Photos of PT-020, flash housing, etc

Hi Gang,

Ocean Optics in the UK has photos up of the new Olympus system:

http://www.oceanoptics.co.uk/pt20.html

Pretty cool!

Here is a shot hotlinked from their website (Copyright Ocean Optics):

Sorry, no shots of the dome port yet.

Not sure if they ship to the USA, but it's worth asking. It looks pretty cool!

Cheers

James

Great news! Thanks for the info, James.

I can see that the flat port has a threaded ring that will allow for the attachment of external lenses. There has been talk about the lens barrel of the C5060 actually moving back when approaching the wide-angle (28mm) point of the camera. Does anyone know up to what point the lens barrel does not move? I figure it might still be possible to have the capabilities of using the external wide-angle lens up to a point before vignetting will occur.

If anyone has the 5060 already, could you please verify this information?

I asked Ocean Opticts about the strobe connector, and was told it was a new/Olympus-only design. Unless anyone makes an adaptor there is only one external strobe that can be used with this housing. It would be great if you could use any Nikonos strobe (shooting manually).

Olympus housing => Olympus strobe

Ikelite housing => Ikelite strobe to use TTL or any Nikonos compatible strobe to shoot manually

/Anders

I'm glad someone else is wondering about this too. I had a look at the rest of the photos on the Ocean Optics site and I could swear that the bulkhead on the housing looks like the bulkhead on a Nikonos strobe!?!?!?!?! Well - the best I can tell from that one photo.

It looks like a 5 pin sync cord - in which case it would be "easy" to splice together the Olympus sync cord and another... All that are necessary are 2 or 3 of the wires to do manual flash.

Cheers

James

FYI, our sponsors over at Marine Camera Distributors also have it in stock.

FYI, our sponsors over at Marine Camera Distributors also have it in stock.

They list the Inon WA lens as one of the accessories for this system. Looks like they haven't done their homework. They'll likely have some very disappointed costomers.

Hi Gang,

Steves-Digicams has the Olympus press release with info and pricing. Our shop has them on order but probably won't have them in stock till the distributor gets them on the 15th of January.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/pr/olympus_...5060acc_pr.html

Doug

Does anyone know if the Olympus 5060 in the PT-020 housing would be able to use Sea & Sea wide angle conversion lenses (16mm or 20mm), possibly with a third party adaptor?

I have a Motor Marine II now, and am thinking of selling it to go digital, but I'm wondering if I should hang on to my wide angle lenses.

Even if these lenses do screw onto the housing, I have a feeling (personal opinion only) that they will not yield good image results.

Sincerely,

James

I've seen posts by Ryan and others who's used the camera say that because of the moving front element of the 5060 lens, you'd have to zoom to avoid vignetting which negates the benefit of a wideangle attachment lens. That's why I made that comment about Marine Camera being uninformed or irresponsible for listing these lenses as accessory to the PT-020.

Perhaps Olympus, Inon, Ikelite or some other third party has an opening to make a new "shorter" flat port for the 5060 that will accommondate an external w/a lens w/o the ability to zoom the lens. Or perhaps a new w/a port with a dome front instead of the flat port on the Olympus.

Doug

Good description of the system:

http://www.camerasunderwater.co.uk/d_still...mpus/pt020.html

Just finished my testing on the C-5060WZ and PT-020. The report and some test pictures are available in english on my site:

http://www.snorkkeli.net/index.php?newlang=english

Cheers,

/nico

--

Nico Kavaleff

PADI OWSI

nico at snorkkeli dot net

Some thoughts...

As Herb mentioned, the moving front element precludes the benefit we are used to from add on optics, such as the 67mm threaded Inon UWL-100, Sea&Sea WAL Type L, and Epoque lenses. At the full wide angle setting on the camera, the lens is full extended. It is logical that at this zoom setting, the add on lenses will vignette, since they were at the most designed for a 32mm lens, and this is 28. The lens diameter is also physically larger (I can't measure this, it is internal, but the two cameras side by side it is obvious).

So, I orgininally thought that if you just zoomed in to 32-35mm equivalent, the vignette would disappear. Logical enough, right, since these lenses worked for previous cameras at this focal length. As you move toward telephoto, the lens withdraws into the camera, in effect moving the front of the lens away from the end of the port. This creates the strong vignette at 35mm. If you keep zooming out to telephoto, the lens begins to travel back forward, eliminating the vignette. By this point, however, you have eliminated nearly all of the benefit of the wide angle lens, and its value becomes questionable.

Thie above water wide angle conversion lens that Olympus has built looks, from the specs, to be quite adequate for underwater shooting (19mm equivalent). Sticking it behind a flat port "should" yield unsatisfactory results, however, and I'm confident that these results will begin to surface. If by some miracle of physics the flat port doesn't cause horrible barrel distortion and chromatic aberration, it will at a minimum reduce the benefit of the wide angle conversion by 25%. What focal length eqivalent is it now (which leads me to a rant, why not quote consumer digicam lens specs in FOV degrees?)???

Some manufacturers are not fond of the physical size of the Olympus Wide Angle conversion. At a minimum, it would require mountint the camera in the housing, mounting a port extension to the housing, attaching the lens to the camera, then attaching the dome to the port extension. This leaves a lot of o-ring error possibilites for a system.

This camera does have some improvements over the 5050, but don't get too excited about "less shutter delay". That spec isn't significant, in my opinion. since the AF isn't much faster, and still hunts in low light.

What do I suggest? The addition of Ikelites TTL with REAL UNDERWATER STROBES is pretty cool, and will no doubt steer some coverts that way. Some will also buy into the Olympus system, which isn't that great of a value when all is said and done (how many will actually use that flash topside?, I thought the idea of this thing was to be compact). This camera will do very well with macro, but won't get wide easily.

Cameras Underwater recommend using the Olympus PPO-02 port + WCON-07C conversion lens combination over other alternatives. (If you use the Olympus housing PT-020.)

http://www.camerasunderwater.co.uk/d_still.../user_info.html

Is it possible to recharge/change the batteries without detaching the PPO-02 from the PT-020?

How long do the batteries last? With my Canon PowerShot S40 I change batteries between every dive. That’s not good enough!

As I understand it you can store preset modes (sets of settings). Does this include being able to preset manual focus to a specific distance?

/Anders