25 replies to this topic

[davephdv]

Interesting new micro 4/3rds camera.

I see where it is weather sealed and has an UW scene mode.

[meme.may.fire]

Interesting new micro 4/3rds camera.

I see where it is weather sealed and has an UW scene mode.

olympus also releasing a housing for it (pt08) and a weatherproof 60mm macro.
Looks interesting indeed.
I just hope the is not JUST an upgrade to epl3 or something..

[davichin]

It comes without in-body flash (they give you an accesory flash though) so, in order to use optical fiber slaves, it would need one of the new ministrobes by Carlos Villoch or Hedwig Dieraert...

[Phil Rudin]

Not true regarding the use of fiber optic strobes. The E-M5 strobe is a weather sealed version (10 GN) of the strobe for the PEN cameras which is being used in all of the Pen housings. It may make the housing a little taller but the Olympus housing for the E-M5 has the optical ports turned up (towards the sky) rather than forward to reduce the height of the housing.

Phil Rudin

[derway]

Yippee. It has a new sensor. The same one as the pany g3. Which is the best m4/3 sensor out there.

It will have much better IQ as ISO goes up, than the current pens.

And a good EVF, built in! Hurray. Full controls, (twin dials).

Should be a good land camera, and uw.

Edited by derway, 09 February 2012 - 10:11 AM.

[davichin]

Not true regarding the use of fiber optic strobes. The E-M5 strobe is a weather sealed version (10 GN) of the strobe for the PEN cameras which is being used in all of the Pen housings. It may make the housing a little taller but the Olympus housing for the E-M5 has the optical ports turned up (towards the sky) rather than forward to reduce the height of the housing.

Phil Rudin

This is the camera with its standard strobe:




Is it really "houseable"?

[Phil Rudin]

This is the camera with its standard strobe:




Is it really "houseable"?

The photo you have attached has the strobe in the up position, it will also lay flat and fire.

If you doubt a housing can be made you may want to look at the Wet Pixel front page where the Olympus housing offering is posted.

Phil Rudin

Edited by Phil Rudin, 09 February 2012 - 06:58 PM.

[philwat44@gmail.com]

One press release I saw says that this housing has a bayonet port, 'unlike previous Oly housings'. But don't previous ones also have bayonet ports? I thought they could also be replaced by Zen or Precision aftermarket ones.

[Phil Rudin]

One press release I saw says that this housing has a bayonet port, 'unlike previous Oly housings'. But don't previous ones also have bayonet ports? I thought they could also be replaced by Zen or Precision aftermarket ones.

This is the first time Olympus has acknowledged that the port can be removed and replaced that I am aware of. The Zen Underwater ports should fit this new housing without a problem.

Phil Rudin

[davichin]

The photo you have attached has the strobe in the up position, it will also lay flat and fire.

If you doubt a housing can be made you may want to look at the Wet Pixel front pager where the Olympus housing offering is posted.

Phil Rudin

Then great!

[davephdv]

So Olympus is going to make multiple ports for it's housing?

I wonder who is making them for them?

[Phil Rudin]

So Olympus is going to make multiple ports for it's housing?

I wonder who is making them for them?

Olympus has announced a dome port adapted that will mount to the housing, This will allow the use of all of the 4/3 DSLR ports made by Athena, Inon and Olympus-about fifteen in total. These range from 105mm macro to 200mm dome port.

Phil Rudin

[Jock]

Waiting for more specs...

The camera may have hundreds of features - the thing is how easily can they be selected (i.e. how many buttons do I have to push and/or how many wheels to turn). This for me is much more important than how many pixels it has or if it gives goog results at ISO100,000 and so on.

Does it have, like my antique Olympus SP350, a "my mode" setting, where I can save some of my favourite settings? Strobes: Can I use a sync cord, or do I have to use fiber optic cables, which will be triggered by an internal strobe with an unnerving long recycle time?

How will the camera compare to the Sony NEX7? I am seriously thinking of buying a Sony, but the lens choice is still too limited (a wide angle zoom seems to be introduced in 2012, but no specs yet), and the housing, be it from Nauticam or other manufacturers, will probably be much more expensive than the Oly housing.

So I will wait ... until the next new camera with even better specifications is announced - and then I will wait again, until...

Joerg

[ktwse]

Haven't read any comments about the new 12-50 lens. It's got a macro feature that provides 0.72x magnification (compared to 0.38x for the 14-42). Sounds like that could be a cheap solution to get close to 1:1 (with a diopter). Turn off the macro feature and you still have a very versatile lens for e.g. fish portraits. Now, overall size is only about 5mm more in diameter, 5mm more in length than the 9-18 at it's widest (and thus longest) setting. Would be interesting to see if this lens will fit in the housing as well..

Tom

[Phil Rudin]

Haven't read any comments about the new 12-50 lens. It's got a macro feature that provides 0.72x magnification (compared to 0.38x for the 14-42). Sounds like that could be a cheap solution to get close to 1:1 (with a diopter). Turn off the macro feature and you still have a very versatile lens for e.g. fish portraits. Now, overall size is only about 5mm more in diameter, 5mm more in length than the 9-18 at it's widest (and thus longest) setting. Would be interesting to see if this lens will fit in the housing as well..

Tom

Hi Tom,

The 12-50 appears to be internal focus and would fit the housing, the problem is that I don't think it will fit the stock Olympus port on the E-M5 housing. A port may which accesses the macro control may need to come from a third -party vender.
Search the web and you can find some reviews and some very good images coming from this lens.

Phil Rudin

[tarjan]

Does it have, like my antique Olympus SP350, a "my mode" setting, where I can save some of my favourite settings? Strobes: Can I use a sync cord, or do I have to use fiber optic cables, which will be triggered by an internal strobe with an unnerving long recycle time?

the previous cases have electrical connections, so maybe. that being said it also has a wireless ttl mode through the flash. This reduces the recycle time to pretty much the same as an sync cable BUT it is only compatible with the oly strobes as far as I can tell. The electrical connections would require a ttl converter if you want to use something made by a proper underwater company.

[Phil Rudin]

the previous cases have electrical connections, so maybe. that being said it also has a wireless ttl mode through the flash. This reduces the recycle time to pretty much the same as an sync cable BUT it is only compatible with the oly strobes as far as I can tell. The electrical connections would require a ttl converter if you want to use something made by a proper underwater company.

The Olympus housings for their DSLR cameras starting with E-300, E-330, E-410, E-510/20 and E-620 had an Olympus bulkhead (not the NikonosV type). This could be used with a housed Olympus strobes or Olympus UFL strobes and olympus cord in TTL but not with Nikonos type sync cords.

The Pen-1,2,3 and E-M5 housings are designed to be used with strobes fired by fiber optic cables. With S-TTL strobes from Inon, Sea&Sea and Olympus the strobes will also fire in TTL using the cameras on board flash to fire the strobes. I have not found the recycle times with these on-board cameras strobes to be at all "un-nerving" because most of the power for the exposure comes from the slaved strobe not the pop-up strobe. I think the recycle times for the E-M5 will be even better and while the camera has a bunch of features most of use won't use or need you should be able to jus settings like the "my mode" settings of the cunsumer compacts.

Phil Rudiin

[Jock]

...
I have not found the recycle times with these on-board cameras strobes to be at all "un-nerving" because most of the power for the exposure comes from the slaved strobe not the pop-up strobe.
...
Phil Rudiin

Phil,

my experience with unnerving recycle times comes from 1) my old Olympus SP350: I started using the SP350 with a Heinrichs-Weikamp external converter, but soon changed to the hot-shoe / hard-wired solutiuon (where the internal strobe is not needed). The SP350 has manual strobe power settings (1-10) which I used with lowest power to trigger the external strobe, but the hard-wired solution is just faster.

and 2) from a Sony NEX 5, which is an up-to date camera. I used it last summer for one dive day with two YS110a's. Maybe I am spoilt by my old Ikelite SS200 strobes with TTL-chords, but for me the time I had to wait between two shots WAS unnerving (imagine a yawning frogfish - you just want to shoot really fast and not wait two seconds or so between your shots!), and it was definitively the internal strobe and not the 110a's that caused the delay.

As you said, "maybe" the recycle time with the EM5 will be much faster than with the old Olympus. I just have to wait and try for myself in a store as soon as them camera is available.

Joerg

[Phil Rudin]

One way to avoid this problem with the Olympus Pen and E-M5 cameras is to shoot in manual not TTL and set the power on the pop-up strobe to 1/64th power. I do this most of the time with both the M43 cameras and the NEX cameras with consistent results.

When I do shoot in TTL I have not found recycle times to be that much of an issue with any of the Pen or NEX line and I have used them all.

Phil Rudin

[Jock]

Phil,

When I went through the manuals of the NEX5, NEX5N and NEX7 I could not find any infos on manual strobe settings. The Nex5/N can be set to -2EV, the NEX7 to -3EV strobe power. How do you get 1/64 (= -6EV if i did the math correctly)?

The E-M5 will have a manual flash setting, the manual (http://www.olympus.c...d/man_em5_e.pdf) says it can be set to "Full, 1/4 etc".

Trying to collect as much info as possible because I think I am going to buy either the Oly or the NEX 7. Camera-wise, I like the Sony better, but the choice of lenses and the (probably) cheap price for the housing is on the plus side for the E-M5.

Regards,
Joerg