Olympus Stylus- anyone have it

[babywewe]

Anyone have a Olympus Stylus? I'm looking at the Olympus Stylus 850SW - goods like a good camera for snorkeling. It also looks like a great camera to just throw into my bag, have at the beach (not worry about sand), pool and to snorkel with.

[acc82]

that is the next camera i want to buy! i'm interested to hear what people say!

[texswamper]

We have the 770SW that we purchased last August before our Tahiti cruise for that specific purpose, snorkeling. It was a great size and took great pictures both above and below water. We actually had the camera down below 33ft. and it worked fine. We have since purchased the underwater housing for $199 because after Tahiti we decided to learn scuba and will be using this camera below 33 ft. You can look at our Tahiti pictures taken with the Olympus 770 in the webshots link below.

 

I purchased the 770 online for less than $300 last summer.

[babywewe]

From what I'm reading it sounds like a great camera... !

[msmardigra]

Texswamper,

I just bought the 770 camera and the underwater housing as well. After doing some research, I found it did more and seemed more durable than the 850. I was certified in SCUBA at Thanksgiving and I am leaving tomorrow on a 9 day southern carribean cruise so it will be the virgin tour with my new camera and its housing. :D

I did look at your underwater pictures and they were great! Beautiful color! Did you do anything special? Any tips for using this camera?

Thanks,

[texswamper]

My husband does all of the photography and he uses Photoshop Elements6 to do any color corrections. If you have any questions about it, I'll let him answer them since I know nothing about it! lol!

 

I can't wait until our first dive after certification in St. Thomas on 3/30! I'll have to work just to stay with my DH photographer. I have too much to think about to even consider worrying about taking pictures.

 

Have a great cruise and we'll enjoy seeing your pictures after you return home. I hope you post them.

[scubaran]

Any tips for using this camera?

 

Thanks,

 

Hi,

 

I recommend buying some:

 

Silica Gel Desiccant for Olympus Underwater Housings

 

Mfr # 200923 • B&H # OLSGQ

 

This example is from B&H photo. You put one of these (they come paks of 5) in your housing (not in front of the lense or any of the controls) and they absorb moisture in your case keeping the lense from fogging. I once lost a shot of a 8ft. nurse shark and will never photograph underwater without one of these in my case again. :O)

[Hobbz]

I have the Canon Powershot 710IS and bought the underwater housing for it. It cost me a total of $500, you could probably get the same for $450 now I think. I love this camera! 6x Optical Zoom! That is so handy to have that extra zoom I think. The quality of picture's it takes is great! Everyone in my family loves the colors in my pictures. Also the video it takes is superb. It can do video at 640x480 resolution and go up to 30 frames per second. That's a little below DVD quality. My aunt and uncle took it to the Caribbean and they used it for most of their pictures. The underwater housing was easy to use and switch between modes when I wanted to capture things differently. And something I like about this that I don't think the Olympus does is that it floats in the underwater housing. But of course you could always tie a floaty to your camera. Things I don't like about this camera is that it takes about 4 to 5 seconds for the flash to recharge and you can only take 10 minutes of video continuously, I think it has to save it to the memory before the file gets too big. I have not tried in other camera under the water but I know I like this one. If you have any questions feel free to ask but I'm not really a photography.

[Hobbz]

And I forgot to show you this. It's one of my first videos underwater. It was taken in the Galapagos. The quality on youtube doesn't even come close to how crisp it looks on my computer but it should give you and idea.

 

[drifting_away]

I just got the Olympus 1030, and I am going to Kauai this week so I will tell you how it performs!

[luvincruzin]

Texswamper,

 

Thanks so much for sharing info regarding your Olympus and also your beautiful pictures! I too have been toying with purchasing an underwater camera. I'm just so sick and tired of using a throw away camera while snorkeling (not brave enough to scuba!) and then wondering, 'wasn't there fish in this picture somewhere?!' It looks like it also takes good land pictures as well. I have a great digital land camera now and am not wanting to take two cameras with us on our cruise in May.

 

Also-where does one buy those floaty straps someone was referring to?

 

BTW-did you do a cruise to Tahiti? If so, which ship? Sorry if I could have found out the answer in your pics, but I just focused on the underwater pics.

 

Thank you,

Bonnie

[texswamper]

Maybe you could look into the underwater housing for you camera if you don't want to buy a whole new camera. On the other hand, it was nice to have the very small, fit in your pocket, camera for both land and sea.

 

We purchased the floating strap from a local camera shop that sells Olympus merchandise, but they can also be bought online. They are made by Olympus.

 

We sailed on the Tahitian Princess on the 10 day Cook Island itinerary. Unfortunately, it looks like Princess may not put the ship back there after December 2008. It will be used for the world cruise 2009 and there's no indication yet as to the fate of Tahiti after that. I hope they decide to go back for those itineraries as they are very popular and the Paul Gaugain (sp) is much more expensive.

 

If you have any more questions about the underwater camera, feel free to ask.

[cruzegirl]

The Olympus cameras do some great work with underwater photos. I have the Stylus 600 p/s and it's done great work. See photos in my

.Mac gallery. I've now upgraded to the Olympus sp 550 uz. I have the underwater housing for that too. Can't wait to see how it does underwater. Haven't been able to dive yet with it. Soon though, soon.

[cruzegirl]

Maybe you could look into the underwater housing for you camera if you don't want to buy a whole new camera. On the other hand, it was nice to have the very small, fit in your pocket, camera for both land and sea.

 

We purchased the floating strap from a local camera shop that sells Olympus merchandise, but they can also be bought online. They are made by Olympus.

 

We sailed on the Tahitian Princess on the 10 day Cook Island itinerary. Unfortunately, it looks like Princess may not put the ship back there after December 2008. It will be used for the world cruise 2009 and there's no indication yet as to the fate of Tahiti after that. I hope they decide to go back for those itineraries as they are very popular and the Paul Gaugain (sp) is much more expensive.

 

If you have any more questions about the underwater camera, feel free to ask.

 

texswamper,

I tried to click on your link for your photos but I get an error message. Would love to see your photos, especially of Tahiti. I'm going there in October and can't wait to dive in the South Pacific.. Yeah....

[luvincruzin]

Texswamper, thanks for all the info. We've been we just about all the Caribbean islands several times, but never to Tahiti. Sounds like heaven! I'll have to do some searching locally-however, I did go to an Olympus site and researched all their cameras. So the 770sw is that small?? Hmmm...

 

Bonnie