Olympus Evolt E-330 SLR + 10Bar Housing Review

Jeff Mullins · Issue 31, Jul/Aug 2006 · pp. 17–22

Products mentioned: Olympus Evolt E-330, Olympus C-5050z, Inon Z220 strobes, Inon accessory lenses, 10Bar underwater housing, Zuiko 14-45mm lens, Zuiko 40-150mm lens, Zuiko 50mm macro lens, Zuiko 35mm macro lens, Zuiko 8mm lens, Zuiko 14-54mm lens

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. 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 mag…