PT-015 -- little washer with red string

I just received my PT-015 housing. It is a fantastic little housing!

I do have a question, however. There was a little washer with a red string attached to it that came in the bag the red weight came in. What is it for? Anyone know?

I think it goes between the weight and the housing, but I dont recall getting one in my package. I think that without a washer the weight tended to rotate and come loose. But I could be wrong.

I'm looking forward to seeing your work with this camera and housing.

TedJ

The washer is used for tighten the screw up the same as you wpould use a screw driver

Cliff

It's an Oly lucky charm you have to hang off the housing to prevent it from flooding!

Cliff is right - just for tightening screws like you would with a coin.

Eric, we wait with bated breath.....

All this waiting is making me feel weird. I'll try to use the camera and housing sometime soon! I've been carrying it around to familiarize myself with the operation. I like it so far. Everything is really obvious -- except how to turn off the damn startup and turnoff sound, which I have yet to figure out. I might have venture a trip into the manual...

Eric,

Go to the menu, mode menu,(down 3) setup, PW on setup and PW OFF setup are the controls you want. You can control the pic and sound. So why did you score the Oly setup if you have the ultimate D60 rig?

Go to the menu, mode menu,(down 3) setup, PW on setup and PW OFF setup are the controls you want. You can control the pic and sound. So why did you score the Oly setup if you have the ultimate D60 rig?

Thank you! It worked.

Here's a thread about motivation:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=2717

I spoke to Jim Watt yesterday about doing the same thing (Getting an Oly/PT-015 setup in addition to D60 setup), and he seemed intrigued about the idea. I'll bet that he gets one.

I was curious about that. Prepping the 5050 doesn't take that long. I usually start by checking to see that there is nothing on the housing lens on the inside(dust that has settled or a stray hair, etc). Then I check my O-rings, cleaning and lubing as necessary. A final check of the camera lens before putting it in and then checking the lens housing after entry(make sure no hair, dust has settled between the lens and housing opening) and then it is ready for two or three dunk tests(the real reason I bought my Igloo 6-pack cooler). On a good day this takes a couple minutes. On a bad one when I need to futz with dust, could be longer.

I can't even imagine what the thought processes are when putting $3K-$5K of equipment together to go underwater. BTW, do you have equip insurance?

--John

I program "My Modes" for macro and wide angle, set the camera in "My Mode" and program the selectable button to select the "My Mode" value. Not sure what others do but that makes things really easy. My Inon strobe has a downward facing slave sensor so I don't even bother with a fiber optic cable. Lowering the manual strobe output to 1 seems to control the builtin strobe while stilll allowing the slave to fire. The 67mm screw-on port is nice to have as well.

The great thing about the 5050 is that it takes AA's and CF storage, two items you're likely to have anyway. The camera itself gives you a nice P&S for land and, assuming you carry a spare strobe, you get a backup rig for the travel cost of just the housing, tray, and arm. That's not bad at all. I take it to so that I can sell people in my group on digital photography.

I program "My Modes" for macro and wide angle, set the camera in "My Mode" and program the selectable button to select the "My Mode" value.  Not sure what others do but that makes things really easy.

out of curiosity Craig.. how many of the "my modes" do you use and could you post a list of their settings? I'd be curious to see where you start from.

Cheers

I'll get to this today but I need to charge some batteries first...

I set ISO to 64, flash to SLAVE 1, noise reduction off, and histogram on for every mode.

I then program 4 modes: wide angle, macro, super-macro, and manual focus super-macro.

For wide angle, I set the camera in aperture priority and f/8. Turning the wheel adjusts aperture.

For macro, I set the camera to manual f/8 and 1/125 and enable macro focus.

The supermacro modes are the same as macro except for focus.

Really, the focus mode is just as easy to select as the MyModes are so all you really need are the first two.

I've never used manual focus on the camera since it's mostly a loaner setup.

If you prefer manual for wide angle, you may want to program a few manual exposures into the modes, but changing shutter and aperture are easy enough, too.

The real benefit is to switching from wide to macro with one control. This gets focus, exposure mode, shutter and aperture in one blow.

Thanks for the My Modes info. This is something I haven't used yet. I started playing around with regular shots in auto-mode and then started using my lenses from my 4040 setup. Using the WAL in auto-mode caused all kinds of focus problems. I was in the Bahamas shooting dolphins, which move plenty fast to begin with, and a lot of my shots were blurred badly when using the WAL. I switched into action mode on the top dial and that went away. I do a bit of shooting in macro with auto focus(and spot vs ESP). I hadn't used the UN macro lens with the 5050 because it has the super macro, but you have to get SO close to use the super macro that you run the risk of scratching your lens port or head-butting your subject. So I think I will skip Super Macro and do Macro + Macro lens as someone on this forum had suggested. I guess with only two modes that I switch between(Macro and WAL shots), I don't really have need for My Modes--yet. Anybody else using My Modes?

--John

I've set the following:

My Mode Settings

1 default

2 1/125 f/8

3 1/125 f/5.6

4 1/60 f/8

5 1/60 f5.6

Other constant settings are ISO 64

All others are default although I'm going to try sharpening at -5 after having read thread after thread from above water photoers. I'm also going to try macro which I have not done to date. I will add them as additional My Modes. Also set Custom botton on top right to My Mode for one button/jog dial operation of My Mode.

TedJ

My Inon strobe has a downward facing slave sensor so I

don't even bother with a fiber optic cable.

 

Craig, with your Z-220 "wireless" slave sensor and your 5050 and presumably PT-015 setup, I'd be interested to know what you use to block the internal master flash.

Thanks in advance.