Santa comes through...woohoo.

[mardigrastexan]

Ok, Santa came through with the C5050 and I'm quite happy indeed. Considering Christmas just hit my wallet pretty hard and money is a little tighter than usual, I was wondering what's the C5050 owners would chose to go with next. Obviously I'll need a PT-015 housing asap (Santa will be pissed if the new cam gets wet.) But, after that,what next? Bigger CF,strobe,etc.? What direction in building my arsenal would you take? Keep in mind I plan to do ALOT of lake diving (for the time being Fort Worth lacks an ocean),which is where the majority of my underwater pics will be taken. Any replies would be appreciated.

 

[Jester]

Congratulations on your new toy! There are a bunch of us here with the 5050 and 015 setup. I'm not as experienced as some of the others, but I'd suggest you take a few pictures underwater with just the internal strobe before you get involved in the external strobe setups. Speaking from experience, the 5050 will do a whole lot of things, and you need to be comfortable with the various settings before branching out into some of the pricier options. However, I would suggest some larger memory cards, because if you shoot in SHQ mode, your 32 MB card that comes with the camera will be full in a hurry!

 

[jhelmuth]

I bought my wife the 5050 with the PT-015, a 1 gig CF card and Photoshop CS. A strobe will be the next purchase - but for now we want to see the results shooting in "raw" format and using photoshop to do some of the color balancing. To me, photography is an art form - so I'm not concerned that we capture the color exactly as it exists at depth.

 

[sapphire]

I have had the C5050Z and the PT015 since this summer. My first additional purchases were more memory cards for longer vacations, and I just ordered the 1 gig CF card... in addition to that, I would recommend getting the highest quality batteries and a rapid charger - I like that the batteries last for 2 dives, eliminating the need to open up the housing and the camera on a dive boat between dives... I still have not ordered a strobe, but that is next on the list. I am still having fun learning the camera and its features, however, and may not get the strobe for a while...

Have fun with the new set-up :biggrin:!

 

[Dee]

I totally agree with Jester. Even before you get your housing, take lots of pictures....shoot until your fingers bleed! The film is free! :tong: Seriously, the more you know about your camera out of the housing the easier it will be to use in the housing. Although all the features are accessable in the housing, it's not so handy to look at the camera to make sure you're in the right place.

After you get your housing, shoot with only the internal flash for a while. Learn what the camera itself can do. You'll be surprized at how strong the internal flash is. I used my C-4040 for over a year before I added an external strobe and got lots of great photos.

I would recommend you buy a larger CF or XD card. Personally, I like the CF card the best. I have a 256mg and plan to get another rather than a single 512mg card. Since I download often, and on a trip I can download twice a day and burn CD's on my laptop, I see no reason for the bigger cards. The XD card works well for me, they are just so small and hard to keep up with outside the camera.

Next I would invest in a good smart charger and NiMH rechargeable batteries. I've got a MAHA 204 charger that's the bees knees and 4 sets of 2200mg NiMH batteries. These batteries last me for 3 dives, 2 for sure with plenty of juice left.

For photo manipulation afterwards, I like Photoshop Elements 2.0. It's only $99 compared to $600+ for the PhotoshopCS and it does everything you need, just not all the bells and whistles.

Have we confused you yet? :biggrin2:

 

[mardigrastexan]

Thanks to everyone for the much needed information. The CF card was next on my list,but I probably would have made the mistake of getting the strobe a little sooner than I needed to do so. And, I was certainly not aware of the rate at which this camera eats batteries. As Dee noted, the battery situation will need to be addressed sooner than later too. Once again the "gurus" of the board come through in a big way. Thanks a million y'all.

 

[Dee]

Don't feel bad.....none of us realized how much battery juice any of the digitals can consume!

This is where I buy my batteries and charger....Thomas Distributing
For everything you never knew you didn't know about batteries!...FWIW - Batteries for AA-compatible digital cameras

 

[jiveturkey]

Yup, I was amazed by the lack of battery life too. I've got 2 sets of batteries. One is in the camera and the other is always in the charger when I got on trips.