Olympus SP-350/Canon S-70

Hi,

I've been following posts on both the S-70 and SP-350, and am thoroughly stumped. I'm looking for a compact, budget camera for my first UW photos and these are the two that best seem to fit the bill. I've seen a bunch of very nice pics posted by beginners with the S-70, both with the onboard flash and with a strobe, including some excellent macros. Then I read posts that say the macro doesn't work inside 18 inches and the focus time is too slow for that harbor seal moment, etc. The SP350 is so new nobody seems to have posted pictures yet, and I've seen everything from Wow! Awesome! to Omygawd!Don't do it!. Any further updates on either of these two or particularly someone who has used both would be awesome.

This is sort of an in-between time for underwater digicams. Many of the new cameras, like the Canon S80 and A620 haven't been thoroughly tested underwater. That also includes the Olympus SP-350. Since nobody's really used the SP-350, don't pay much attention.

The S70 is a fine camera, but it uses the older Digic processor. The newer S80 is much faster, but... Inon has not yet announced lens adapters for the Canon housing. And Ikelite doesn't have their own housing for it yet.

The A620 will probably make a fine camera. It is very fast, but the only "viable" housing option will be an Ikelite which isn't out yet. I've ruled out the Canon housing because the lens port is not going to be easy to attach wide angle & macro lenses.

If you can, wait until these cameras have been tested. My own preference would probably be the Canon A620 in an Ikelite housing. Send Ike a message and see what he says.

Hey DesertEagle,

I actually pm'ed Ike that very same question on another board and he said by about January, the Ikelite housing for the A610/A620 would be out.

As a matter of fact it's listed on their website as one of the new models coming out.

Thanks for the input, guys. Desert Eagle, why the A620 over the S80. Better features or better speed? Canon makes an add on lens set for two lenses on the S70. One is a WA and one is a 2x for increasing the distance. Are these not available on the S80, or don't they fit on the UW housing, or what? I'm really thinking OEM housing, simply because they're 1/3 of the price and I'm more of a diver than a serious photographer. I just want to take quality pictures above and below. I don't plan to compete or sell them.

Thanks for the input, guys.  Desert Eagle, why the A620 over the S80.  Better features or better speed?  Canon makes an add on lens set for two lenses on the S70.  One is a WA and one is a 2x for increasing the distance.  Are these not available on the S80, or don't they fit on the UW housing, or what?  I'm really thinking OEM housing, simply because they're 1/3 of the price and I'm more of a diver than a serious photographer.  I just want to take quality pictures above and below.  I don't plan to compete or sell them.

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The add-on lenses you're looking at are desigend to work with the camera on land -- they will not fit into any housing that I know of. When folks here talk about using add-on lenses with these cameras, they are talking about external water-contact optics, usually the ones available from INON.

I don't think the A620 offers better features or better speed; rather, a lower price for a nice little camera.

Mike

I went back and reread all the posts on the SP-350 thread, went to Best Buy and played with about 50 cameras, including the A620, the SP-350 and a bunch else. Unfortunately, they didn't have an S-80 for me to fiddle with. To me, it was no contest. The A620 was slower focusing and wouldn't focus at all closer than a foot. I tried various settings, fiddled with the zoom, etc. I tried to shoot a sign from about six inches away and all I got was blur. If I zoomed it in and out, it would focus for a moment, then blur out for the shot. The SP-350 would focus right down to about 3-4 inches, and when I shot, the picture was always even clearer than the viewfinder was. At full zoom, I tried to shoot a box about 50 feet away. A man walked into my picture and started walking toward me. (Turned out to be a co-worker and her husband walking up to say Hi.) The camera caught the moving target in fairly low light, with changing focus, at full zoom, and the picture was clear and perfect from edge to edge. Right now, I'm about 90% sold on this camera, although after looking at it, I haven't ruled out the SP-500. Although it only has 6mp for very close to the same price, it has 10X optical zoom for topside pictures. It doesn't seem to have many of the 350's nicer features though, so for now I'm still leaning strongly that way.

Larry, I think the A620 you played with either had a dead battery or was abused by previous customers. When I fiddled with the A620 it had none of the problems you are describing. One thing I really liked is that when you press the function button you can change the white balance very quickly.

SP-500 is there a housing? The A620 and SP-350 (and the 7 megapixel one) should be the top choices.

You're right, Desert Eagle. They don't list a housing for the SP-500, at least yet. That's one I won't have to worry about. I think the 350 is going to be better in about every other way anyway, and they'll probably have a 2X add on lens for it anyway if I need more distance.

Does the A620 shoot raw?

No Don, the A620 and S80 don't. The S70 does, as does the SP-350. As noted in the other thread on the SP, the raw takes about 10 seconds to load, so rapid shooting isn't going to happen. Also, it takes huge room. At the store, 2 raw shots took the entire 25mb of camera memory. The A620 has no camera mem., you need the medium in it to get any response.

In the time it takes to shoot a RAW pic, you could manually adjust the WB and shoot off multiple frames in JPG. The 620 is really easy. And for shallow diving I would tape a Magic Filter over the lens. You could shoot at 2 frames a second until the card is full.

Magic filter says trim the 77 and put it between the lens and housing. Do you tape it to the inner housing or on the lens ring? Do you necessarily need the tape?

Alex Mustard showed that you can simply tape the filter onto the camera, right over the lens barrel. I would probably use the adhesive that bandages come with.

In the time it takes to shoot a RAW pic, you could manually adjust the WB and shoot off multiple frames in JPG.

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If that was only reason I shot RAW, then that would be very useful. However, RAW converters do allow for easier manipulation of other things as well (shadow detail comes quickly to mind) so I would be tough sell on limiting myself to jpg files. Still scratching my head over Canon's decision to remover RAW from the S-series. Seems a bit stupid, to put it bluntly, unless they aren't selling enough G-series cameras . . .

YMMV,

Mike

I did find out that on high speed with no flash the sp-350 will take two RAW photos in about a second....but then the next series of two would need to wait until the first two loaded from the 25M internal memory to the XD Card. The only drawback here is you can't use the flash. In HQ jpeg mode it fires and writes rather quickly and will take a flurry of shots rather quickly. In RAW mode the sp-350 holds 48 photos. A 1 gig card would hold 96 which would probably be a good days diving. If you did some on board editing in the camera between dives you could probably even up that number some. On land, the camera has not disappointed. I should have a chance to use it on a dive in January and will report back with results.

Thanks CE4Jesus. My wife is planning to get me a camera and housing for Xmas, and I've been about 95% sold on the SP-350. The other 5% has been that there are some truly hideous reviews on this camera online, including a few from previously enthusiastic Olympus owners. I think a lot of what you get out of a camera has to do with the expectations you have going in. Have a good trip. Will look forward to seeing your pics posted. If all goes well, I hope to have some from San Diego and Monterey/Carmel by then. B)

Larry,

Actually I've only seen one brutal review by trusted reviews online. The other 2 are favorable however all of them contain some errors (errors I call errors because of the lack of ability after several attempts to duplicate the deficiency with camera in hand). I think part of the problem is due to the complexity of the camera and the plethora of options. This was evident when I read the trusted reviews site and they mentioned that the hot shoe port is probably just for looks because there's no way it can realistically support an external flash. Since I have the FL-20 flash, I can attest that it actually looks like it was made specifically with this camera in mind. It fits the camera perfect and even hangs from the neck without flopping forward due to the weight of the flash. It is very well thought out and a simple test with the flash would have revealed that. I've had it for almost 3 months and I'm just now getting real comfortable with its many configurations. At 8 Megapixel, I've found no reason, including those listed on a couple of reviews, to complain since my former camera was a 5 megapixel Kodak. This camera totally outperforms the Kodak and the flexibility of it is down right amazing for the price. When I'm not working like a slave at work, I'll sit down and just shoot photos and try and simulate low-light situations. I found out the other day the fL-20 flash has a manual mode with 10 different settings you can set inside the camera. I can't swear to it...but I think that is going to be useful down under. The ttl is nice as well but having the ability to crank up the power is nice as well. All in all, I've yet to find something that really, truly disappoints me on land. Not being experience with anything other than a film P&S underwater, I'm sure the first few dives will be "interesting" to say the least.

Merry Christmas...if I can help with any questions let me know.

Gary

Thanks for the input, Gary. Mine is on its way (hopefully before we head for San Diego). I was wondering about the flash. I know there are a couple of different wires available for it. Can it be removed from the mount and held remote to avoid backscatter? I've been considering whether to get the factory set up or pop for another hundred bucks and get something like an Ikelite 40. The length of the arm was one consideration. It looked like the factory unit just mounts to the top of the camera. Thanks again for all the help.

Larry

Larry...just got back from my Christmas get together with the family. The fl-20 Oly flash has a housing (pfl-01) that requires a bracket and arm. It will not sit on top of the other housing. I suspect with some adaptation you could use it with about any arm. You're going to spring about $300 for the oly flash setup ... might as well get something a little stronger. If I had it to do over again I'd probably grab the YS90 auto, SB 105 or the Ikelite....depending upon my "allowance" from the missus....haha.

I have the S70 with Canon housing and 2 Inon D2000W strobes with ULCS arms and handle attached to the top of my video housing. Works pretty well except AF can hunt a bit in lowlight. but using the focus lights from the strobes solves the problem.

Continuous shooting in RAW hits about 1.5 fps for 4 frames before it goes to 1 frame every 3 seconds. With flash it's about 1 fps That's with a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB. It's obviously faster with JPEG.