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In case you are not aware all the models you mentioned have been discontinued by Olympus even though they are still available.
IMHO if you spend the bucks on the Ike housing you should get two cameras so you don't get stuck with the housing down the road which may be a shorter road with discontinued models.
The 7070 is supposedly the better of the models you stated.
Others here who own them will be better qualified to answer that.
Sp -350 and oly housing. I am using the 5050Z and oly housing right now and for XMAS I am ordering the SP-350 and the OLY housing. I never get any good gifts at xmas so I always buy myself my own gift and this year that is what I am going to get myself. Ike makes a good housing but for the cost I would rather not dive with a large bus stlye housing they are large. I can shoot one handed with the 5050Z and I have tennis elbow, hurts like he&&. I like the 2.5 view finder and the 8 meg plus and I like small and affordable with awesome results. I understand the oly housing will fail at some point in time so I always have DEPP. The 5050Z gonna be the backup now. 8080 poor low light performance sp -350 to new to tell, or I got tired of looking for info. ex has the 7070 with oly housing not sure how she is doing with it but she sent me some photos, muy malo! operator error I think!
Anyone know what a good mid-range camera with that setup would be? 5060, 7070, 8080?
I went from a 5050 to an 8080 about 9 months ago and I love it.
I have heard that the 7070 has a problem with firing the internal strobe in supermacro and although it looks like you are going the exteral strobes route, it is nice to have as back-up. Recently, my batteries died in my S&S YS-25 and all I had to do was take the black fiber optic cable velcro cover off my PT023 housing and keep on shooting.
As for low light, yes the 8080 does have problems but I recently bought a canister light from DiveRite, since I love night dives and no more low light focus issues.
I hope this helps you in your decision.
BTW - I have over 200 dives with both the PT-015 and PT-023 Oly housings combined, without one leak. (I have flood insurance from DAN too though, just in case )
I went from a 5050 to an 8080 about 9 months ago and I love it.
I have heard that the 7070 has a problem with firing the internal strobe in supermacro and although it looks like you are going the exteral strobes route, it is nice to have as back-up. Recently, my batteries died in my S&S YS-25 and all I had to do was take the black fiber optic cable velcro cover off my PT023 housing and keep on shooting.
As for low light, yes the 8080 does have problems but I recently bought a canister light from DiveRite, since I love night dives and no more low light focus issues.
I hope this helps you in your decision.
BTW - I have over 200 dives with both the PT-015 and PT-023 Oly housings combined, without one leak. (I have flood insurance from DAN too though, just in case )
I recently insured my camera and strobe thorugh DEPP. I understand in the past they required you to insure a complete set of dive gear (one BCD, one reg and one other equipment choice) before covering flood items but according to a DEPP representative I spoke with a few weeks ago, they no longer require this although their advertising doesn't reflect this change of policy. Others, simply insure through homeowners insurance policy.
"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
Once on the equipment insurance page it will set you up with an insurance calculator. It asks you to input all the gear you want covered and its replacement cost and then calculates what your premium will be based on the cost of your stuff.
I was looking at the C-7070, but have been out of the camera scene for a while. I usually shoot with a non-strobe S-230 setup. It's very basic.
I'd like to go the route of an Ikelite houseing with a TTL strobe hooked up to the hot-shoe.
Anyone know what a good mid-range camera with that setup would be? 5060, 7070, 8080?
Personally, I think the 7070 is more practical for underwater use, the 8080 is better for land use. The 7070 zoom lens does not extend as far as the 8080 lens, but it is a very small bit wider (27mm vs 28mm eq). Because of this slightly wider lens and more compact body, for underwater the 7070 wins, in my opinion. You can buy either of them new or used still on the big auction site.
For the lowest cost TTL flash system, get the 7070 in an Oly PT-027 housing with the HeinrichsWeikamp converter. This allows you to use any TTL Nikonos compatible strobe that is fast enough (see his site for a list), even old Nikon SB105s. You save a bundle on strobes. The Oly TTL bulkhead connector is prone to corroding and freezing, then breaking off when you twist it to try to remove the connector, but the HeinrichsWeikamp converter replaces that bulkhead with a better one. This is a low total cost solution that works very, very well for macro work, but not so well for wide angle (see below). If macro is your interest, it's fine. For the converter and strobe list, see: http://www.heinrichsweikamp.net/blitz/indexe.htm
It has limited wide angle capability, because the OLY PT-027 housing does not have a dome port and it's wide angle port mounting is terribly fragile. See a discussion at: http://www.splashdowndivers.com/phot...pment_5060.htm
Since the Splashdown article was written, INON and Athena have made superb glass domes for the PT-027. The INON solution uses the INON AD28-100 WAL, the INON dome port, and the INON AD28 adapter. The AD28 adapter is stronger than the original OLY wide angle port mount, a huge improvement. The Athena dome is available in Europe, and with it you use the INON WAL and some adapters.
But adding a dome port etc to the PT-027 makes little sense economically, since the Ikelite housing plus dome port is of similar total cost and much more solid. That's a better wide angle solution from a reliability viewpoint. Again, Ryan at Reef Photo and video can set you up with that.
The Ikelite housing is described here: http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/oly_5060.html
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