[HELP] Oly E-PL7, Pany GX8, or something else for beginner

rp200 wrote:

Hi,

Want to start practicing underwater photography, and need advice on which camera to use (buy housing, etc).

Before you decide on what to buy, I would do an honest self-assessment on what you are realistically going to do with your underwater equipment. I decided on the E-PL7 because I knew I would only be able to squeeze 1-2 dive vacations into a year, which meant that all the expensive housings would not make any sense if you consider that you will replace your camera probably after 3-4 years.

Furthermore, it is important to consider your proficiency of diving, a large and heavy housing with extra strobes and a dome port creates a lot of resistance underwater and can be a challenge to handle in strong currents up to the point where it get dangerous - don'y forget, underwater photography is significantly more challenging than above water!!!

Last but not least, you have to consider the type of underwater photography are are planning to do. The main two forms of underwater photography are wide angle and macro, which in most places (not all) will be decided on where you are diving (e.g. Lembeh Straits = Macro; Komodo National Park = mostly wide angle).

Already own Olympus E-PL7 and Panasonic GX8 with Olympus 45mm macro. Housing for GX8 is available from Nauticam only for ~$1600. EPL7 has housing for ~$700, plus $400 for 45mm port.

From these cameras I only own the E-PL7, therefore I will focus my comments on this one. The E-PL7, with the Oly housing (PT-EP12) being geared towards the 14-42 mm f3.5-5.6 EZ kit lens, is not particularly good in both underwater photography disciplines - wide and macro - and is rather a compromise. The only other lens fitting into the Oly housing (with the original port) that makes sense underwater would be the Oly 12mm f2.0, which is quite expensive and not a huge upgrade from the 14mm of the kit lens, non of the macro lenses fits (neither your Pana 45mm). While the Oly housing was originally marketed to be used only with the attached port, they have in the meantime upgraded the system chart (only in Asia) showing the possibility for attaching a wide angle and macro port, both however being rather expensive ( https://www.olympusimage.com.sg/content/000083913.pdf ).

Photography is all about the light and that is even more true for underwater photography since you are loosing colour with increased depth. Therefore, you will have to bring light with you in one form or another. Again, to keep the package small and manageable and to safe cost, I decide to stick with the flash that comes with the E-PL7. This is actually the major change in philosophy between the E-PL6 and E-PL7 housing. The E-PL7 housing was more designed like a point-and-shoot camera housing, meaning no extras attached and just using the lens it comes with, while the E-PL6 housing considers the possibility of using other lenses and ports more. However, if you, like me, like to safe some money, the E-PL7 is the better choice, since the original port is short and thin allowing the use of the internal flash for macro without shading (which is also true if you attach a macro diopter wet lens like the Inon UCL-165M67). The 14-42mm EZ kit lens it actually not a bad macro lens (but not comparable with a dedicated macro lens).

The port comes also with a built-in M67 thread to attach wet lenses, which cannot be overstated as an advantage (you will need it!!!). You can also attach wet wide angle lenses like the Inon UWL-H100 28M67 plus dome port (http://www.inon.jp/products/lens/lineup.html) to compensate for the weakness of the kit lens. However, they are heavy and would make the housing front heavy and you would need an extra strobe since they would cover the internal flash.

While doing your research on the E-PL7 housing you most likely have encountered the statement, that the power zoom kit lens can only be toggled between 14mm and 42mm and not in between, by setting one of the function keys to this option. However, that is NOT true. You can set two buttons of the 4-way-control button to continuously zoom in and out (as described in the oly manual). However, you would loose two of the buttons which is a bummer considering the little manual controls that the E-PL7 has. A better choice is to buy a third party zoom gear that uses the zoom control wheel of the housing that would be idle otherwise (https://deepshots.myshopify.com/collections/gears-for-olympus-and-panasonic/products/deepshots-olympus-12-42-ez-zoom-gear).

So, to summarise, the E-PL7 is not a bad point to start your journey into underwater photography. However, it is not particularly good in anything and growing with the system is very expensive as compared with buying another camera and using a Meikon housing (https://meikon.com.hk/) e.g. for Sony a6300, which would allow you to get cheap ports for wide and macro.

Not wanting to invest too much on equipment in the beginning, but also want something that would last.

The E-PL7 having been replaced already by the E-PL8 and E-PL9 as well as having a 16 MP sensor (yes, you will need to crop your macro pictures) and not having PDAF is definitely not an investment into the future, especially considering the high price of the ports.

Should I start with EPL7? GX8? Or get a GoPro to start practicing first?

I would also look into point-and-shoot cameras like the TG5 or a Canon G7x III with the Canon housing (no 67M thread though ). The 1" sensor cameras with their fast lenses are very good for underwater (especially very good for macro) and there are quite a few relatively cheap housing options. Investing in a strobe might help your photography more than in an expensive and large housing. If you do not plan to shoot RAW or want to keep post processing to a minimum, then I would gravitate towards a Canon camera, since they have the best white balance for ambient light underwater photography (you would still have to adjust, but Canon does by far the best job) - however, this not so important if you bring 2 massive strobes...

As a final word, my experience is, that shooting Pygmy Seahorses or Mantas with a TG5 will get you better results that shooting rusty bicycles in a local pond with a $20.000 DSLR setup - so - safe some money for traveling...

Thanks in advance.

Hope that helps a little...

Lars

Here some (random) pics taken with the E-PL7 & PT-EP12 (most macros with Inon UCL-165M67)