Olympus caused a sensation when it launched the first incarnation of the PEN, a Micro Four Thirds camera offering the interchangeable lenses and versatility of a digital SLR. Little bigger than a cigarette box, the 13-megapixel PEN E-PL1 produces punchy images up to 14MB in size, in addition to HD video at 1280 x 720.
This system has been available for a few months, and is still being sold alongside a newer camera, the E-PL2. It’s worth considering the E-PL1 though, as prices are likely to come down and, to tell the truth, the differences between the two are not hugely important for underwater shooters.
To test it underwater, I took it to the Red Sea and tried both stills and video functions while diving in the 10–20m range. In the muted underwater light, I found the bright screen much easier to use and snapped away. There was virtually no delay in taking the exposures, but there were times when the autofocus was slow to lock on.
I prefer the assurance of aluminium housings, but the polycarbonate case of the Olympus PT-EP01 housing survived some extremely hard knocks during the test. Placing the camera in the housing is as simple as it gets – a safety lock releases the hinged back, and you just put the camera in the cradle and close the housing again.
All the key controls on the camera body marry up to buttons on the housing exterior; I thought the buttons were clustered a little close, but that’s the trade-off for big functionality on a small camera. To activate video mode, you get a nice red button situated away from the central controls – so there’s not much risk of activating it by mistake.
For the test, I connected an Inon flash to the housing via a fibre-optic wet connection, which is triggered by the PEN’s internal flash. It worked well, though I needed to attach a supplemental handle to make it ergonomic in the water.
The test camera came with a 14–42mm lens, the focal equivalent of a 28–84mm lens on a 35mm-format camera. I used it mostly at the 14mm end, which is good for fish portraits.
I found it worked best with medium-sized subjects such as spotted stingrays and scorpionfish, and in good visibility you can comfortably shoot divers and – if they were to come close enough – sharks. In both JPEG and RAW formats, it captures impressive levels of detail, though
the default settings produce images that are a little too punchy and saturated for my taste. You can get around this by shooting in RAW and using manual settings.
This set-up has a capability that borders on the professional. If you really want to make the most of it, you could ask your dealer to remove the flat port (you could do it yourself, but it’s tricky) and replace it with a Zen wide-angle dome port (used in conjunction with a wider lens such as the Panasonic 8mm, which everyone raves about). Of course, if you go for professional quality, you’ll pay professional prices – in this case, £587 for the lens and another £409 for the Zen port. Still, that would give you a lovely wide-angle system for a shade under £2,000, which is still half the price of a mid-range DSLR rig, if you include the cost of a lens and port.
Micro Four Thirds cameras exist as a bridge between compact and DSLR cameras, and any photographer will find the E-PL1 or E-PL2 a delight to use. The underwater housing is small enough to transport the entire
rig as hand luggage, and in this age of restricted luggage allowance, that’s a compelling reason to go Four Thirds. Simon Rogerson
www.camerasunderwater.co.uk