Canon A620 or Olymus SP-310?

[cwncool]

*Sorry about the spelling mistake in the title. Too late once I caught it.* fixed for you - alcina

I'm planning on getting a underwater camera and housing, and decision wise, and price wise, I've brought it down to the Canon Powershot A620 & WP-DC90 housing or the Olympus PT-030 & PT-030 housing. Both setups cost about the same amount of money with the Olympus maybe being a little more expensive. I'm also assuming they can both take strobes, if I decide to purchase one in the future.

I know I can on the Olympus housing, but just to be sure also, I can view the LCD camera screen on the Canon housing too, correct?

Anyway, would there be any possible reason leaning towards one or the other? I've seen nice quality photos on both cameras, so I don't really think photo quality is an issue on either.

I'm actually leaning towards the Canon right now, for there are a lot more reviews I've seen on it, and it's a little cheaper (not that the Olympus is bad).

What do you guys think?

Thanks!

 

[diversteve]

My buddy has the A620/WP-DC90 combo. He gets decent results with it. (my avatar and profile pic were taken with it) This year he also acquired the Sealife SL-960D strobe to use with it. It has a fiber-optic trigger which mounts on the front of the housing in front of the camera's strobe.

So you black out most of your housing near the strobe (electrical tape works), leaving just enough to fire the external. Otherwise you'll get backscatter. I'd recommend getting an external strobe, a lot of my buddy's pictures on a recent Bahamas trip - not the clearest water - had backscatter. This is due to the fact that the strobe and lens are on the same plane.

One other issue is that the WP-DC90 has a square lens port. So there's no standard screw-on lenses/filters that will work with it. There's a company in France that makes an adapter, probably find it with Google.

With the internal flash only on a dark or night shot, there is a noticeable black area on about 1/5th of the image in the lower right corner when shooting in wide-angle. This is the shadow from the corner of the lens port blocking the internal flash. It's real obvious...

The LCD on the A620 is one of the nicer one's I've seen. Normally the back is to the outside to protect the LCD. But it flips out, rotates 180' and flips back into the camera, you can see it clearly u/w.

Aren't both the A620 and SP310 discontinued? We bought my dad an A640 last Christmas and I was told it and the A630 were the replacement. It's a 10MP camera instead of 7.1 but otherwise seems very similar.

P.S. You can change the title using "Go Advanced" for the next 12 hrs. or so.

 

[Moodiejeff]

Anyway, would there be any possible reason leaning towards one or the other?

If going the Olympus route, I would lean more towards finding an Olympus SP-350 instead of a 310 as it has a hotshoe which will give you more options for strobes.

You can't go wrong with either choice, both have proven themselves to be very good (but neither perfect) cameras. Someone correct me if i'm wrong but the OLY supports RAW where the Canon does not... something to consider.

If you click my link down in my signature you will be directed to my pics from Turks & Caicos which were taken with an SP-350 & Inon Strobe in an Oly housing.

 

[cwncool]

Cool, thanks for the quick replies, and thanks alcina for fixing the title before I could get to it

Actually, after posting this, and reading a lot of reviews on the canon housing, I read a lot about the problems with the housing blocking part of the flash creating some uneven lighting. This reason alone is turning me off to the Canon set up and leaning me a lot more towards the Olympus, so I can have some even lighting, for I'll be sticking with internal flash for a while.

Moodiejeff: Thanks for the tips on the sp-350. I might go with that depending on how much I could find it for. It's just I probably won't upgrade to a strobe anytime soon, but it might be worth it.

If anyone has anything else to say, go for it

 

[Gilldiver]

Check B&H Photo, they were blowing out the Ikelite housings for the 620 a few months ago. I got one for $250 w shipping. If they are still doing it, the Ike housing is much better then any of the others by Canon or Olympus.

 

[DesertEagle]

I use the SP-310 and PT-030.

One of the biggest advantages of the housing is the 46mm threaded port. You can directly attach an Epoque wide angle lens. I use a Sea & Sea lens w/ 58mm thread (via step-up ring). Inon also makes an AD-mount adapter. In short, the PT-030 gives you all kinds of options for wide angle/stacking lenses.

That said, if you get a deal on an Ikelite for the A620, that's also a very nice option.

 

[torrey]

I'm not sure if it applies to the Canon, but one of the things that pushed me to get the Oly SP-350 is the size of the LCD screen. It makes it alot easier to see what you're shooting. This may or may not apply to the SP-310.

 

[SoSiouxme]

I like it. I will be adding a strobe this year - probably the Sea & Sea Y110 so I can add it to a DSL if I decide to go that route.

In hindsight, I would have rather had the Ikelite house for it, but at the time, it was a lot more expensive.

The A620 is a great, easy camera to use. The Canon housing is fine and I never had the problem with the black spot- that I could tell. It comes with a square diffuser which snaps on the housing to avoid a square shadow when using flash.

The LCD screen is very large and topside, I love the camera.

You can see some of my pics - just check my signature line for the links. All of them were taken w/o a strobe and I'm a total newbie so I think it is a very forgiving camera.

Whatever you decide, you will like it. Taking pics is fun!

 

[cwncool]

Hmmm, this is making it hard to decide now

SoSiouxme: Those pictures look great! Did you take all those pics on the canon housing with the flash & diffuser, or just the flash? Also, if you've used it, could you tell me how the video quality on it is?

 

[SoSiouxme]

Hi

I use the flash with the diffuser. You have to use the diffuser (comes with the housing) when you use flash or you get an ugly shadow in the lower right hand corner. With the diffuser, no shadow. The diffuser just clips on the camera housing.

Also, the quality of the video is about what you would expect for a digital camera. The sound is fine, the picture is fine - but it's not a video camera. With the few clips I've taken with it, you can make out the object just fine and the video quality is better in well-lit scenes, but I've got no beef with the video on the camera - just don't expect it to look like a video camera.

I hope this helps. I really like the camera and it is a perfect camera for an entry level underwater photographer which I was and still am.

Oh...and all my photos were taken in automatic, underwater scene mode. So, it's pretty dummy-proof. I'm just starting to set my own settings and do more "manual" stuff.

You really can't go wrong.

--Sioux