Sold a kidney and got my self a housing for the E-520 ;-)

[Mr_Pyro]

After quite some agony, asking you guys here on the board countless questions and also waiting for Olympus to release their new micro43 camera. And then realising that it for various reasons is not going to be very usable under water and an improved model is som time away and might not eaven come with a housing. I made up my mind to go the trusted E-520 route.

So I'm asking you seasoned veterans if there is something major that I've overlooked in my setup, or just some advise for a newbee moving into the UW-DSLR world. What to and not to do before putting my new baby to be into the water.

So here is my setup:
E-520, 50mm, 9-18
PT-E05
Athena 100mm for 9-18-lens + focus gear
Inon MRS 50mm port for 50mm lens (no focus gear might get it later)
Inon D-180 flash with old homemade tray and arm (Does the PT-e05 use standard tripod screws to mount itself to the baseplate or some propertiary format?)
Inon rubber plug to mount the naked fiber of my existing fibercord for the D-180 (does it come with some type of hex-screw to lock the fiber in place?)

Thanks in advance
Mr_Pyro
aka
/Johan.F

 

[The Kraken]

"Sold a kidney and got my self a housing for the E-520

Tooooooooooooooooooooooo funny!!!

Tooooooooooooooooooooooo true !!!

the K

 

[Misa]

Enjoy your setup! Funny guy

 

[Ardy]

Hi welcome. I bought a similar set up at Christmas. I assume the 50mm is the macro lens? If so the use of manual focus is a nice to have rather than essential. A focus light is far more useful.

The housing comes with 2 rubber grommets to hold the fiber into the housing, works well but I am not sure where you can get spares, if you can order a couple, I would, as I am sure I will lose one soon.

It has 5 screws in the bottom of the housing to hold the base plate on. I actually attach all the screws to my SS base plate, a local make up at an engineering co. They are a standard screw and easy to get and could be a standard tripod screw but I haven't checked.

It is very easy to use and get good results from. 2 tips that I got wrong, keep the shutter speed above 1/100th for macro and dont use the 50mm macro lens above F18. Set the camera flash to 1/64th manual and away you go.

 

[ce4jesus]

Spare sea&sea fiber optic lugs fit into the holes nicely and hold well. I got spares from here http://www.fun-in.com.tw/catalog/index.php?language=en The standard thread on the tripod screws works fine. I would use more than one as suggested above. I would setup your rig for center focus. A quick tip that Phil gave me is if you forget to raise the flash before a dive, simply place it in auto mode and cover the port with your hand. A halfway depress of the shutter will raise the flash automatically.

 

[Mr_Pyro]

Thanks for the tips guys!

The D-180 got a built in focus light that should be enough to get me started.

Do you shoot in full manual mode, aperature or shutter priority-mode?
Center weight metering?
Any other camera settings that you tweek compared to the preset values?