;D Just got my underwater housing from Olympus and I'm really liking the design changes. I'll talk a little about each photo.
For starters...what a sexy :-* housing. Nice black front to stop any stray light from getting in through the front. Secondly, built in fiber optic connections. It has a nice big shutter button and an ergo grip.
Straight to the big feature. Olympus got rid of those undersized clips and replaced it with a rotating latch that clicks into place with a recessed locking switch. This ensures the clam shell housing is closed correctly every time.
What stands out here is Olympus added plastic caps with big buttons and labelled clearly. Furthermore the buttons are easier to depress. The old PT-E03 housing buttons were a beast to push and so close together it made working it tough even without gloves. I can see someone operating this fairly easy even with gloves on. The only drawback with the easier to push buttons is the flimsy feel. Maybe its just me but the thought of losing the old buttons never crossed my mind because they were very well engineered...even if they were tough to operate. I guess the test of durability will be evaluated over time.
Its still a clamshell design so the two halves line up well. There seems to be a bit more space inside so I'm hoping its a little more neutral. There's actuall space designed into the housing for the eyecup. The housing is a 2 oring design like the older housing but there's a twist I'll talk about in detail later.
This is what appears to be an overpressure relieve valve. A nice feature added to the new housing.
Another big-little addition was a locking clip on the camera base mount. Before it was easy to get the camera misaligned or the base not seated correctly in the housing and there was nothing to tell you that you had it right until it passed the leak test. In the new housing you again have a locking, recessed switch which clicks into place once it is inserted correctly.
Not too many changes from the top view. You still have the electrical connection. The buttons being easy to depress makes changing your aperture easier in manual mode. I can do it with one hand on the new housing and the old housing took two due to the buttons requiring a lot of pressure.
Here's the twist on the oring. In the PT-E03 there were two orings. One was mounted in each half of the shell. They faced each other and simply sealed against the opposite side of the clam shell. In the new housing, the outer oring faces out!! Its recessed in. This is a lot like the orings in a video housing. The 2nd oring does seal against the opposite clam shell as it is closed. This is a big change that I think will put to rest any fears of flooding....or at least the housing induced kind.
Finally the part of the housing that goes over the flash has a much better design by making the curves much more subtle.
Finally the gap at the top of the housing..although slightly larger than the rest of the body (Actually almost hard to detect) its worlds smaller than the crevace which lead to issues with the PT-E03.
Overall, I'm excited about the new housing and can't wait to get it wet now. As soon as that happens I'll report back.
HI 
