Olympus E-PL10 Underwater Camera & Housing Review

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Olympus E-PL10 Underwater Camera & Housing Review



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Ordered mine, just waiting

 

I very nearly bought this (well, the AOI version, not this rebranded one), but there are a few drawbacks people might want to be aware of.

1. Strobes are triggered by LEDs built into the housing (I think with a hot shoe connector to trigger the LEDs, which are powered by a battery internal to the housing). Not using your camera flash might save some camera battery, but it struck me as too many potential points of failure or timing issues, and if something did fail it would likely need the housing sent back to the manufacturer.

2. The internal battery that powers the LEDs and the moisture detection circuit is a rechargeable LiON battery. This adds yet another thing needing to be periodically charged (on top of camera batteries, strobes, torches, computers, etc). And the housing needs to sit there open while charging. You may not need to charge it often (I don't know how many hours/shots it will last for), but I didn't want the hassle. Also, I enquired with AOI and was told that the LiON battery is not user-replaceable. So if one day it dies, that's another trip back to the manufacturer.

3. Depth rated to 45m. That is ample for most people, but a limitation for me.

All of the above points may be a positive (battery saving LEDs; recharging instead of replacing batteries as the run flat) or at least unimportant to you, and if so then I think this is an awesome combo and definitely amazing BFYB. The camera itself is a great little unit (I had an E-PL5 for many years and for the cost it had so many high-end features). I would highly recommend it if you're fine with the points above, but for me they were a deal breaker.

 

Interesting

 

Backscatter said shipping end of October lets see if there are any delays?

 

I was talking to Mike at Backscatter this morning and asked about the battery in the case. While the battery itself isn't user replaceable the unit it's in is and it's not very expensive. The only drawback for me is that I live on Bonaire and getting things shipped here takes time.

 

I ordered one this morning and the only thing they said wasn't in stock was the spare O ring. I guess I'll see when the shipping confirmation e mail comes out.

 

Email to backscatter, asked if they had a video/worksheet for preferred camera settings .
One in the works

 

I looked at this and decided to go another way (Sony a6400 in Fantasea housing) because of the small sensor size and resulting pretty poor image quality offered by the Olympus. I've been shooting an RX100 mark 1 for years and it provides much higher (generally 20mb files) quality pictures; the a6400 promised to provide even higher resolution and reproduction. Although I was very attracted to this package, ultimately this just isn't enough camera for me.

Several critical reviews out there, eg, Olympus PEN E-PL10 review

My opinion, YMMV.

Thanks.

 

The E-PL10's image quality is very good. Photos tend to be well-exposed, most people will be happy with the color in JPEGs, and noise levels are low at both high and low ISOs. Autofocus is snappy, though face detection and subject tracking are just okay.

Sounds good and the price point is great especially if you have olympus lens already