Stylus 400 & Housing

[Divensailr]

I have an Ikelite Auto 35 and am considering a Stylus 400 and housing from Olympus. What are the pro and cons for either.

Thanks

Jerry

 

[Charlie99]

Divensailr once bubbled...
I have an Ikelite Auto 35 and am considering a Stylus 400 and housing from Olympus. What are the pro and cons for either.

I just came back from 8 days of playing around in Cozumel with a new Olympus Stylus 400 and Olympus PT016 housing. It suited my goals well: simple snapshots for the family, and fish photos for further review and comparison with fish ID books.

PROS: very, very small camera. Fits nicely in a pocket. I found that I was taking many more pictures with my 35mm Olympus Stylus than with my Nikon SLR because the SLR was inconvenient to carry all the time. That's the main reason I decided to give the Stylus 400 digicam a try.

Easy to use. Similar to the 35mm versions, you have minimal exposure controls (flash choices of auto/force on/force off; and program mode selections that puts in a bias towards high F-stop/long shutter vs. low f-stop/short shutter). A point-and-shoot with minimum controls.

Short movie mode. I got a great 16 second mini-movie while swiming alongside a 7 foot nurse shark. 320x240 res, 15fps, but still is great for showing the swimming action of sharks, eels, etc.

Relatively cheap. I wanted to get the cameral for land usage anyway. Camera is $400 list. The housing is $200 list and available online for $130.

Quick feedback. In some cases the feedback on a shot is instantaneous. In other cases, it came when I hooked the camera up to the hotel room TV and reviewed the photos from that morning's dives. With a 256MB card you can shoot at will, dump the multiple mistakes, and improve your technique much quicker than with a 35mm camera.


CONS: Wimpy flash. Somewhat wimpy on land, even more so once behind the diffuser of the housing. I doubt that you would want to use the Stylus in other than clear water. On an overcast day, you really had to be within a couple feet to fully restore natural colors via the flash.

Lack of controls. No direct control of f-stop or shutter speed.

Hard to see the LCD in bright light, and the optical viewfinder is blocked by the housing so a few shots relied upon blind aiming.

The tiny LCD was just generally hard for me to see underwater, so it was hard to check focussing, or even sometimes to be sure about the mode settings. I use prescription mask with both near and distance sections, so this problem may not affect you.

 

[Divensailr]

Thanks so much for all the info. Where can I find the housing online?

Thanks

Jerry

 

[BIGSAGE136]

BHPHOTO.COM

 

[Charlie99]

Advanced Photo Source has the PT016 housing for $119. Shipping brought the total to $131.

I ordered it Tuesday 10/28. It arrived 3 days later on 10/31.