobe to take decent shots - the bad news, strobes are $$$.

If you can find a used Oly C5050/PT-015 housing - buy it!

 

[WOODMAN]

Jlyle is certainly right about the cost factor of underwater photography, ah but it is a magnificent obsession. The comment on strobes was right on also. Some make sort of a career out of imaging with only the onboard flash of their camera, and do surprisingly well at it, but the vast majority of us hounds need a strobe for light supplementation, and usually end up using two of them to get what we want. (See what we are talking about with costs?) But you have to start somewhere. If you can't pick up a C5050 rig ( I have one, and briefly flirted with updating to a newer camera, but cooler heads here talked me into staying with the old warhorse), there are several other choices. The current hot one is a Canon G9, but there are lots of others. The Olympus 350 gets a lot of comment on this forum, for example. Pick yer poison, pardner, and welcome to the fraternity. Woody

 

[Larry C]

There's lots out there. I've had good luck on e-bay with the Olympus auctions site. They sell Olympus seconds. Usually this is stuff where the packaging is a little shabby. Often prices are 1/2-2/3 of new, and they're warranted. That said, except in the DSLRs, Oly doesn't have a lot of current offerings. Check out Alcina's pink links, at the top of this forum for some really good advice on what's needed in an UW camera rig. At the $600 level (this is just a start-you're going to buy at least one strobe eventually and you'll end up with about triple that investment) you'll find a few leftover SP-350/PT-030 combos. These have everything you need (full manual adjustment including focus and white balance, ttl flash signal, hotshoe, RAW capture, 3X optical zoom, threaded housing port for add on lenses & availability of Inon AD lens/flash cord mount for this model) You can pick up camera and housing for about $400. There are newer, faster, more available cameras. Canon in particular has models suited to UW. The A series start very reasonably, most have UW housings available, manual settings. They generally lack RAW and require an optically fired strobe, but that is becoming more and more the current mode anyway. Downside is oval ports that don't adapt well to wide angle and macro lens addition.
Avoid super zoom cameras. They're great topside, but to accommodate the Pinocchio nose when they're zoomed, the lens port in the housing has to be so far from the lens when not zoomed that it's either gigantic and square or won't accomodate wide shots without black corners. Make sure before you buy a camera that an underwater housing is available for it. Read the threads in Alcina's pink links for valuable owner experience with different models. Good luck and welcome to UW photography. To misquote Ross Perot (for the youngsters, he was the last independent candidate for President to be taken semi-seriously) "That suckin' sound you here is the Underwater Camera store takin' money out of your wallet!"

 

[amajamar]

I'm a new diver, as well, and my setup is the Canon A620 with the Canon housing. You can pick one up used on eBay for around $150 and the housing is available around $150 for new and you can generally get a housing used for around $100.

I have made a few dives with it, and without a strobe and without the diffuser for the internal strobe, I had some (lots of) difficulty with flash photography during one night dive. If you do buy the camera and housing make sure you get the flash diffuser. I bought the housing used and the previous owner did not send the diffuser with the housing. I ordered one from Canon ($24) and it made a huge improvement!

I have since purchased a Sea & Sea YS-27DX strobe and arm for the rig but have not had a chance to get that wet yet! (And in case you were wondering, yes, that cost more than the camera and housing! )

I am really happy with the setup, now I need to work on skills!!

The pics in my gallery were taken on the first day with the camera on a particularly clear day in Plymouth, MA.

 

[Scubamedicjoe]

I love my OLY C5050 but there lack of housing out there has made it hard to find ,

 

[scubak]

I use the Casio EX-Z1000 and housing. I got both new for about 500$ from Adorama. I think Casio has updated the camera but mine is a 10mp and I really like it. Up here in the varying degrees of viz in the PNW, the camera does very well with the onboard flash. Take a look at it.
Just my 2psi.
K