Olympus Evolt E-330 SLR & 10Bar Housing Review

Introduction | The Camera | The Housing | Underwater | Conclusion

Introduction

When Olympus released their latest Evolt E-330 7.5 megapixel Live-View digital SLR earlier this year. I knew that this camera was for me. I converted to digital back in 2003, after a lot of years taking underwater photographs utilising film SLR's.
My introduction to digital underwater photography was with the Olympus C-5050z coupled with a pair of Inon Z220 strobes and Inon accessory lenses. This set-up gave me the flexibility on photo shoots to cover almost any subject from 1:1 macro through fish portraiture to wide angle - all with one camera. Gone were the days of two housings, a couple of Nikonos cameras and a truck-load of strobes & lenses. To me it was a breath of fresh air.

Soft Coral Goby [strobes @ full power with -.5 diffusers] - Tulamben, Bali

I was diving armed with a 1Gb compact flash card and a 256Mb XD card and could take 170 Raw images without opening the camera! I could review images as I took them, add a close-up lens or two for additional magnification or screw-on a wide angle lens to capture broad scenes - But just as importantly I could see my subjects on the LCD screen at arms length. No longer did I have to hold my camera up to my mask as I approached some elusive creature, only to find it had been scared-off by my close presence. With the camera at arms length, I could now sneak-up on creatures that had defied my approaches for years, even place the camera in small crevices and ledges where I just physically couldn't get myself, as it always seemed this was where my prey was hiding.

I'll admit, now and again I yearned for faster focus ability and cursed the shutter lag on more than one occasion, but the benefits of the Olympus C-5050z camera set-up, far outweighed the few criticisms I had. At one stage I was lured by some advertising and foolishly visited a local camera store to look at digital SLR's, not knowing that these cameras didn't have a Live-View facility - the ability to see the image on an LCD screen before the shutter was depressed.

I should have carried out a bit more research before my visit, as I felt a proper fool when I, (holding Nikon's latest SLR) asked the young digital genius behind the counter "How do you turn on the LCD screen to take a pic?" I was quietly ushered aside and shown the point & shoot range of cameras and told "These are what you need mate, they have LCD screens for viewing pics. SLR's only have a screen for viewing after the pic has been taken" - Well no-one told me! So it was back to the reliable Olympus C-5050z until something better came along - and gladly, now it has.

Schooling Batfish [natural light] - Amed, Bali.

The Evolt E-330 through some unique research by the Olympus team, now offers Live-View on a large LCD screen. The first of its kind in the SLR world. This along with a range of underwater housings to suit the camera becoming available in mid 2006, was the news I - and I'm sure - a lot of other Point & Shoot users, had been waiting for.

I chose a housing by Hong Kong based manufacturer 10Bar for my camera, I was swayed by the depth rating (90metres or 300') and standard Nikonos style sync socket. Also price and availability helped in the decision, plus 10Bar were very accommodating in manufacturing a port for me that suits not only the standard 14-45mm zoom lens, but also the 50mm & 35mm macro lenses - which I am sure will be popular with many other photographers.

While 10Bar prepared my new port, I busily familiarised myself with the Olympus E-330 camera's controls above water.

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