Here are a few settings gleaned from a very active SP-350 forum from about 6 years ago:
Part one:
#23
Blackout issue:
I just got an SP-350 and PT-030, and have been playing with it the last few days. I haven't used it underwater yet. I researched my purchase on wetpixel and found almost no previous users, and the same issue came up. Fortunately, one owner found a solution not even known to Olympus. Hope this helps "If you go into mode menu, select camera, scroll down to histogram (last item) and select "+-On" the LCD will display at low light (no histogram) and you should see all light levels. You go into menu, mode menu, then select the setup menu. Then arrow down until you run across what appears to be a digital representation of a histogram (its the 4th screen down and the 4th option on that screen). Select this histogram and turn it off. I think Olympus tried to make the screen an active histogram for the novice. Unfortunately when there is low light, the screen is completely black...even with the flash enabled. When you turn the histogram function off, manual mode reverts back to normal." Thank you to CE4Jesus at Wetpixel forums for this and other info he helped me with while choosing this camera.
So far I'm very happy with this camera. If you use it in auto-mode, you get very iffy pictures, but there are a ton of pre-set scene modes including "underwater wide 1" which uses autofocus, "underwater wide 2" with focus fixed at 15 feet, and underwater macro. There are also macro and super macro settings which will allow focus from less than an inch away. The flash level is adustable. The camera will take pictures in raw format and convert them on camera. There is also a program included called Olympus Master that includes raw conversion and editing, but at least on my ancient (Athlon 950) pc, it is painfully slow, as in ten minutes for each edit and no batch editing-each change must be applied separately. I'm looking for a better raw converter program. If you buy this camera, expect to spend a bunch of additional bucks on accessories. It has 25mb internal memory but doesn't come with a card. The xD cards it uses are readily available, but pricey. I would recommend the max.
Currently 1gb, in the future, supposedly up to 4. I bought mine through Fry's outpost for 65 bucks. They list at 115.00. Costco sells a 512 for $59.95. The camera comes with a one use li battery (CR-V3) that has good capacity, but is pricey. You can use two AA's, or AA NimH rechargeables. I haven't tried those, but the nominal capacity is really good. I got a rechargeable CRV-3 and charger/car charger kit from Radio Shack ($59.95, ouch) because I wanted it right away. I've had really good luck with SterlingTek batteries in the past. They sell the battery for $9.95 and the charger for $19.95 on line, but the nominal capacity is quite a bit lower than the Radio-Shack one. I don't know how this translates, but their battery for my Sony had higher than the original and I got two for half the price of one original Sony battery. I'm also looking into filters for underwater use. I've heard good things about the "magic-filter" gel filters and there are also some threaded filters available in the size of the housing port thread. Any suggestions? Hope this helps. I'll post some pics after I go diving with it.
#25
Battery issues:
Not a deal killer, so far, and I've got too much invested e.g., camera, uw case, green water filter, memory, battery/charger, but there are issues. When I first charged up my new battery and put it in the camera for the first time, a few seconds later I got an empty battery warning and the camera stopped and retracted the lens. This happened a couple of times. I thought maybe the battery wasn't fully charged, so I put it back on the charger and got a full charge reading. I wiggled it and got the red light again, so I left it on. In a few minutes it read green, so I put it back in the camera and it worked fine. I got about 45 minutes of use out of it. I thought the issue was my radioshack charger, and it still might be, but I've since read posts on both wetpixel and dpreviews from numerous SP-310/350 owners who have had the same issue. The common theme on those seems to be the use of NimH AA batteries, which have more nominal capacity, but lower voltage (2.4 combined vs. 3 for the CRV-3). It seems the camera may have a voltage threshold (2.8v) according to one of the posters that causes the low bat signal to come on. On the other hand, many of those posting took 45-50 more pictures after the signal and taking the battery out and reinstalling it fixed mine both times. After many apparent e-mails to Oly and visits to repair shops, the concensus seems to be 1) use a CRV-3, not AAs and 2)although putting up a wall, one poster got a "we've got a firmware fix coming in February" out of an Oly repair outlet. I'll reserve judgement until I've got some hours on it and keep posted on the issue.
#27
Wide angle lens
Oly makes an adapter for the camera body #CLA-9 for $29.00 and both a wide angle and 1.7 lens for it @$99.00 each, but unfortunately they can't be used in the UW case. The UW case has a 46mm thread adaptor on the port ring, but I don't know how that matches up with existing lenses from Inon, etc. Maybe someone else can answer that one. For filters, UR Pro makes 3 different filters in glass or plastic to fit on the 46mm thread. I ordered a green algae one, and will probably get a CYA for blue water diving. They are $77.00 each plus $14.00 S&H. The CLA-9 for topside uses a 34mm thread.
#31
On the wide angle lens, I just picked up a download on Wetpixel forum. Sea and Sea makes one that works, using a 52mm adaptor. I'm not home, so I'll give you the URL info in my next post. I've posted some pictures from my first dive with the camera. They were taken in 70 ft. of green water with about 10 ft. vis and plenty of the usual Monterey floating particles. All of them were with std settings-UW Macro and UW wide 2 on HQ or SHQ jpeg. They were taken with the built in flash. These are my first UW pics with a real (nondisposable) camera, so don't beat me up too badly.
On the white balance, instructions are in the advanced manual cd, but basically, there are three ways to do it. You can use auto white balance, which changes for each shot, fixed white balance which keeps the settings from the first shot. (Hold the button half way and it sets focus and WB) or manual white balance (the little picture of a rectangle with two bottom corners framed) I haven't got the manual mode totally figured out, but you have to fill the whole frame with your dive slate, WB card, white sand bottom, etc. and either hold the button half way or take a picture (I haven't figured out which yet). The manual cautions to keep shadows out of the frame. If anyone reading this can tell me how to fill the whole frame, and still get the WB at the correct distance, please let me know.
#34
link for lens info
Here's the lens link:
http://www.digitaldiver.net/yabbse/i...16418;start=15 There's a nice picture on it and everything, along with a bunch of discussion on flashes and stuff. My filter came today. Oops. The thread on the filter is 46mm but it's internal, just like the one on the housing. I e-mailed back UR Pro for a solution. Hopefully they have a reversed model or maybe an extenal threaded 46mm sleeve adaptor that will fit inside of both?
#48
About 1/3 of the shots are edited. The rest were taken on the camera presets. The ones that are green and blurred were taken with natural light using a filter. For natural light in murky water, you'd better have a tripod, under expose and correct them with a post-editing program. The flash makes a huge difference in freezing the action. The speed depends entirely on the settings. The fastest way to shoot is with manual focus. You can use the 4 "MY" settings to preselect the aperture, speed, focus, file size, flash settings, etc. A lot of my better pictures have been taken in the built in preset modes, especially UW Macro. If you want to shoot RAW or SHQ modes, yeah, you'd better be ready for about a 10 second wait between shots. This is especially true if you do RAW with a SHQ back-up. That hasn't been really a problem for me because if you're doing Macros, you really have plenty of time. The bigger issue for me has been my middle aged vision trying to see what mode I'm in so I can switch out of macro to get a prefocus action shot. So far I've missed whales, seals and dive buddies because a shot comes along and I'm still in Macro autofocus mode. Honestly though, most of this is my ineptitude. Now that I've had a few dives to play with it and get used to the tons of settings, I'm starting to get quicker on the draw. For a complete bozo with zero UW photography experience, this thing has really taken some remarkable pictures despite me. I can't wait to get my strobe and get rid of some of the backscatter.
#65
You can get over an hour of constant-on use on a CRV-3 rechargeable battery. If you're shooting RAW, get a LOT of memory. I generally go through a 1G card in a single dive. (I bought a second one last week when Fry's had an in store sale for $49.95) Hopefully, bigger xD cards are coming. I heard that faster ones are.("H" series?) I ordered a Sunpak strobe, because I'm suffering "photoshock" on my budget. It is slave only. If you check out Wetpixel forums, CE4Jesus bought the Oly strobe and UW case for it for about $200 on E-Bay stores auction, which does all the functions but lacks power. From what I understand, if you want to use TTL, it's either the Oly or you have to get a special adaptor for your S&S, Ikelite or Inon. I don't know enough about the strobes to really answer that one accurately. If you're not using RAW, you can shoot hundreds of JPEGS on a gig card. You'll find that starting out, the standard UW macro and UW wide settings work really nice for basic JPEG pictures and you can branch out from there. All the shots in my gallery were done with this camera. Feel free to ask about any of the setting info, as there are lots of choices and the advanced manual is about as clear as mud. It took me almost 3 months to get fully comfortable with all of the manual settings, and I'm barely there.
#99
I have been using the SP-350 on the surface for a few months. I like the camera. Its very portable (fits in my pant pocket), and the images are clear and sharp, with good color.
I finally had a chance to use it underwater during the Avalon Clean Up.
I was experimenting using the camera with no strobe and setting the manual white balance. The good news is that the white balance works really well, but the bad news is that I had to up the ISO rating to get the shots, thus degrading the overall quality of the images.
I mounted a flashlight on the hotshoe bracket, and used that for a focusing light. It worked well, unless I got the spot in the picture. I need to put a defuser on the light to get rid of the hot spot. With the light, the focus was quick, and the view finder bright.
My favorite shot is
http://www.kewlpics.net/stevea/catal...s/P2250423.htm
As to which I like better, the 7070 or the sp-350? I think that overall I like the 7070, but that could be because I have spent more time underwater with it. The 7070 has more wide angle coverage.
But the 350 has that fantastic preview screen. By the way, turning off the histogram does allow you to use the screen in manual mode. It still darkens, but it still bright enough to be useful. I will be diving with the 350 again in a couple of weeks, this time with the strobes.
I like the 350 enough that I would not be devastated if I lost the 7070. I'll post about my next dive, using it in my more 'normal' mode.
#120
The only ones I know of currently are the ones on the previous post-two back from this one. The lens thread is 46mm. That's the size I bought my filter in, and it fits fine. The outer mount for S&S 16mm for Nikonos is 52-58 adaptor for the 67mm lens according to the thread I referred to. (after looking back I goofed twice-once calling it 52-56 and once on 68mm instead of 67) I think the 16mm works out to 100 degrees, but I'm not certain. That's not really an area of expertise for me. I have no idea even what the 16mm refers to. The digital diver thread is a fair amount of info, and Old Diver plans to post pictures from a Manatee dive that he took with the Epoque. Check the PT-030 wide angle thread. Don't ask me how you use a 52-58 adaptor on a 50mm o.d. lens ring, but the guy has a picture and all the stuff is very clearly marked. Also on a previous post either here or on Wetpixel, Ryan said Inon would have a mount for their (WLA165 I think it is) in late March. I keep looking on their InonAmerica.com website and it isn't there yet. Their mounts are pretty cheap. Only like $30 or so, and the lenses aren't bad either. They have a great reputation for quality as well, as does S & S.
#130
I just checked on all the modes, plus the scene settings you used. I had flash on all of them except UW2 which is designed as a quick shot with fixed focus. It is your fastest setting (like the sport setting on land) It didn't flash, which it has in the past.
I went into the camera setting and had flash on sync 1, internal+strobe.
I pressed the flash button (lightning bolt next to power) and changed it from the circled lightning setting to the auto setting. Blink, flash. Give it a try. You probably have a base setting on the flash that needs changing. Just put it in the mode you want, and push the button till you get to auto, then retry it. If it has the lightning in a circle, the flash is off. All the flash modes are explained from page 43-47 of the advanced manual CD. I printed mine and keep it with me, but be patient, with all the settings available, these things really do take a couple of months of playing with on dry land to really get comfortable with all the different things you can do in manual mode. UW macro should fire the flash all the time. Mine flashes even pointed at a bright light. Only UW wide 2 has a no flash base setting so you can take quick repetitive action pictures. Do go into camera settings and make sure the flash is set on internal + strobe. If you've messed with it, and can't get it back to base settings, there's a reset in the menu as well. Good luck and yell if you still can't get it right.
