Today was Christmas! PT-E01 has arrived!

[GMH]

Tried the camera in the pool today. It float. I have my inon s2000 on order. Not sure if it will become negative buoyant after rigging up with the stroke.

 

[JackConnick]

I've got the shade rings coming next week. Dee let me know what kind of strobe you have and I'm sure I have something that will fit.

My only other comment about the Oly housing is that I found the zoom gearing pretty stiff and the wheel very small and a bit too far back into the side, it may be hard to turn with gloves.

I just talked to 10Bar and their E-PL1 housing is in production and he says it will ship early in May, like 10 days!

It will use the same ports that he has for the GF-1 and accommodate all of the Oly lenses and you should be able to use the Panny lenses as well. It should look something like the GF-1 housing, but will have improved dedicated controls. Ports range from a short flat, to large semi dome. He is coming out with a new port for the 7-14 Panny. It is aluminum rated to 200' working and tested to 300'. Price in the $800-1100 range depending on ports.

Jack

 

[Nemrod]

I had an opportunity to shoot a new ELP-1 and from what I recall shooting the EP-1 some time ago, this new camera is much, much faster and of course if you go to manual focus it then has a shutter response getting into the dSLR territory. Even with auto focus on it is faster than my memory serves and the camera just feels good. To bad it does not have a few more knobs and a few less buttons. Well, depending upon what box Ikelite et al come out with I could see getting one especially if it will have a dome for the 8mm fisheye and a short threaded port for wet lens applications with the 35mm pancake lens.

Nice camera. Not much larger than a G11, actually about the same size, much faster focus and shutter, real nice.

N

 

[slowhands]

.....
I just talked to 10Bar and their E-PL1 housing is in production and he says it will ship early in May, like 10 days!

It will use the same ports that he has for the GF-1 and accommodate all of the Oly lenses and you should be able to use the Panny lenses as well. It should look something like the GF-1 housing, but will have improved dedicated controls. Ports range from a short flat, to large semi dome. He is coming out with a new port for the 7-14 Panny. It is aluminum rated to 200' working and tested to 300'. Price in the $800-1100 range depending on ports.

Jack

Hmmm... Just when I thought Oly had a winner, here comes a competing solution from 10Bar that does more -- and costs more. I really love the Oly 50mm F2 macro lens, but I thought I would have to use the 14-42 with a diopter here. If the 10Bar housing will accommodate it, that complicates the decision process.

 

[JackConnick]

Hi again;

Everyone who has just bought this camera should download the firmware update. DPReviews is showing a 20% autofocus increase.

Olymus firmware updater

Discussion: DPReview release

And more tests

But you would of already known this if you were a friend or fan of my Facebook page!

Jack

 

[JackConnick]

Slowhands, If you're talking about using 4/3rds lenses like the 50 macro inside an E-PL1 housing, it probably won't happen. The barrel diameter is just too large.

Jack

 

[slowhands]

...about using 4/3rds lenses like the 50 macro inside an E-PL1 housing, it probably won't happen. The barrel diameter is just too large.

Jack

The Panasonic 45mm M43 macro lens is available, so there is an alternative. Ryan suggested 3rd party ports were possible, so perhaps inon and Athena will enter this market space too. Time will tell.

The whole point of the micro 4/3 concept is "Let's get small". The Olympus E-PL1 image quality is reputed to be almost as good as a DSLR, certainly better than any compact digicam. So for me, a diver who travels to out of the way spots, a small rig that makes great images is still very attractive. I'll keep it simple, using only the 14-42 kit lens with close-up adapter as a beginning. My next dives are in June in Asia, and I am excited about this new "toy".

I got a lot of use out of my current setup, 5 years of diving. This feels like enough of a quality step up to last another 5 years, and who knows -- perhaps there will be some surprise lenses and ports available in that time frame. This market segment is hot, and a near monopoly for Oly and Panasonic, so I think they will drive hard to improve it.

 

[Dee]

Hi Dee,

I'm a fan of nipple thingy's so that works for me. Battery life with live view and a small battery seems an issue, can you see a difference using the VF-2 over the live view in terms of battery life?

Regarding your question on the menu, go to menu and then to the wrench icon on the left side. Within the wrench pulldown you will see an icon that looks like two gears. Turn that on. You will now have added that gear icon to the left hand when you go back to the starting menu. When you open that gear icon you will have a new pull down menu that has settings for lens rotation, color space and many of the other things you may have been looking for. This is your custom settings area.

I am still trying to workout how I will end up setting mine up. I shoot in manual mode and what I select may differ from what a person using presets like the U/W wide angle and macro might set.

I shoot in raw, adobe RGB, use TTL very little (so set the pop-up flash to 1/64th to speedup recycle times and conserve power) auto white balance, i set the lens not to retract when the camera is turned off so that with a focus gear I don't chance damage to the lens (which has happened in the case of the Sigma 105 macro on other 4/3 cameras). I don't know a thing about video so will will need to inquire about those settings. I will start out using ISO 200 for W/A and macro. I have the Inon UCL-165M67 close-up lens to try with the "kit" lens at 42 mm. I also hope to try the Pany 45 mm macro, but will hold off for the Oly 50 macro coming next year I think.

Phil

Thanks...this helps alot! I shoot most of the UW stuff in RAW. I've never dealt with zoom gears and such so the tip about setting the lens not to retract will be a huge help.

I did find my big problem was trying to set things up while in iAuto mode. Never even thought about what mode to be in! After that it was a matter of finding which mode allowed you to set which functions. I'm still not sure exactly what to set. Initially I was looking for the 2 underwater settings and I still haven't found them. There's a small blurb in that most excellent instruction book about being able to toggle the FN switch ...."when the waterproof protector is attached" I'm assuming they mean the housing. If that's literal, then there's someway that the camera can tell when it's inside the housing.

Just playing with it at my desk, the Inon UCL-165M67 seems to work pretty well. My old S&S 20mm WA lens also fits on the adapter but you lose some of the width, it vignettes pretty bad and you have to zoom in quit a bit to avoid it.
Vignetting....

It also make the whole rig VERY front heavy. I know the buoyancy will be different in the water but I was surprised at how off centered it was. But when you look at the rig from the side and see just how far that lens is from the housing it makes sense.

I still don't have alot of 'mileage' on this camera but I think I did notice a better battery life using the VF-2. To be honest that wasn't one of the things I was paying attention to but I remember thinking I'd been shooting for several hours, viewing pics, etc. before changing batteries and that it lasted longer than last time. But hard evidence to the fact? No.

I've got the shade rings coming next week. Dee let me know what kind of strobe you have and I'm sure I have something that will fit.

My only other comment about the Oly housing is that I found the zoom gearing pretty stiff and the wheel very small and a bit too far back into the side, it may be hard to turn with gloves...<snip>

Jack

Jack....I have an INON S-2000 strobe. I think I just need to buy a new sync cord. The old one is over 6 years old and really stiff in places.

This is my first experience with zoom gears and so far in the many times I've had the camera in and out of the housing getting the gear ring to turn smoothly has been a 50/50 crap shoot! Referring to the photo that came with it, just a couple hairs width in position on the lens makes a huge difference, it just clicks and skips. When you do find the exact place, the zoom wheel IS pretty stiff. And I'm glad I won't likely be using it with gloves, or even bigger hands. If anything would make me consider a different housing, this would start the list.

I got an email a couple days ago about the firmware upgrade. First time I've ever upgraded a camera! It was kinda scary when it keeps telling you if you screw it up you can't revert back to the previous version! But everything went exactly according to the directions...at least THEY weren't in Japanese!

I decided not to take it into the lake today. I need some clear water, instead of murky green, to check lenses and strobe so I'll start looking for a pool to use. I've got 6 weeks until Roatan to get all this stuff lined out.

Thanks for the help!

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

To give you an idea of how close the 14 to 42 mm zoom "KIT" lens will focus I set the lens to 42 MM and manual focused to as close a focus range as the lens will go. I then put the camera in the housing and used a 35 mm file slide mount to show the area covered when the camera is moved into a sharp focus range. Focus is obtained at about six inches (152 mm) from the subject. I then added the Inon ULC-165M67 close-up lens and the image came into sharp focus at about four inches (102 mm) from the subject. With this close-up lens you are at just about life size for the 35 mm format, keep in mind that 4/3 is always a little taller than 3/2 format.

Also another look at the Housing and port bayonet mount. Note the port has two O-rings making a duel seal.

Phil Rudin

 

[wayne007]

Did you ever find a tray that fits well? I've got a Sea &Sea but it'll take too much mods to get it to work right.