Olympus 0MD EM1 Mark 2 and 3 Nauticam compatability.

I bought my son a new Olympus OMD EM1 and a matching Nauticam housing many years ago. He only shoots the 8mm in a dome and the 60mm in the macro port. The camera itself is obsolete now. He wants to keep the lenses and ports but would really like to upgrade his camera. He was hoping to just upgrade the camera to the Mark 2 or the rumored Mark 3. does he need to change camera and housing or is his Mark 1 housing capable of accommodating the newer models?

I am not familiar with with any of the Olympus models. I primarily shoot a Hassy 903SWC with a Phase One digital back with a fixed focal length of 38mm in a converted Gates H38 housing. I also shoot the newer Sony A7IV but I have not used this line or cameras with smaller sensors in a long time. He loves the portability, where I shoot mostly on liveaboards with where mobility is not as important. He watches me pack up the world to dive and he would rather travel light.  

I have emailed Nauticam several times with out response. Please share if you are in the know.

Well the EM-1 MkII and MkIII are out and have been for quite a while, the latest model is the OM-1 which has just been released.  They won't fit in the same housing as the original EM-1 as the button layout is different. 

The EM-1 MkII is a decent upgrade in auto focus to the EM-1 but otherwise the picture quality is an incremental improvement, maybe about 2/3 stop improvement in noise.   The EM-1 MkII and III are very similar in performance.  The OM-1 has just been released and the body is fairly pricey - AF is a big step up and maybe 1/2 stop better in noise.  The battery on the EM-1 - II is 45% greater capacity than the EM-1 and the OM-1 is 50% bigger again so more dives before you need to change the battery. 

I shoot the EM-1 MkII in Nauticam and it does a nice job, I also have the OM-1 to use on land - it has a lot of amazing features, not all of them useful UW.  I haven't purchased a housing for it as yet, but would certainly be interested in trying it out .

Buying a Nauticam housing - new, the prices will be the same for all models - though they don't list the EM-1 MkII any longer on their website.  You would probably find a second hand EM-1 MkII housing with a little patience.  The EM-1 MkII was available new until relatively recently - you would probably be looking at buying it second hand now.  Depending upon which particular ports you have you could also look into an Isotta housing and adapt the ports you have to that.  Any of the Nauticam ports should be adaptable but not the Zen ports.

Every iteration of camera needs it's own housing.

Also I moved this to the Photo Gear and Technique forum, which better matches the questions being asked.

A used Nauticam housing for the EM1II would be an upgrade, not expensive, and is already the top in IQ (EM1III and OM-1 have similar IQ). When investing the money for buying new, I would not go for an EM1III, but instead for the new OM-1 that has far better AF...

Wolfgang