tdc

Here is a video I made using the GF1. http://gallery.me.com/tcherna#100181

Oh, and I meant to ask, why are all the micro-fourthirds postings in digicams and not DSLRs. Don't they share more in common with DSLRs than digicams? Splitting hairs :-) tdc

Well, here I am, chilling in Miami waiting for my flight to Guayaquil and on to the Galapagos, armed with my new GF1 and Seatool Housing. I was pondering for a long time on whether to get it, but all the favorable reviews here made me make the plunge (and of course Ryan's good advice over at Reef Photo Video). I'm moving up from my LX3 in a 10Bar housing. From my brief experimentation, the new housing is much more ergonomic than the old one. I just need to get used to using fixed ports and lenses instead of the wet mount ones... But over all, the gear seems to be lighter now that I don't have all the wet mount lenses to go with it. My friend I'm going with was so impressed with the Seatool rig that he bought the same setup. I decided to bring my strobes along too, although we may shoot a bit without. I am also planning on doing a bunch of video. Hopefully I can share my experience with you all when I'm back! tdc

I used my LX-3 in the 10Bar housing to film and shoot pictures in Kona this past June: http://gallery.me.com/tcherna#100149 I haven't finished going through the photos yet. Video quality is great, although it is pretty sensitive to light changes, and these made the stabilization in iMovie a little difficult. The camera's response to lighting in the manta scene was great. I had a lot of problems with the joystick -- more on this below. Aside from that, when you hold the grip, the base of your palm tends to hit the back buttons when trying control the shutter. Relatively minor. With the LX3, you have to remember to toggle both the aspect ratio and movie/picture controls if you want your pictures at 3:2 and movies at 16:9. Needless to say, I have some 16:9 photos that need crops. So, the joystick. The #1 required feature on the camera if you are going to shoot in manual mode. The joystick actually has 5 functions, the four directions and the button push. Interestingly, all of the LX-3 functions that are activated by the button push can be activated through other menus, so it is convenient, but redundant. The four directions, however, are the only way to set T,Av and manual focus. A lot of attention on various posts was focussed on the springs and their response to pressure underwater. As shipped, the housing worked fine on land, but below about 10 ft, the joystick wasn't usable, and it isn't to do with the spring on the joystick. It turns out that the main O-ring seal is in the same direction as the back of the housing closes. The springs on the rear panel lock don't pull the o-ring as compressed as it will be at depth, so there a greater distance between the camera and the panel / controls on land than at depth. As soon as the camera descends, the panel compresses the o-ring, and the joystick button crunches on the control. After a few dives where I had to give up shooting pictures, I started to McGyver the camera on the boat. Basically, I removed the o-ring to see what the response of the joystick would be, and gradually filed the rubber joystick of the housing down to give more clearance. I also melted it a bit with a soldering iron. These modifications succeeded in making the camera work, although still difficult. At the surface, I couldn't control the joystick, however. I think a good longer term solution would be to remove the requirement for a push on the joystick and concentrate on the critical direction functions, as the tolerances required to get both controls are too small. tdc

I believe it is to push the flash back down. tdc

Hi Lerf, Do you know how the old batches worked? I saw a photo of the G9 housing and the cables came out perpendicular to the housing. The adapter that you showed has the cable horizontal to the housing and it will transmit light less efficiently, which is important when shooting TTL. tdc

LERF, do you have any pictures of a fiber optic cable connection to the housing? I noticed that the strobe window in the pictures looks different between the different photos you have shown. Regards, tdc

Thanks LERF for your detailed pictures. I don't think all is lost with regards to the wide angle wet mount lenses. I have a G9 currently with the UWL-100 and you still have to zoom in a touch on the Ikelite short port. Even if I put the wet lens right against the LX3's lens in widest mode I get vignetting, so it is more about the lens than the port. But I did try comparing how far I had to zoom in (compared to the G9) and I think I am getting a better angle than with the G9 in any case. Certainly the wet lens gives a much better angle than with the standard 24mm lens. One thing that is interesting about the LX3 vs the G9 is that the G9 lens is longest in telephoto mode while the LX3 lens is longest in wide angle mode. The LX3 starts in widest mode so you can't really make a shorter port than the one that they've sent, I guess. From what I hear, the G10 also has a wider lens and the wide angle wet mount lenses just don't work. So in the end, I'm very encouraged by what I'm seeing on the LX3 10Bar housing. One additional point, I've been talking with 10Bar about the possibility of a port with a built-in AD mount as opposed to the 67 mm one. This would certainly make it easier to use underwater, although I don't know if the smaller lenses would work. I've tried (briefly) a converter ring as Allen suggested and it really didn't work. As you detach the lens, it has the tendency to detach the converter as well. tdc

This is very interesting. I had a couple of questions, if anyone has answers: 1 - Does it have a mounting hole on the bottom (tripod type) for attaching bases and arms? 2 - Has anyone tried it with 67mm Inon wide angle lenses or macro lenses? What kind of vignetting happens with the standard port. 3 - How does one connect a fiber optic connection, for use with Inon (S-TTL). 4 - Is there a US distributor yet? Regards, tdc

iMovie

Yeah, check out http://gallery.me.com/tcherna#100099 and http://gallery.me.com/tcherna#100066. I used some lights, but you can see where I did that. Works great!

28mm and the higher res viewscreen will be great, but I was really hoping for two things in the G10 (I have a G9). One would be higher res video, and the other one would be TTL flash control while in M mode. Unfortunately, those two features are the same as the G9, so I don't think I'll upgrade... tdc

See: http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Pr...LPIX-P6000.html Might give the G9 a good run for its money. Looks like the lens should be slightly wider angle (28mm equivalent). RAW only available on Windows (not sure what that is about). Movie mode is at least 640x480, but the specs don't fully say...

A couple of points. I have a G9 in an Ikelite housing, with the 67mm Inon closeup and wide lenses and a pair of Z-240s. My old setup was a canon A80, with a single strobe and the AD Inon lenses. The adapter listed doesn't adapt the AD to 67 mm. It goes from a 67mm size bayonet to 67mm, so you'd really need 2 of them, and that doesn't really work. I tried a pair :-( Going from the A80 to the G9, you loose a lot in the size of the rig, especially around the weight of the wet mount lenses. The two biggest advantages of the G9 are the ability to shoot RAW and its larger res movie mode. RAW underwater is killer, since you can restore a much larger amount of color than you can with JPEG -- especially when you have a good neutral reference (like most wetsuits). Video mode is great, you can make great 640x480 30 fps clips. Downside is the speed of the camera, and I find the softness of the focus. One of the issues is that the new strobes can shoot in TTL, but the Canon point and shoots don't fire the flash via TTL in manual mode, so you are forced to use Tv or Av, both of which restrict your ability to control both the aperture and speed. For example, in Av mode, you can set the depth of field, but the camera is probably firing at 1/60, so even with the flash, you are going to get some motion blur. All of the Canon DSLRs can operate in M mode with TTL metering. You should check if your camera has an M mode that still works TTL, if it does, then I think you are loosing a lot in switching. On the speed side, I find that it is really hard to get the great shot with the focus lag. You can manual focus and it works pretty well, but I'm thinking that overall it might be slower than my A80. Other than resolution and RAW cleanup, I think my pictures on the A80 were better in terms of sharpness. If Canon came out with a DSLR that had a workable movie mode and still had the fast focus, I'd switch my setup in a second. I'm still happy with the G9, but I'm not blown away....

Thanks! No filter. Just a light and a little bit of color correction in iMovie.