Nuno:
Hi, just new to this forum and to underwater photogrphy. I´ve just bought a oly c-5050 and a pt-15 housing, can´t aford the strobe yet.I have a few questions and was hoping some of you more experienced divers could get me some answers. First where do you get o-rings, silicone and silica bags, I´m guessing some of these don´t really have to be ordered from olympus. And second, how do you store your pictures? I´ve got a 256mbCF and TIFF is slow but JPEG is suposed to loose quality as you open, close, copy,right? Thanks, Nuno.
Nuno, I moved your post to the regular photo forum since your questions aren't necessarily Oly specific.
First, NEVER use vaseline on your o-rings. Not only on your camera gear but on any o-rings anywhere. Petroleum products will quickly degrade the o-rings. For your camera gear, each brand makes their own o-ring lubricant that they prefer you to use. Alot of folks also will use good quality silicone grease, referred to as food grade silicone. It takes such a small amount that I use what came with my housing or the blue cap tube of silicone from Sea & Sea.
You can get the PT-015 o-rings from most anywhere that sells the housings. I get the small silica gel dessicant paks from
Preserve Smart. I like these best because they have color crystals mixed in that changes color as it absorbs moisture, letting me know when to change it. I changed the paks twice as often as I needed to before I found those. They can also be recharged in the oven or microwave.
Are you talking about storing the pics while you are on a trip? I take my laptop. I download the camera to my hard drive and immediately burn a CD for backups. Some people use the small units that are basically a portable hard drive like the FastTrax or Archos Jukebox.
In the camera, I use a 256mg CF card and shoot in SHQ, JPG format. When folks talk about JPG losing quality, they are talking about the manipulation program you use to process and tweak your photos AFTER you get home, Photoshop, for example. You don't want to open the photo several times to work on it and keep saving it. Every time you do, you lose quality due to compression. You want to make a copy, keeping the original in tact, working on only the copy. Save that finished copy in PS format. You only want to save a jpg format copy when you need to resize it for using on the web or when you want to print. Printing is a whole other subject that I'm sure others can explain all this in more detail than I can. Basically, don't worry about the jpg aspect of it while you are taking the photos. TIFF makes huge files and actually loses quality. Some with the C-5050 use the RAW format but then you have to have either the expensive Photoshop full program to read it, or a plugin for PS Elements. ssra30 and ReyeR can really explain the RAW thing to you.
