Sp-350 Questions from a Newbie

[FastAttack]

I been reading everyone's posts lately and it seems the SP-350 camera is an all around camera that is pretty much the best bang for your money, which is why I am buying one.

But I had a few questions since, it seems that one persons says one thing and another person says another thing and I am such a newbie that I don't understand half of the stuff that goes on the underwater photography world.

I will be direct and honest about things, I am a full time college student and lets just say that I will be building up my camera equipment in steps since I can only afford to buy certain items at a time.

I saw the olympus case PT-030 and the ikelite cases:

Now I am really a recreational diver and I won't see more than 125 feet of water, since most of my dives are beach dives and once in a while a wreck dive.

Question is it really worth to spend $500 (ikelite) vs the PT-030 ( $250) in my situation?
I know it has been hammered but my situation, is a little bit diffrent. as you can see.
cons and pros between the 2 of them?

2nd strobes.

whats the diffrence between TTL and non TTL strobes. I know if I go with the PT-030 from my understanding I can't get a TTL strobe or is my assumption incorrect?

What is the diffrence in quality between non TTL strobes and regular strobes?

Is there a good all around strobe that would be suited for me? I saw LarryC had one that could fit to the case (sunpak G Flash) and I saw at the B&H had some recommended strobes like the Fantasea and the Fantasea kits.

I know on the Ikelite casing you can use their TTL Strobes but they run around $900 can you use other non ikelite strobes on their cases?

Lenses:

Now the question of all questions, is it really necessary to have a diffrent lense? like wideangle , etc?
does it improve the quality of the picture?
is there perticular model lenses out there for underwater that would fit the PT-030?

I know its a lot of questions, and from experience from other forums, most of these questions might've been asked before, but as you can see even after reading the long SP-350 thread, I am confused about some things and honestly, I don't want to make a mistake on buying the wrong equipment the first time around

 

[ckofabq]

FastAttack, you couldn't be asking better questions. I am a total camera noob- with an sp-350, pt-030 and ses&sea ys-90auto. Two trips, 20 dives with it and feeling like I know nothing. I won't pretend to offer answers, rather will help in BEGGING someone with the knowledge to sound off. We're waiting... impatiently.
Oh, I see that the sp350 is being discontinued. From what I understand, that's hardly uncommon from Oly... and the upside, IMHO, is getting a great camera for cheap right now. Heck, you could even afford a backup (after putting $ into a job specific housing), which BTW, I really do find easy to use and intuitive.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11092120&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=

Craig-

 

[alcina]

Quick and dirty answers:

- go ahead and start with the Oly case IF it will accept add-on lenses. The Ike case is fabulous, but it's bigger and bulkier and more expensive. Many divers will not get a true benefit from this unit while others will. I've used Oly cases for ages with nary a problem.

- strobes. Buy the best you can afford. If you can't afford one right now, save. As you are looking to shoot on wrecks, skip the strobe for now and concentrate on manual white balance and other techniques as you will need a strobe with a wide beam and plenty of power for good strobe lit wrecks (broad generalisations here)

I am not a fan of the Fantasea stuff. SeaYoda has and uses the Sunpak G so he might be able to shed some light

- ttl. Forget about it. If the strobe you want has it and your system is capable of using it, great, it's another tool. But it totally isn't necessary. I don't have it on my current strobe (Inon 220) and my new strobe won't have it either. My Ike's had it and after using it for a while then going to full manual instead I've never looked back. Manual strobe control is pretty easy to get started and many of the strobes I would suggest have "auto" modes.

- add on lenses. Eventually you may want these or you may change systems all together. But it's perfectly great to start out with just the camera and housing. Learn how it all works, master it. Find out what really floats your boat to shoot and THEN buy the add-ons. Just make sure the first pieces you buy can be added to as your needs evolve. Many people find that what they were 100% sure they wanted to get out of uw photo changed within their first few dives!

Whenver we have these discussions here it seems like most add the WA first. I was the opposite, I added two macros first then the WA. WA is harder to light properly, but offers the advantage of a wider field of view from closer to your subject - and closer is better (which is why the add on is often better than the standard lens). Macro, for the basics, is easier to light and is a bit "easier" to take home good results from in a shorter time frame. And I like the little hidey things

It's all personal preference. There is no "right" answer here. So look around, do some shopping, ask more questions, remember to take ALL advice with a grain of salt and have fun shopping for your new toys!

 

[ckofabq]

Thanks Alcina.
Just found this link to the add on lens mounts for Oly housing for sp-350.
Very interesting. Opens up a whole, new world.
Craig-

http://www.inonamerica.com/news.php?news_id=48&newscat=0

 

[DesertEagle]

You have another choice for wide angle too. I don't know if Gary from Colorado is perusing this thread, but he found a nice inexpensive wide angle solution. Sea & Sea used to make a 16mm lens that would screw onto the old Nikonos 35mm lens. I actually used to own one more than 10 years ago until I lent it to someone on my dive boat and forgot about it. There are lots of them out there selling cheap on eBay. I recently paid about $100 for my second one. Then all you need is a 46-48mm step up ring, which cost about $8.

The Inon 105AD is probably the best all-aound lens, but it will cost $320 with the AD-mount adapter. They also have a fisheye with virtually endless depth of field. It's a great lens, but not so easy to use.

FYI I won't be using a strobe. I'll be using a Magic-Filter, since most of my diving is in tropical waters and much of that is shallow. One of the really nice things about the SP-350 is that you can shoot RAW. A few other cameras have that, but Olympus takes it 1 step further. You can do some minor editing (such as fine tuning the white balance) in-camera without using a computer. Then the result is saved as a JPG.

 

[FastAttack]

Thanks ckofabq, bought the camera through costco

rest of you guys thanks for the tidbits

 

[Reeveseye]

I'm also considering upgrading my old setup to an SP-350, which I was going to place in a PT-030 housing. I would very much like to use the TTL feature, though, since I have a Sea & Sea YS-90A strobe, and I've never much liked the way the fiber-optic slave connection works. Is there any way to use TTL with my proposed setup?

 

[Larry C]

You can use an Oly ttl strobe (FL-20 w/housing for about $200 on e-bay) and slave your YS-90 off it as a substrobe, or you can get a Heinrichs/Weikamp bulkhead for the Oly housing and use any ttl strobe with a Nikonos type cable. I think I also saw a translator cable somewhere that goes from the Oly hotshoe to Inon, but that one is really fuzzy and the details could be totally screwed up. It's something I saw online while Googling strobes.

 

[ckofabq]

Congrats FastAttack!
Larry, thanks for the reminder on the Heinrichs/Weikamp bulkhead. I'd seen that a while back, but hadn't bookmarked it.
And- Alcina... the images on (what I assume is your) www.OceansByAnderson.com site are AMAZING. What a wonderful world in which you work and play!
I love your suggestion of looking toward macro add-ons first. C/U's are, by far, my fav.
If you have a moment, please sound off a bit more about what I'm trying to understand and do right now... slave strobing, manual w/b (& do you try to NOT use the strobe then?) and how to get rid of all the blue (like your incredible pix). Oh, nearly all my photography has been/will be in relatively clear Caribbean waters.

Noob q's I'm sure, but I really appreciate your wisdom.
Craig-

 

[Larry C]

When you use manual WB, the camera sets the white balance for existing light conditions when you make the setting. Any changes will effect the light. If you change depth, go under some kelp or a rock that removes light or use your strobe, the color will change. When you add a strobe to your shot, you try to duplicate sunlight. The water removes reds and yellows, and leaves the blues and greens. When you flash your strobe, you get back the missing colors. If you balance your camera for the ambient light and add a strobe to the shot, everything within the strobes effective lighting distance will be red. In tropical water, it is often possible to shoot without a strobe at lesser depths. This is when you would use manual white balance. You can remove some of the blues by post editing with a filter program in Photoshop, etc. or you can use a filter on the camera while you are shooting. These are available through companies like UR Pro filters and Magic Filters. Generally, filters are only used in fairly shallow waters 40ft. and above because they remove light. Without a strobe most PNS cameras don't have the sensitivity to shoot in low light conditions. If you crank up the ISO (think film speed on a film camera) to account for the low light level, you get a grainy looking picture with a lot of background noise. If you shoot with a filter in darker water on auto settings, the camera will lower the shutter speed and you get blurred pictures.