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DEMA 2008: Olympus
By Matt J. Weiss, October 27, 2008 @ 02:00 AM (EST)
In my opinion, Olympus had one of the most exciting
booths at DEMA 2008. DEMA had a slogan “be a diver” for their campaign
to encourage people to take the literal “plunge” into diving. Well, I
feel that Olympus’ products encourage people to take the plunge into
underwater photography because they offer quality products at cheap
prices with exciting features.
One product I found a lot of people coming to DPG booth to ask us about was the Olympus stylus 1050 SW. The 10.1 mp camera with a 3X optical zoom that can easily fit in your pocket. Sound like a lot of other slim point and shoot cameras?
One product I found a lot of people coming to DPG booth to ask us about was the Olympus stylus 1050 SW. The 10.1 mp camera with a 3X optical zoom that can easily fit in your pocket. Sound like a lot of other slim point and shoot cameras?

Well it continues on their line of sort of “extreme” cameras. Its shock proof from up to 5 feet, freeze proof and, of course, waterproof up to 10 feet. This does not make it a dive camera but it makes it an interesting point and shoot to take along on any dive trip (also very college proof). Because its an extreme sport kind of camera, Olympus thought that people may be using it with gloves so they included a top control, which lets you operate a number of menus and features by tapping the sides, back and top of the camera. Its hard to explain, might not come in handy in everyday situations, but was really cool when showed to me.

The waterproof styulus 1050 SW
Another product I thought was awesome was the 8.0 MP and 3x optical zoom FE-360. The very slim and sleek camera at only 0.7” looks like a pricy pocket cam. However, it really isn’t. In fact, the FE-360 and Pt-044, which gives you complete control over, the camera retails at $ 279.00. This may not be one of the old and trust x0x0 cameras that were so popular among point shoot shooters (including myself, I still own a 5050, 5060 and 7070) but its really cheap and comes with three underwater modes for different situation that my possibly make it the best casual diver/photographer on the market.

The ultra cheap but function rich FE-360 and PT-044 combo
The product that really intrigued me was the E-520, an entry level dSLR that is, again, very reasonably priced with its housing the PT-E05. The camera is an extension on the E-5x0 line that has intrigued me for quite some time. The camera has many unique features that are interesting including an in body image stabilizer so stabilization does not depend on the lens, a dust reduction system and the Olympus four thirds system. Also, it now offers auto focus in live view, making it real live view rather than the fairly useless ones on many of the latest cameras. The nice sized dSLR can be equipped with a PT-E05 housing that lets you go down to 40 meters and also the UFL-2 strobe. The housing comes equipped with two fiber optic ports and one bulkhead for TTL use. Two UFL-2 strobes can be connected via fiber optic cables and can be used in the ultra cool Remote Control (RC) mode. RC mode lets you adjust the power of the strobes right from the lcd screen of the camera. When its all said and done the camera, housing and two strobes is less than 3,200 dollars brand new.

The PT-E05 with the E-520 DSLR inside.

The E-520 and PT-E05 side by side

The UFL-2 strobe which utilizes the new RC mode on the PT-E05 and E-520 combo. A nice setup.
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