Underground with a Camera

Got to take my new camera underground last weekend. I've bought a Ewa-Marine waterproof housing to protect it, and this trip was to try it all out. I was very pleased with the results. The camera turned out to have some excellent features which really helped.

Firstly it has a 'My Mode' custom mode which you can preprogram with all the settings appropriate for what you are doing. This is very useful for cave photography, where I need manual focus, manual exposure control, external flashes etc.

Secondly you can customise which buttons control which settings of the camera. This was extremely useful in the waterproof housing because you cannot easily turn the control dial type controls, but I was able to configure the camera to allow all the essential settings to be changed using the push buttons.

Here is an example of one of the photos I took.



Water Icicle Close Cavern, Peak District, Derbyshire

Bottom of Entrance Shaft, Water Icicle Close Cavern

New Digital Camera

I've just got my new digital camera, which I found on EBay. An Olympus C8080 Widezoom. I chose this model primarily for the high quality lens and low price for an 8 Megapixel camera. The main purpose I have for this camera is cave photography, so I wanted something that would give me comparable quality to what I get from 35mm slides and my film scanner, but without the high cost of a digital SLR because of the hazardous locations I am intending to take the camera.

I found the reviews at www.imaging-resource.com very useful in coming to a decision.