Where to find a new SP-350 on-line?

[Charlie59]

Why has Olympus forsaken the underwater P&S community and taken one or our greatest joys? I remember the day when a SP-350 could be obtained for $225 by the bushel (sigh).

Maybe a better question is why not release an improved SP-350 type of camera that is waterproof to 10 ft without a case so that when the case floods it won't automatically ruin the camera?

Pictures from Roatan were taken with SP-350.

 

[diver 85]

One place that I know that sells them ( refurbished from Olympus ) is Kathy Church's photography studio on Grand Cayman. I saw a bunch of them in her shop in August.

She says that they are her favorite underwater camera and she snapped up a bunch when they were discontinued.

I bet you could contact her online. Her shop is set up at Sunset House.

Sorry but I'm going to hi-jack this thread a bit....Was reading it & ran across Kathy Church's name.....Man haven't heard or seen her in many a year, last time was @ Sunset House on Grand Cayman in her studio there downstairs if I remember correctly....Is she actually still there, I would have bet not....lol, Wife made me buy several of her prints back then over a couple trips in the early 90's(Though they are very good shots!!...)...Remember when she & her husband Jim split....Anyway, she's still @ Sunset House??, I figured that place would have been swallowed up by now like alot of places there ie Parrots Landing, Spanish Cove, & a place that slips my mind called South ??something, not too far from Sunset House..........TIA & again forgive my intrudance......

 

[tammymacb]

Yep, she's still there, with her new husband, Herb. Still in the cellar, under the A building at Sunset House.

 

[bfisher]

That's a feel-good waste of time. Talk to people in forums that have actual firsthand experience with this company.

While what you are saying might be true I think most of us are aware that it's basically "buyer beware" when it comes to interenet stores. That doesn't help answer the oroginal poster's question.

And how else might we find information from other's that have dealt with these stores than to post what we find and wait for possible answers.

While I'm here I would like to ask. What forums would you suggest to find this "first hand experience"? I'm always looking for such information as I'm sure others are.

 

[ReefHound]

While what you are saying might be true I think most of us are aware that it's basically "buyer beware" when it comes to interenet stores. That doesn't help answer the oroginal poster's question.

And how else might we find information from other's that have dealt with these stores than to post what we find and wait for possible answers.

While I'm here I would like to ask. What forums would you suggest to find this "first hand experience"? I'm always looking for such information as I'm sure others are.

All I was addressing was your statement "I am going to check with the BBB and my credit card company before placing an order, though." as if this equated to being a careful consumer. In my experiences and observations, BBB is an organization developed by businesses to protect businesses by giving consumers a false sense of security. Few consumers bother to report to BBB as it is widely known BBB has no real power to resolve a dispute. All they can do is send out a letter to the merchant whose only "obligation" is to reply to it, and often the reply is simply "we reviewed this issue and stand by our position".

As far as I know credit card companies don't review or rate businesses. If yours does I'd like to know more about this. Your credit card company is a great place to turn to resolve a dispute after the fact, however. Unlike BBB they have real power, they can simply take the funds from the merchant if they side with you.

As for where to find information in advance, Google is your friend. Don't just search the Web portion but also the Groups portion. This is quicker than trying to target specific forums. A quick search took me two minutes to find enough info that I wouldn't go near them. Every single review was "very dissatisfied".

TheDigitalNerds / DigitalSuperdeals / Wawa Digital / Stargate Photo / Starlight Cameras / The Camera Customer Ratings, Reviews and Prices at ResellerRatings

 

[bfisher]

ReefHound,

Now that is useful information and I thank you for it. I haven't called my CC company and don't intend to at this point. I did check the BBB website and came up with some "ugly" results of some of the shops I was looking at. Also, Resellerratings was a big help. I've got it bookmarked now.

My plans are to buy an Sony HDR-HC7 camcorder for which I already have a Seatool Housing (check the video threads). It does get a bit daunting looking at $1400 for this thing at Best Buy and then seeing $500 at internet stores. That's why I'm doing my homework before putting my money on the line. I've pretty much decided where I'm going to get it---Adorama Camera, whom I've dealt with before. If not them then it'll be B&H.

All this to say that the availability of the SP 350 leaves us consumers at odds with retailers. They're hard to find ya know. Frankly, I've thought it over and if and when mine craps outit will probably be time to update anyway. I can always EBay the housing. But then again, going video now and with the features of the HC7 I may not need a still camera. It's just more stuff to be packing around the world anyway.

Seriously, thanks for the link.

 

[ReefHound]

I could definitely recommend Adorama or B&H. They have been in this business a long time, have a long track record of success, and will have it priced about as low as it can honestly be done. I first found them about 12 years ago when I found the same disparity in camcorder pricing between online and the local electronics chains.

 

[gary-ramey]

Why has Olympus forsaken the underwater P&S community and taken one or our greatest joys? I remember the day when a SP-350 could be obtained for $225 by the bushel (sigh).

Maybe a better question is why not release an improved SP-350 type of camera that is waterproof to 10 ft without a case so that when the case floods it won't automatically ruin the camera?

Pictures from Roatan were taken with SP-350.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. I was expecting an SP-360 or 370 to replace the older SP-350 earlier this year when they came out with the 550UZ. I was so disappointed reading the specs on that camera that I decided to buy a backup SP-350 on ebay. I wish I had taken the advice of someone on here that went to Costco and purchased 1 for $199 brand new. In any case, I've moved on to an OLY DSLR which I think was their intention.

 

[Charlie59]

Not sure of the intent but it really is not practical to just say "take the next step" and buy dslr. It is not as easy to use dslr (size and weight primarily) and the cost goes from around $500 to around $5000 for the underwater setup.

Maybe they just wanted Canon to sell a lot of G9s.

 

[RTRski]

Well from what I've seen (disclosure: bought an Oly e330 myself, but haven't housed it yet) Olympus isn't charging much more for their dSLRs than for a high-end point and shoot (MSRP might be higher, but they can't be ignorant of the real 'street price' their cameras end up going for), and that includes with a pretty darn good kit lens. But your point is quite valid about the cost of the overall rig going up by an order of magnitude almost. Oly does offer their own dSLR housings as well which cuts costs, and let's face it, you COULD go with a smaller strobe option (in the e410 and Oly housing instance, even stick to using the internal strobe, with the same limitations of using an internal strobe on quite similarly priced high-end housed PnS) and reduce some of that cost considerably. I think the added cost of the dSLR rig is often because you want to take advantage of the extra flexibility to really do justice to it...different lenses, thus different lens ports, external strobes plus arms, etc.

Even the new e3 "pro" dSLR from Oly is debuting at what...$1200 or so? vs. $3-4k for the top of the lines from others? Not that I'm trying to say they're equivalent; not trying to get into that sort of anatomical measurement discussion. I kind of agree with ce4 that it seem like Oly is sort of leading customers to their dSLRs, but also intentionally keeping their dSLRs a little more reachable by the average con- or pro-sumer so to speak, rather than truly competing at the absolute top of the category. It's kind of hard to say they've 'forsaken' the UW community when they seem to offer the most manufacturer-branded dSLR housings, their own rebadged UW strobe, UW strobe housings for their topside strobes, etc. Canon probably has more UW housings overall but Canon also sells more different PnS 'lines'.

As for the extra bulk and task loading, strangely enough I noticed when I added my Ike DS50 which necessitated a tray and arm to my A520, I think I got *better* at camera handling. Costs me some air consumption and thus bottom time (I'm a bit of a walrus) but the higher "inertia" of the rig I think stabilized my handling and the higher two-hand load forced me to be more conscious of using legs only for positioning, instead of sometimes flailing with a 'free' hand when just using the A520 housing alone. Plus having a nice beefy grip (the strobe arm mount attached to the base) vs. just 'holding' a housing. It just seems more natural, strangely enough.

I'm really looking forward to housing my e330 and upgrading to a still larger strobe...but that darned daughter in college thing is getting in the way of my conspicuous electronics consumption budget!