Northwest Dive Club

It's not even been wet yet, but a couple interesting observations.

The camera in underwater mode takes surprisingly good pictures out of the water! The ikelite case is very well made but may be a bit of a challenge with 5mil gloves to operate. It's quite nice and definitely no buyers remorse with this!

The wifi photo transfer to my iPhone is clever and easy to use. Especially nice not to have to open and close the gasketed waterproof little doors to connect a plug.

The best feature for me is switching from photo mode to video is a single push button. It starts and stops video without any other complicated selections or setup. It's more like a video camera that takes outstanding photos!

Headed to cove 2 Saturday to experiment with this further.

Oh, I have the camera mounted in a kraken double light tray. The flash is a bit heavier then I expected. The flexible links in the arms are just a bit shy of the stiffness needed for this flash. Once positioned it stays fine but it will bend all over when navigating under water.

Not 100% sure on how I will travel underwater holding this or tethering it. Those long arms for the focus and flash seem a bit gangly

A divemaster buddy of mine in Cozumel has one, and has taken some very good shots underwater also.

is he using a dive case on it or just using it to the 50 meter limit

He has a housing, the Olympus housing.

JJHACK wrote:It's not even been wet yet, but a couple interesting observations.

The camera in underwater mode takes surprisingly good pictures out of the water! The ikelite case is very well made but may be a bit of a challenge with 5mil gloves to operate. It's quite nice and definitely no buyers remorse with this!

The wifi photo transfer to my iPhone is clever and easy to use. Especially nice not to have to open and close the gasketed waterproof little doors to connect a plug.

The best feature for me is switching from photo mode to video is a single push button. It starts and stops video without any other complicated selections or setup. It's more like a video camera that takes outstanding photos!

Headed to cove 2 Saturday to experiment with this further.

Oh, I have the camera mounted in a kraken double light tray. The flash is a bit heavier then I expected. The flexible links in the arms are just a bit shy of the stiffness needed for this flash. Once positioned it stays fine but it will bend all over when navigating under water.

Not 100% sure on how I will travel underwater holding this or tethering it. Those long arms for the focus and flash seem a bit gangly

Congrats! I thought it was your wife's camera, LOL!

Very cool about the wifi. Now all you need is wireless charging

The arms will probably be less wobbly underwater. That's my experience... on land you want them tight, underwater they can be looser. Can you adjust the tightness? Things will be less heavy underwater too.

I go with the cam in hand the whole time...

Have fun!

Keep it in the housing. I used the TG-4 without it few times underwater and although it never flooded, it stopped working while I was using it later on dry land. Enjoy it, I bought another one and use it as a backup. Now in Olympus housing

I was really on the fence with the housing choice. The Olympus housing was about everything I wanted and made specific by the company.

Years ago while living in South Africa I bought a rather expensive camera to use for photo's of the clients diving. It was a Canon in a Canon housing. That enclosure lasted about 5 dives and flooded completely over the course of an hours dive. Angry? WOW that would be an understaement!

I guess now I have this feeling or mind set, that regardless of manufacturer, companies that do things as the primary focus do them well. That said I decided that the Ikelite folks just do enclosures. While the Olympus folks do cameras. So my lasting bad memory of troubles drove this decision for me.

Add to that the additional benefit of the camera itself being waterproof, inside that excellent enclosure! That's a level of paranoia that would challenge all of you ha ha!

I think you made the right decision. My Olympus housing now shows few drops of water inside after dive, but as you, I decided that at least if it does flood, the camera should be OK. Since it is not my primary camera on my dives, I am OK with it for the time being

I'm on my 3rd Olympus camera and Olympus housing. I've had one flood on my previous setup, but that was a hair on an oring. Other than that, I've had hundreds of dives with zero issue. "knocking on wood". For me, the Olympus housings have been fantastic. I just take very good care of them.

Some molded housing can end up with a ridge/imperfection in the O-ring channel. Check it very carefully. If found remove with some superfine W&D sandpaper > 1000>2000. Old Canon housings were infamous for this.
The current crop of Oly PEN housings are vastly superior to earlier models. Don't know about the TG-4.

IMO the claims of naked cameras waterproof to anything but surface depth are at least suspect to pretty bogus. I wouldn't trust any of them.