I just found a steal on an Olympus C-5000. I'm planning on getting the PT-019, and probably a Sea&Sea YS90 Auto (but I'm still considering other strobes too). I'm new to this site, and see tons of discussion on the C-5050, but can't find mention of the C-5000 anywhere. In comparing the two, I see the 5050 is a little faster and has a couple more bells an whistles, but for near double the price, I can't see the real difference. Before I go ahead and commit and buy the housing and strobe, am I missing something here? Has anyone used a C-5000? I like to shoot mostly macro, so if the ony difference is the availability of wide angle lenses, I'm not really concerned about that.
Does the C5000 have the "super macro" mode? Does it fire the flash when it's in macro or super macro mode? These are important features if you're going to be using a clear housing and slave strobes.
Cheers
James
The internal flash does not fire at all in the supermacro mode on the C-5000, so you can't use that mode with a strobe in a PT-019.
I have the c5000 PT 019 housing with a d 180 strobe and find it to be brilliant. Although it won't flash in super macro mode, the normal macro mode allows a very close focus (closer than the C5050/c5060) and is pretty damned good. Maybe one day I might upgrade to a supplementary macro lens but for now I'm getting great sharp images up pretty close. Using super macro would be difficult in any case, as lighting a subject that close will be tough. I've got an Epoque wide angle lens and that too is brilliant. I would strongly recommend the Inon d180 strobe -it really is the best bit of UW photo gear I've ever owned. I've taken pro quality shots with the c5000 on my first trip with it (some images soon to be published in Sportdiving mag>) so I think it is certianly a viable alternative.
