Wet Lenses for the PEN E-PM1 and Olympus PT-EP06L Housing

[coinking]

First, I'm not an expert in photography - either above or below the water - but I do enjoy it and I'm looking to upgrade from my current Sealife camera/strobe. I was looking hard at the Canon G12 and S100/S95 with an Ikelite housing, but then starting reading about micro four thirds and now I'm leaning towards the PM1 and the Olympus housing. One of the things that has made me reconsider the Canon S100 was the difficulty in using wet lenses with its 24mm lens - namely the vignette effect.

I don't know enough about this camera, the Olympus housing or the available wet lenses to know if vignetting would be an issue as it seems to be with the Canon S100 and the available wet lenses - would this be a concern? Recommended wet lenses for WA and macro? Thx.

 

[PatW]

I have the G11 with an Ike housing. With an Inon wet lens, you can get good macro shots. The G11 is restricted on macro because to do the macro setting you need to be on wide angle (or close to it). So you have to get really close to your subject. It is hard to get all that stuff so close. The inon wet lens lets you sit off farther and take the shot while you are zoomed out. There are two limitations with the G11 and Ike housing. It is pretty limited on wide angle. You have to be pretty far from large fish or divers to get a shot if you do not have the ike wa attachment which restores your widest setting of 28mm otherwise you have 35mm. I thought the modest change was not worth the cost. The other drawback with a point and shoot is the lag. You are shooting off of your screen on back and with fast moving fish, by the time you see the fish on the screen, he is often gone. It gives you an effective lag. You can deal with the wide angle problems by getting a more expensive housing like FIX which has a wet lens wide angle dome attachment.

The 4/3 systems have quite a bit of potential for underwater photography. I believe that they should out perform even advanced point and shoots. They are more expensive and they will suffer the on screen composition drawbacks I mentioned.

There are two retailers in the USA who specialize in underwater photography: Backscatter with stores in NY and CA and Reef Photo in Fort Lauderdale. Their web sites have information and suggested set up rigs for what you are asking. Plus, you can call them up. They are pretty knowledgeable and can probably answer all of your questions.