Olympus PL3 housing without strobes for point and shoot?

[GregSaiz]

Newbie Olympus PL3 owner here. In May, I'll be on a live aboard in the Philippines (Tubbataha). I purchased a Olympus PL3 early this year with the intent of practicing underwater shots with the camera in Monterey prior to the trip. Long story short, I have not purchased the housing yet and have very little shooting time with the camera. My last setup was a point and shoot so I'm not a skilled photographer.

With the basic Olympus housing, would it be possible to use it without a strobe in auto mode to take decent pictures/movies? The area is known for great vis and nice wide angle targets.

If I invest in strobes, a macro setup, etc do I have any hope of taking decent pictures without a serious investment in time to learn all the manual controls? I certainly plan to use the setup back here in local Monterey diving so my main concern is lugging all the gear and struggling to take good pics during the trip. I might be better off just bringing a point and shoot. Any opinions would be appreciated. Would love to hear from some PL3 owners who are using the auto settings on the camera or taking pictures with the basic housing.

 

[mjh]

Greg learning to shoot a camera in Natural Light is a great way to start. In Auto mode you will need great sunlight and be in less than 30ft of water to get even marginal results. Learning how to shoot in Manual Mode and how to use your Custom White Balance settings can help. You can add something like Alex Mustard's Magic Filters, but again they work in a specific way to get good results which he outlines at his site.

Now if you add a good strobe like the Sea&Sea YS01 you can shoot in Optical TTL, basically "automatic" and get excellent results for mid to macro sized subjects. TTL does not work really well with Wide Angle subjects and again learning to shoot in a form of Manual is helpful. But with the kit lens, 14-42mm, a macro set-up, and a good strobe you can really shoot a wide variety of subjects. There is a whole range of focus/video/night dive lights available starting from $40 up to $$$$. If you go to our site Camera & Video Housings, Strobes, Arms, Trays & More! - Optical Ocean Sales Underwater Photo - 800-359-1295! you can see whole set-up for the E-PL3 along with some of the very best focus/video lights. The only issue at this time is the Olympus housing of the EPL3 is hard to come by and we don't expect shipments to arrive for another 2wks. There are other very good housings available like 10Bar and Nauticam.

The system is fairly compact, you can fit it all in your average day pack and easily carry it on the plane. Yes you will have a couple of frustrating dives dialing in the system but the learning curve is not too bad with this system, lol. Here are a couple of simple guides that may help a little.

http://opticaloceansales.com/files/Strobe Positioning-sm.pdf
http://opticaloceansales.com/files/Shooting Tips-sm.pdf

Hope this helps.