Finally some pictures and a review of my E-PL1 underwater

[under water]

I bought the Oly E-PL1 a few months back and then purchased the Oly 9-18 lens, the Oly housing with a Zen dome, 2 Inon s2000 strobes and a Light & Motion Sola 600 focus/video light. I was ready to check it all out and ready to move up from the Canon G series (G9). I was eagerly anticipating taking it to Sipadan in Borneo to try it out.
Just back from the trip, I am happy to report that it performed for the most part as expected with a few grumbles and a lot of kudos.

The bad:
I did it. I forgot on one dive to flip up the flash, so no pix on that dive. It is a serious shortcoming that the Oly housing does not have a way to put up the flash after it is closed. When you forget, and you will, it's a drag!

The Sola 600 light, recommended highly, but it died after the first dive. I might have liked it had I got to use it, but I can't recommend something that supposedly is sealed and yet still apparently floods. I emailed Light & Motion from Mabul (SeaVentures) and they never replied to my email. Thanks to the folks at Reef for getting back to me. I eventually got hold of L&M after I returned, but only after having to leave a voicemail at their support # ??

The Zen dome seems to create some significant blurring on the edges in some situations. Perhaps it is a focus issue. I'm not sure. You can see what I mean in one of the pictures I will post below. Sharp in the middle, fuzzy on the edges. Not what I expected. I was glad to have it to get to 100% FOV, but I have to say, I kinda missed my UWL-100 wet lens for convenience and flexibility.

Focusing while taking video. especially without a working focus/video light... forgetaboutit! Even with the "silent and quick" 9-18 lens it still takes too long to find a target and focus when shooting video. Never a problem with strobe photos though. As reported on this board and elsewhere. Video UW relies on getting a good manual setting and pre-focusing. Easier to say than do, especially on the first trip with the camera. I'll put up a link to a 5 minute video in a few days.

The good:
Given the less than perfect viz we had ,the pictures came out pretty good. I ended up using the 9-18 lens with the Zen dome for everything. Changing out ports to use the 14–42mm lens for macro didn't seem worth it as I figured I could just get closer with the 9-18 mm or crop afterwards. Some examples below. If I was doing shore diving there (we didn't do much of that, since we got to Sipadan on each day we wanted) I would have used macro much much more.
The Inon s2000 strobes worked perfectly in sTTL mode. Although rated the same as the Ike DS125, they didn't really seem to put out as much light though. But they were so much easier to use and transport. No cables, easier to move around for controlling lighting.
All in all , I was very pleased with the camera, lens, housing and strobes. I should have practiced more before I went on a trip on the other side of the planet, but hey.. I only got the 9-18mm lens 2 days before we left!

Some pix below: most have has some kind of processing in Lightroom (cropping, reduction in size, etc)
All comments welcome.

 

[nudibranco]

Interesting! I am very close to get the same setup but i am waiting a bit ....
I see what you say about blurry edges which shows up mainly in the 9mm setting (like the one with the scuba guy and the giant fish explosion). It seems this happens on the wide angle ones not the "macro" ones...
When you get closer it seems it happens only where it may be out of focus (see the lobster on on the left).
Not sure without the f values you used... Beautiful colors!

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

U/W,

My first question would be were any of these images shot in the 4:3 format? As posted, at least on my monitor they look more like a video format or at least 3:2. The best range for the 9-18 zoom would be in the f/7.1 to f/11 range with a shutter speed fast enought not to blur the image.

The 14-42 lens works quite well in the Zen 9-18 port if you want to extend the lens range without changing the port.

Phil Rudin

 

[under water]

U/W,

My first question would be were any of these images shot in the 4:3 format? As posted, at least on my monitor they look more like a video format or at least 3:2. The best range for the 9-18 zoom would be in the f/7.1 to f/11 range with a shutter speed fast enough not to blur the image.

The 14-42 lens works quite well in the Zen 9-18 port if you want to extend the lens range without changing the port.

Phil Rudin

Thanks Phil,
All of the pix were shot in RAW , hence 4:3 and then cropped to 16:9.
I did use the 14-42 lens with the Zen dome for some of the shots.
The fuzziness on the edges showed up on both lenses. It only showed up that way underwater. Above water shots through the dome were fine on the edges as far as I could tell.
On this web page
Sipadan
you can see the exif data for these pix and some others. I was on the wide side for aperture most of the time. The turtle shot was at F7.1. The lobster shot was around F4, diver with school of jacks at F5.0 and most of the others were in the 3.5 to 5 range. I kept my exposure time fixed at 1/160th and let aperture float.
I was wary about pushing the ISO above 400.
I realize that I shoudl have shot manual and set both aperture and shutter, but being the first time in the water with the camera, I was looking to relax a bit and use sTTL on the strobes and was unsure how to do that in full manual.
I liked the rig a lot and I just wish that I had some practice and review time before we went diving.

 

[under water]

Phil,
I took a couple of the raw pix and converted them to jpeg without cropping.
You can see the fuzziness on the edges pretty easily.
Granted the lobster one might be because it is back in a hole.
http://www.delargy.com/2010_10_Borneo/test34ths_size.jpg

but this one of a trumpet fish is against a pretty flat surface and it show major out of focus / blurring. Much worse than I ever saw with my 100 degree INON wet lens.

http://www.delargy.com/2010_10_Borneo/test2.jpg

Both shots at 9mm 1/160 sec and F/4

 

[deeper thoughts]

nice pix

 

[under water]

Adding a video that was shot with the E-PL1 in the Oly housing.
[vimeo]16167354[/vimeo]

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

Hi Frank,

I like the video looks like a fun place to visit.

Regarding the soft corners these are the things you need to know. First is in regard to sensor size. A 35 mm sensor is 36 X 24 mm, the m4/3 sensor is 17.3 X 13 mm, a little more than 1/4 the 35 size. Your G-9/10/11 (and many video cameras) have a sensor about 7 to 8 times smaller than the m4/3 sensor. The smaller the sensor the greater the depth of field for any given f/stop. This is why the Inon wet lens may have given better corners. If you look at the G-9 you will see it does not go above f/8 so most of your shots were allowing much greater DOF, same same with the video. Any lens no matter what its cost will work best when you move away from the outside limits of its range and with zooms this is even more important. So if the lens is an f/4 lens at the wide end stopping down at least two stops to around f/7.1 is going to greatly improve DOF and corner sharpness. Also backing off from the 9 mm and 18 mm ends of the lens a bit will allow better corner sharpness. If you go to DPreview and look at the lens tests for many of the lenses of this type you will see this is true. This is also why some spend the extra money for wider and brighter lenses like the Pany 7-14 f/4 or Nikon 16-35 f/2.8 for 35 mm. The end result is that at f/7.1, ISO100 or 200 and a shutter speed from 1/30th to 1/125th depending on depth and overhead sun light you should have plenty of light for a proper exposure with these wide lenses.

I don't get why you have chosen to use a video format for your stills but that is another issue.

I have included an image taken at 9 mm, f/7.1, 1/100th, ISO 200 with the ZEN U/W dome port. You can see that the edges look good, strobe arm to the right is well in focus, slate can be read, bottom right fish is way to close to the lens to be in focus. This is not the falt of the dome or lens, the fish is just outside the range of focus.

Phil Rudin

 

[under water]

Hi Frank,

...
I don't get why you have chosen to use a video format for your stills but that is another issue.

I have included an image taken at 9 mm, f/7.1, 1/100th, ISO 200 with the ZEN U/W dome port. You can see that the edges look good, strobe arm to the right is well in focus, slate can be read, bottom right fish is way to close to the lens to be in focus. This is not the fault of the dome or lens, the fish is just outside the range of focus.

Phil Rudin

All my monitors (including my TV) are 16x9. Other than magazines, which are generally portrait, not landscape, I expect to see 16x9 images more often. I just like that format.

I hear what you are saying about the lens, stopping down, etc, I understand all that, but I really don't think it is the lens. It seems to be an artifact of the dome underwater. The lens is fine in air, even behind the dome.
It seems to me that it is a refraction issue. Either that or I have some contaminant on the edges of the dome. My guess is that it is not a spherical dome.
I'm just going to have to go somewhere warm soon and try it again

 

[under water]

Don't you just love that feeling of going back through your pictures and finding things in them that you didn't see when you were shooting.
In this picture, I was framing the crinoid while waiting to see the Mandarin fish at Mabul and only when I was in the editing mode 2 weeks later, did I notice that the coral in the foreground was covered with juvenile Banded Pipefish.