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Affordable UW housing for E-M10 or shooting experience with E-PL7

Started May 14, 2015 | Questions thread
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LarsPolarBear
LarsPolarBear Contributing Member • Posts: 585
Affordable UW housing for E-M10 or shooting experience with E-PL7

(I will post this question also in the M43 forum)

I would appreciate if forum members with knowledge / experience regarding affordable underwater housings for the Oly OMD E-M10 or shooting experience with the PEN E-PL7 would share their knowledge / experience here.

I am currently contemplating exchanging my (not very trusted) Canon G1X (Mark 1) with something new and I (think I) have narrowed my choice down to one of the above, with a preference for the E-M10. For me a small pack with good image quality (also low light), long reach above water (like to have at least 400mm, but prefer 600mm) and reasonable fast AF and operations is important. Underwater I shoot without an extra strobe, but am using the build-in one. Reasons for retiring the G1X is its brutally slow AF, operations and shot-to-shot time, as well as its limited macro ability and too short reach. However, I liked its low light performance, its general picture quality and its realitve compactness.

The problem is that Olympus does not offer an UW-housing for the E-M10 and the only affordable (<US$600 all in) casing I was able to find is the one from Meikon. However, this one seems to only work with the “normal” 14-42mm US kit lens. I, howewver, would buy it with the EZ 14-42mm power zoom lens (kit lens outside of US). Therefore, this would not work - or does it? Any other solution seems to be much more expensive. L Please help if you know of something else!!!

As an alternative, I am contemplating the E-PL7, which is, besides some manual control functions, identical with the E-M10 (yes, I would love to have the extra buttons, but what can you do??). The Oly UW-casing I could get for about US$550 – I would prefer less, but I guess that is as good as it gets…

So, my question here is, how well can you operate the E-PL7 above and below water. I have read the DP-Review hands-on report, which made me hope it could work, but wanted to have some feed back from you guys. My question focuses on the usability (e.g. annoying buttons, slow operation, difficult to hold, stupid menu etc.) as well as how happy you are with your results. I would be shooting with the 14-42 EZ kit lens and the 75-300mm zoom lens (travel in all means: city, street, jungle, mountains, safari, coral reef, looking for sharks etc.). Underwater I would use the kit and a wet Inon macro lens, while using the camera’s flash (apparently possible with the Oly housing – please indicate if you have experience).

Thanks a lot for your help!!!!

Lars

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Olympus E-PL7 Olympus OM-D E-M10
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