I've just bought a epl-3 rig second hand and am looking for advice

[Mantra]

Hi all!

I've decided it was time to upgrade from my gopro and get a bit more serious about my photography/videography. I have just purchased the following setup second hand from a diver who was unfortunately injured:

Olympus EPL-2 with 14-42 lens
Olympus EPL-3 with 2x14-42 lenses
1x45mm Leica macro lens.

Video stuff:

Olympus housing with grips and a std port as well as a Zen dome port,
two I-Torch video pro4's.

Stills/macro stuff:


Olympus EPO5L housing with a full Nauticam grip set and std port with Zen 45 macro port also.
The Zen port comes with a Nauticam swing in/out wet diopter mount
and +10 Subsee, +5 Subsee and the new +10 Inon compact wet diopters.
Focus light is a LaLuz800
3x Inon S2000 strobes with f/o
1x brand new S&S YS-D1 strobe with f/o.
1x Inon snoot set for the S2000 strobe.
Dyron plus 8 wet lens

a whole bunch of arms, claps, floats, etc etc
4x sets of Eneloop batteries to include.


So thats hats a fair bit of gear, all of which I'm completely unfamiliar with but looking forward to learning about.

Any advice or tips? Should I get the housings serviced to begin with? Any issues with the above configurations? Any advice on where to start learning about the gear? I'm planning on practicing with the macro stuff dry first, and then in a pool before diving with it. But I'm just wondering if any of you more experienced photographers have any configuration-specific advice or tips here.

thanks heaps!

 

[Byte Me]

Nice setup! I have an e-pl2 with Oly housing, 7-14mm, 14-42 and 60mm macro with std and zen 7-14 dome port. I shoot a pair of D2000 strobes with two sola photo 600 video/focus lights. Can fit all that along batteries and tray, handles, arms in a backpack for easy travel! Love it.

Here are a couple links to get you started. Lots of info here but easily digestible.

Start with settings for the camera:
http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/olympus-omd-pen-best-underwater-settings

Then take a look into each chapter:
http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/underwater-photography-guide

Here's a good link to the basics for beginners:
http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/underwater-photography-guide-beginners

Reef Photo also has some good articles about the Inon strobes and other topics:
Proper Inon strobe settings: Selecting the proper settings for INON strobes
Difference between D2000 and S2000 - What is the difference between the Inon D-2000 and S-2000?
More links at the bottom of each page.

Each chapter has many specific topics, for example, there are 10 articles alone under Strobes and Lighting. This should keep you busy for a while and get your gear prepared but there is no substitute for getting underwater and seeing what your setup is capable of. Post pictures!

Brian.

 

[EskilJ]

Nice kit!

My additional advices:
1) You've been used to very small houses with small o-rings. They actually work fine without care for the o'ring.
Now you have a much larger door, and the larger o-ring will need much more care to avoid leaks.

2) Especially if you take pictures based on natural light, you will want to take the pictures in RAW format and correct them afterwards in Adobe Lightroom. Photoshop LE is not that good for lighting changes imho.

3) take some pictures/ go practice!

 

[Mantra]

Thanks so much, Brian! I confess I've been reading uwphotographyguide front to back, and it's a fantastic resource! Those camera settings for the e-pl3 you agree with? Thanks heaps for the other links. They are super useful too!

Eskilj - do you reckon servicing these housings is ok to be done by myself? I do like to be able to service and understand my own gear well, and I notice there are several tutorials online around this.

thanks lads!

 

[Byte Me]

I've been happy with those settings on my epl2. Self servicing the housing is relatively easy. I just pull the o-ring, rinse it and run it through my thumb and forefinger to get any grit off then relube it in the same manner, replace and look for golden retriever hair (we have two so the hair is ubiquitous). DO NOT FORGET to pull the port and maintain those o-rings as well, as above. You will notice soaking your camera in rinse buckets or after a few silty, sandy dives (or any combination) that sand or grit will work its way into the port o-rings. The only time I every had water in a housing was from this four days into a week long trip to Bonaire. Scared the hell out of me but it was quickly remedied. Thankfully it was only a tiny bit of water and no damage was done (this was on my prior epl1 setup).

Enjoy!