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10Bar’s XZ-1 HOUSING PHOTOS & TEXT BY LAWRENCE ALEX WU © 2012
The second concern for many existing XZ-1 users (land and underwater) is Olympus' decision to disable the flash altogether in Super Macro mode for the camera... what the??! With a minimum focus distance (on land) of one centimetre in front of the lens, I can see that the flash would not provide much coverage even though photo divers generally rely on their strobes. However, isn't that the whole point of a prosumer range camera... "To let the photographer decide"? To date, this is the only 10Bar housing I have seen bypass this limitation by ALLOWING the flash to be triggered in
ITS NOT THE FIRST SEXZ HOUSING DESIGNED FOR OUR OCEAN ADVENTURES BUT THE 10BAR XZ-1 HOUSING DOES GUINNESS SEVERAL RECORDS FOR BEING THE FIRST TO ADD SOME NEW FEATURES FOR AN OLYMPUS XZ-1 CAMERA HOUSING. SPORTING SUPER MACRO MODE WITH FLASH TRIGGERING, DOUBLE O-RINGS FOR THE MAIN HOUSING OPENING AND UNIQUE FEATURE ACTIONS, THIS IS ONE OF THE FIRST ALUMINUM UNDERWATER HOUSINGS FOR THE OLYMPUS XZ-1 CAMERA AT A MID-RANGE PRICE.
What's the F? Undoubtedly, the biggest concern for all underwater photographers is the dreaded ‘F’ word – flooooding! However, I found the 10Bar XZ-1 housing's double o-ring system on the acrylic back plate gave me pleasant reassurance of built-in insurance. I only wish that more manufacturers would make this a committed feature of their housings. Added to this, their simple ‘air-lock system’ with trademark double locking latches creates pressure on the back acrylic plate and provides better
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water proofing which translates to peace of mind! The main body is machined out of a single block of 6061 aluminum alloy containing magnesium and silicon mix. This alloy strain is what most scuba tanks, boats and airplanes are made from owing to its corrosion resistant properties; all at a mid range (MSRP) price of around US$650. The anodized and epoxy coated metal body gives this housing a very solid feel. It is rated to 60 metres even though every 10Bar housing is
sportdiving magazine december/january 2012-13
actually factory tested to 90 metres. I put mine through the paces of what I would expect any professional housing to endure; back rolling and giant striding my entries with the camera in hand without a problem... something I would never do this with any OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) clear plastic housing! Incidentally, 90 metres underwater is the equivalent to ‘10 bars’ of pressure – ring any bells? – another commitment that the manufacturer strives to maintain along with double o-rings on their housings.
Super Macro mode. It uses their hot-shoe adaptor inside the housing with a wired sync cord to the strobes. So at last we can utilize the camera's Super mode underwater with our strobes for those wee, wee animals!
Wet, Wild and Wide We Go Whichever way you choose to hook up your strobes – or not – the 67mm threaded port on this housing saves the hassles and extra costs of adaptors. The
built in threading allows flexible usage of WET LENSES – be they wide, macro or super-duper macro! Being one of the few underwater professional photographers who shoot only with compacts, it's this screwy little feature that keeps me from switching to using an SLR underwater. In fact, ALL my underwater commercial and awarded photos are only from compact cameras and since the wet lenses just screw onto the ‘front’ of the housing port underwater, this allows me to capture images that other SLR photo divers often miss because they have the WRONG lens. Wet lenses let me shoot the full range, from super macro subjects just a few millimetres long to close-focus-wideangle shots all the way to that once in a lifetime wide angle whale shark encounter... all on the same dive! Thus a setup like this easily triples my photo chances compared to toting an SLR camera which is a bonus as some things we see underwater just might not happen a second time around!
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