upgrade from Canon G16 to mirrorless, any advice?

I have a Canon Powershot G16 in a fantasea housing mainly used with a fantasea wide angle wetlens. I do a bit of diving here in the UK but my main focus is very shallow snorkelling in rock pools (natural light). I am very happy with the performance of the G16, especially combined with the wide angle wet lens. However, one major frustration is that the wetlens collects bubbles at three surfaces rather than one, and another main frustration is that I need to re-attach it all the time after getting in and out of water (the water leaks out from between the housing and lens). One additional problem is that I have a lot of trouble getting the sea&sea TTL strobe to work with the canon for macro (nauticam wetlens).

I am thinking about upgrading. SLRs are too expensive and too bulky, so have looked at mirrorless options. The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II in a Sea&Sea housing with a Panasonic 8mm fisheye looks very interesting (there is a deal on the web with camera+housing+manual strobe). This would solve the two problems above, still be relatively compact and have improvement camera-wise, although I am not sure how much of an improvement). The downside is that I lose flexibility switching lenses and this upgrade is still (very) expensive...

Any thoughts would be most welcome!

Hi there,

If your problem with TTL is exposure, just use your strobe and camera on full manual mode. I guarantee after doing so for a while you'll never look back.

You might be interested to take a look at Seafrogs/Meikons offerings too. The housings a reliable, dirt cheap and come with interchangeable port. You won't do youself any harm by choosing Oly M5.

switching to a 4/3rds 8mm arrangement is a pretty substantial improvement - it will focus faster, shoot faster, collect a lot more light, and be a lot wider I suspect than what you had.

The caveat to the 8mm is that you really need to get close to your subject when it's a single object.   It's not a great lens for a shark dive, as an example, unless they're swimming within arm's reach.   I has the 7-14mm for that sort of thing.  The 8 for getting up to the coral.

And yes, you're stuck with the lens choice during a dive.   The 4/3rd crowd generally lives with the 8mm or 60mm macro choice, though you can stick a gopro on top when shooting the 60.  * Nauticam did just release a wildly expensive lens that doubles as macro and wide angle, but it's ~1800USD!

Thanks both!

OK, a substantial camera upgrade it seems. I can live with the loss of flexibility lenswise. The CFWA is what I want to do more of. Rockpool snorkelling is close confines, and when diving in the UK viz is usually not the greatest so need to be close. Probably will not go for Panasonic 8mm but for the superior olympus 8mm and then save up for a 60 mm lens.

The housing and port combination is another issue, will definitely check out more affordable Meikon/seafrogs options.

(MoU: strangely enough the only times I had halfdecent results w TTL strobe was when NOT using (an endless variation of) manual settings! Heard somewhere else that people struggled w strobe and Canon G16 combination so maybe it is not just me?).

cheers Mick

Hi Mick,

as I have said earlier: What comes to ttl. You can either let the system use you or choose to use your system instead.