Olympus PPO-EP02 Port advice please

My son has an Olympus PEN E-PL5 in an Olympus PT-EP10 housing.  He's had some encouraging results using the standard 14-42mm zoom with the standard port - sometimes the external Olympus wet macro lens; he has a Sea & Sea YSD1 strobe.  Recently I've bought a very similar set up secondhand.  We're not total beginners, but not far off......

We're looking to extend our capabilities & I've recently had a modest unexpected windfall selling some (non photographic) equipment that I thought I'd have to scrap.  So have decided to spend it!

I've been looking at dome ports - one surprise was than many ports are made for single, specific lenses.  A port that caught my eye is the Olympus PPO-EP02 - which Olympus show as compatible with their 8mm, 12mm, 25mm, 60mm macro & 9mm-18mm lenses on their compatibility chart for the PT-EP12 housing for the slightly later PEN E-PL7.

I've struggled to find many comments about it as a port and would love to hear any comments - or alternative suggestions.

A couple of specific questions :

- Olympus compatibility charts are not the clearest.......  Can anyone confirm that it definitely IS compatible with the PEN series housings?  I'm aware that I might have to grind off a small projection that I believe is a relic from earlier housings with illuminated ports.

- In terms of fisheye lenses, I'd incline towards the Panasonic 8mm - mainly on cost grounds. Does anyone have experience of using the port/lens combination?  Or thoughts re compatibility?

And if anyone has one of these, or a good alternative port that they have been thinking of listing in the classifieds, I'm all ears!

Our diving over the last few years has been a combination of North West Scotland & Indonesia - and this is likely to be the same in the next couple of years.

Don't know a lot about this but two inputs:

(1) The Oly 8mm is longer than the Pana 8mm. AOI makes a port DLP06 that supports the Pana 8mm, but for that port to work with the oly 8mm, you need to add a 24mm port extension.

(2) I feel doubtful that the mentioned dome port will work well with the oly 60mm. Usually we use it with a flat port. The 60 mm is an excellent macro and fish portrait lens.

I am currently using the Oly EPL10 with AOI housing.


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I would recommend the following for the Oly set up. Further, if you are going to do macro, I would have two set ups so that one is wide and the other is macro. You will be glade you did.

WA-100-EP Pen Dome for the:

• Olympus M.ZUIKO  9–18mm f/4–f/5.6

The PPO-EP02 is for the larger OMD port and is not PEN compatible. 

ZEN Underwater makes a few glass dome ports for the PEN housings. One is the WA-100-EP that bill1946 mentioned and works with the 14-42, 9-18 and the 60mm. However with the 60mm you obviously lose some magnification and if shooting small stuff would definitely recommend the flat port. I've seen these come up for sale used at a good price from time to time. 

They also make PEN ports for the  Panasonic 8mm fisheye (DP-100-EP) as well as domes for the Oly fisheye and 7-14. 

I primarily shoot with the Panasonic 8mm behind the DP-100-EP and the 60mm behind a flat port. 

AOI also makes some PEN ports however I don't have experience with those.

Thanks all.  

Pilot - do you speak from actual experience as, as I mentioned, Olympus compatibility charts are not the clearest!  On this one for the PT-EP12, the PPO-EP02 appears to be shown as compatible.

 https://asia.olympus-imaging.com/content/000019167.pdf

However, the manual I've just found for the PPO-EP02 itself clearly shows it being used with the PT-EP08 & PT-EP11 cases.

https://cs2.olympus-imaging.jp/jp/support/dlc/archive/man_ppoep02.pdf

And AOI (who, I believe, actually make the Olympus housings & ports) make 2 lines - one for the PEN housings (including the PT-EP10 & PT-EP12) and one for the OM-D housings (including the PT-EP08 & PT-EP11).

I think I better ring Olympus / OM in the UK...........  

Maybe this is why I can't find many user comments......  Nobody can work out if they are compatible!

Highlands,

I have used both the EP10 and EP13 PEN housings for several years and am familiar with the ports that work with them. Looking at the linked chart for the PT-EP12 I could not find where the PPO-EP02 referenced. As you noted the manual for the PPO-EP02 shows it used with the OM-D housings. Under Specifications on page EN32 it states "Applicable Underwater Case: PT-EP08, PT-EP11".

Olympus designed the OM-D housings for port changes. The PEN housings were not designed for port changes but rather one could attach a wide angle conversion lens or close up lens to the standard flat port to expand the capability of a given lens. Hence there are no Olympus branded PEN ports besides the flat ports shipped with the housings. However, being that the port is indeed removable, third party manufactures like ZEN (and now the OEM AOI) have developed ports to accommodate a wider range of lenses.  

I hope this helps! 

Hi Pilot

Thanks - your personal experience is exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Sorry - I attached the wrong PT-EP12 system chart - correct one is below.  Scroll to the 2nd page.

https://asia.olympus-imaging.com/content/000083913.pdf

I'm pretty confused........!

All the best

Andy

What exactly are you trying to achieve here? A dome port is, after all, just a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself. If you want better wide-angle capability, then a wet lens such as Nauticam WWL-C, or, if you prefer something less spendy, one of the Weefine/Kraken or AOI offerings, may be a better choice for across-the-frame sharpness. It will work with the port and lens that you already have, and you'll keep the flexibility of swapping between wide/regular/macro subjects during the dive.

Don't forget that if you go wide, you will also want a second strobe to properly light the entire scene.

1 hour ago, InTheHighlands said:

Hi Pilot

Thanks - your personal experience is exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Sorry - I attached the wrong PT-EP12 system chart - correct one is below.  Scroll to the 2nd page.

https://asia.olympus-imaging.com/content/000083913.pdf

I'm pretty confused........!

All the best

Andy

I would suggest rather than zeroing in on a port, to think about what you are hoping to shoot and where you will be diving.  Some of the port choices that are listed in the charts you will find will work, but maybe not that well.  For example the little 4" port is listed for the 14-42, 9-18 and fisheye lenses - all quite different in the field of view they give.  The 4"port will work great with the fisheye lenses as they are quite OK with a small port, the 9-18 will have softish corners and the 14-42 if that was the only lens you wanted to use behind it - I wouldn't bother - 14mm is not that wide for UW use and while shots taken at 14mm will look OK, they won't be a huge improvement on the 14mm behind the flat port.

If you are looking to go wide there are 3 options, fisheye which works fine behind a small dome, rectilinear wide like the 9-18 or the panasonic 7-14 lenses which really need a 170-200mm dome to give their best and need to be shot at f8 or narrower apertures to get good corners and accessory wide lenses used with you existing flat port (assuming it has an M67 thread).

The fisheye is straight forward if a little difficult to shoot with at first due to the huge angle of view, but does great at reef scenes and will focus down to the dome.

The rectilinear is useful for things you can't get quite as close to - like sharks or perhaps wrecks where you want straight lines to stay straight - the bigger ports are more expensive.

Wet optics is also a nice option and will go near as wide a fisheye depending on exactly which model and with the 14-42 lens give good flexibility allowing you to zoom on smaller subjects on the reef and many of them allow you to focus down to the dome , so you can do close focus wide angle with them.  The gold standard is the Nauticam WWL which is very sharp and works very well with the 14-42 lenses and you will be able to use that with most any new system you upgrade to down the track.  There are cheaper options as well, for example the Kraken lenses but finding reviews on them is harder.  INON also make wide lenses but these are usually not zoom through. 

21 hours ago, InTheHighlands said:

Hi Pilot

Thanks - your personal experience is exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Sorry - I attached the wrong PT-EP12 system chart - correct one is below.  Scroll to the 2nd page.

https://asia.olympus-imaging.com/content/000083913.pdf

I'm pretty confused........!

All the best

Andy

Thanks for that link Andy. Its a very curious chart because none of the product manuals for the ports or housings nor my experience/understanding of the system support it.  Please let us know what Olympus/OM UK has to say. Thanks!

Hi Barmaglot & ChrisRoss

Thanks for the v sensible comments!  The simple answer is that I'm not sure...  V keen to do some more panoramic work & I think that close up wide angle might suit our diving in both Indonesia & Scotland (vis can be a lot better than many people imagine).  I've done some more reading & watched a couple of useful Youtube videos.

I'll investigate wet lenses more - Chris what does your "zoom through" comment re the Inon wet lenses mean?  That they don't cover the zoom range?? The standard Olympus port doesn't have a 67mm thread - Olympus use a push on mount for a 67mm thread wet macro lens, which my son has used successfully.  I'm not sure if this would work optically with a wide angle wet lens - but, regardless, I don't think it would be secure enough with the extra weight. I'll look into other options for adding a 67mm mounting.

I'll also look at fisheye lenses & small dome ports.

Kind regards

Andy

Pilot

Although the chart id downloaded from Olympus, I think it must be wrong.  I'll try calling Olympus in the next couple of days, but am assuming that the PPO-EP02 won't fit the PEN housings.

Key to this assumption is that AOI make an adapter to allow their PEN ports to be used on OM-D housings.

If I hear anything, I'll report back!

Kind regards

Andy

5 hours ago, InTheHighlands said:

I'll investigate wet lenses more - Chris what does your "zoom through" comment re the Inon wet lenses mean?  That they don't cover the zoom range??

Wet wide lenses typically target a certain focal length of the actual camera lens that's behind them. Most commonly this is 28mm (FF-equivalent, so 14mm for M4/3), but some more modern lenses target 24mm and some turn macro lenses into wide-angle - Nauticam MWL-1, Weefine WFL-09S (Kraken KRL-09S), Inon ZM80. Zoom-through means that you're able to operate through all or most of your zoom lenses focal range - i.e. with a Nauticam WWL-1 you'll be able to operate your 14-42mm from 14mm for the widest coverage to 42mm if you want to narrow things down a bit, without removing the lens from the housing. According to Nauticam's port chart, a WWL-1 with 14-42mm lens will give you a 130 degree angle of view at the wide end and 50mm angle of view at the narrow end, whereas the bare lens gives a range of 75 to 29 degrees AoV.

Lenses without zoom through capability will let you focus at their target focal length, but if you try to zoom in to narrow the angle of view, the camera might or might not be able to focus on the subjects.

5 hours ago, InTheHighlands said:

The standard Olympus port doesn't have a 67mm thread - Olympus use a push on mount for a 67mm thread wet macro lens, which my son has used successfully.  I'm not sure if this would work optically with a wide angle wet lens - but, regardless, I don't think it would be secure enough with the extra weight.

If it's an adapter held by friction, then yes, it can be problematic. That said, Nauticam's wet lenses come with float collars (add-on for the original WWL-1, built-in with WWL-1B and WWL-C) which make their weight almost neutral underwater. Optically, you need the wet lens to be held as close as possible to the port glass - Nauticam lenses are built with protruding rear elements which, to some extent, compensate for the adapter thickness, but if the adapter adds significant distance there, it might not be enough.

16 hours ago, InTheHighlands said:

Hi Barmaglot & ChrisRoss

Thanks for the v sensible comments!  The simple answer is that I'm not sure...  V keen to do some more panoramic work & I think that close up wide angle might suit our diving in both Indonesia & Scotland (vis can be a lot better than many people imagine).  I've done some more reading & watched a couple of useful Youtube videos.

I'll investigate wet lenses more - Chris what does your "zoom through" comment re the Inon wet lenses mean?  That they don't cover the zoom range?? The standard Olympus port doesn't have a 67mm thread - Olympus use a push on mount for a 67mm thread wet macro lens, which my son has used successfully.  I'm not sure if this would work optically with a wide angle wet lens - but, regardless, I don't think it would be secure enough with the extra weight. I'll look into other options for adding a 67mm mounting.

I'll also look at fisheye lenses & small dome ports.

Kind regards

Andy

 

If you want an m67 port here is one from AOI:  AOI FLP-06 Flat Port (uwcamerastore.com)

this would allow you to use a WWL with  your current housing and 14-42 EZ lens.

Zoom through means image quality is maintained as you zoom in - the WWL will focus down to the port and give great image quality right through the zoom range, the old style wet lenses that generally converted either a 24 or 28mm lens to a 100 deg field or about an 18mm lens only had good optics at close to the design focal length but as you zoomed in more than a little bit the optical quality starts to go off .  

The WWL will be more flexible due to the 3x zoom capability (10-30mm full frame equivalent) and ability to focus really close. 

The fisheye arguably has an advantage for tropical reef scenics with the wider field and it also focuses very close, but for highlighting small subjects on the reef is not quite so good  - it will shoot very small subjects down to about 50-60mm across at a reasonable size in frame but you need to be about 10-20 mm away from them. 

The advantage of the WWL is it can follow you as you upgrade on many paths and also has better resale value than most UW gear.  

Hi Andy,

I have limited experience with the Oly PT-EP10 housing, as years ago, my wife was using this housing with an EPL-6. I can confirm, that Olympus had (at least) three different port mount systems that are not compatible per se (I have heard that some adapters exist, but cannot confirm or give advise on these). This means domeports for OMD housings for EM1II are not compatible..

When you look at the original PT-EP10 port chart, you can see that this housing (in contrast to OMD EM1 housings) was not designed for interchageable ports (therefore no special ports are listed, everything on this chart goes via the standard flatport). The Zuiko 9-18mm WA lens is stated to be compatible with the standard flat port, my wife was using this combination and I can assure you that the photos @9mm are awfull and certainly not worth the efforts: https://asia.olympus-imaging.com/content/000083914.pdf

As stated already by others, third parties as AOI produce "PEN mount compatible" domeports for several WA and the 8mm fisheye lenses, that are apparently compatible: https://www.aoi-uw.com/media/wysiwyg/AOI_Ports_Chart_for_OLYMPUS_Housings.pdf

Also the Zen ports suggested by Bill seem feasable. See here the info by Zen, but make sure that the mount for a selected port is for PEN compatible housings: https://www.zenunderwater.com/collections/pt-epxx-ports ...

Eventually also other third parties produce compatible domeports, others with practical experience will recommend...

Wolfgang

9 minutes ago, Architeuthis said:

The Zuiko 9-18mm WA lens is stated to be compatible with the standard flat port, my wife was using this combination and I can assure you that the photos @9mm are awesome and certainly not worth the efforts: https://asia.olympus-imaging.com/content/000083914.pdf

I think you meant awful.

2 minutes ago, hyp said:

I think you meant awful.

Thanks - exactly - the photos look terrible: unsharp and distorted...

Wolfgang

Thanks for all the very helpful suggestions - lots of follow up needed.

Meanwhile, I've had a v prompt answer from Olympus UK, which clears up my confusion....... 

Thank you for contacting OM Digital Solutions regarding the PT-EP12 underwater housing.

I am hoping my answer is not even more confusing as there is a unique issue here. There was an alternative PT-EP12 underwater housing made only for the Japanese market called the PT-EP12-02. This model offers different lens ports and accessories. 

The PPO-EP02 is not compatible with the standard PT-EP12 housing. It is possible that there are third party items compatible with this housing, but I do not have any information on the third party products.
 

What a shame this case was not made available ex Japan.

10 hours ago, InTheHighlands said:

Thanks for all the very helpful suggestions - lots of follow up needed.

Meanwhile, I've had a v prompt answer from Olympus UK, which clears up my confusion....... 

Thank you for contacting OM Digital Solutions regarding the PT-EP12 underwater housing.

I am hoping my answer is not even more confusing as there is a unique issue here. There was an alternative PT-EP12 underwater housing made only for the Japanese market called the PT-EP12-02. This model offers different lens ports and accessories. 

The PPO-EP02 is not compatible with the standard PT-EP12 housing. It is possible that there are third party items compatible with this housing, but I do not have any information on the third party products.
 

What a shame this case was not made available ex Japan.

 

Olympus really won't be able to help you they are looking at the same charts as you are and as noted while some of the choices they present while they will take photos, the optical quality is pretty poor.

you don't mention your budget an in the absence of that I would suggest your most flexible option would be the WWL-1B and the AOI port I linked above with your current 14-42 lens.  Next choice would be a fisheye behind one of the ZEN or AOI 4" domes.  The Panasonic is quite acceptable though on olympus has a little purple fringing in the corners which is at least partly correctable in raw processing.  The Olympus lens can also be used in that port but needs 30mm extension as I recall so you would be seeking advice on what extensions are available to use that lens.

The fisheye is more difficult to use and get lighting etc right, but should only take a little practice - it would be a lot easier to use in the tropics.  

If those options are outside your budget we could talk further.  One advantage of the WWL is you could swap it back and forth with your son - he could do wide angle on one dive and you use it the next for example - without having to open your housing to swap over.