Customer Reviews

Olympus PT-016 Underwater Housing for Stylus 300, 400 and 410 Digital Cameras

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Last year we bought the PT-016 for use with our Digital Stylus, and have now had it in the ocean 4 times and once on a river raft trip, and it works great!

With this housing you can take your camera underwater at the lake or the reef. Almost every function is available for use, but not POWER ON/OFF - the camera times-out, then when you need it, a button push awakens it. The weight that comes with the housing nicely counter-balances the camera, so it doesn't seem to want to float or sink; land-based shots are still possible with the housing on.

The minuses, besides the power on/off - the manual is warning after warning after warning, followed by test procedures (probably a good idea, but it's BORING); one of the warnings says to not toss the housing & camera or jump into the water with it, which might sometimes be impossible to avoid; the o-ring seal seems sensitive (per the directions) and sand, grit or hair (!) may cause the seal to fail.

Overall the product performs just as you would want it to. We've had the camera in it for up to 8 hours, 3 of those submerged, with no fogging, and the camera stayed completely dry. Because of the sleep mode, the battery didn't drain, but it takes a couple of more seconds to respond from its sleep. It comes with a spare o-ring, grease, and silica gel packets, but you'll want to order more if you're going on multiple dives.

I highly recommend this housing if it's in your budget, and you wish you could take your Digital Stylus underwater. Don't bother with this if you want to be taking pictures in stormy weather - remember the Digital Stylus is already "weather proof"!!

I was just amazed at how easy this housing was to use, and how well it performed. Last month, my friend and I went to Oahu to dive, and since it was his first time doing scuba, we wanted to capture it all on film. I bought the Olympus 300 and this housing on Amazon, and it worked just great. I did six dives in all, 4 day, 2 night. The longest was 1 hour 10 minutes, and the deepest 90 feet. The dives were done in pairs between battery charges, and the battery lasted long enough for both dives without needing to open the case. Some tips: Make sure to set up the camera so that it will always flash to help get the colors right (default mode is for the camera to determine if flash is needed, I found that was not always the best choice -- and the camera forgets this setting between power on/off cycles so you need to do this before getting in the water). Between each pair of dives, a simple soaking of the housing (with the camera inside) followed by a recharge of the battery should be all that is needed to keep the camera housing clean. A single packet of silica was enough to keep the housing from fogging, and I applied a layer of silicon (provided with the housing) when taking the camera out each night, though I think it would have been ok to wait until after the trip.

I've owned my stylus and it's housing for over a year. It has been on over 80 dives many to 90' plus and it's always been a real trooper. I don't change out the silica packs terribly often and have had the lense fog only a couple of times. Love it. Wish I loved the camera just as much.

Item worked great for a recent snorkeling trip to Hawaii. All the controls were easy to access and the pictures turned out great. The only recommendation would be to bring along an extra battery as you have to leave the camera open to fit into the case(at least on the Stylus 410 that is).

The camera case worked really well, I went on a scuba trip to Mexico and it took wonderful underwater pictures. Easy to use and didn't leak a drop.
thanks
DS

The housing is great! I've used it quite a bit in the Bahamas. I just wish that the camera had more megapixels.

This product was fun to use with my Olympus camera. Fish came right up to the lense in shallow water and the underwater environments when snorkeling even in Minnesota freshwater lakes were astounding.