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Panasonic Lumix FT3
Simplicity and Quality Combined
Panasonic are one of the major players in digital imaging with a range that runs from point and shoot stills cameras up to broadcast video systems for the television industry. The Panasonic brand is one in which Ocean Optics has a lot of confidence. The Panasonic Lumix FT3 offers the casual underwater photographer a point and shoot underwater digital camera that can take great pictures with minimum effort. A useful benefit of choosing the Panasonic Lumix FT3 for underwater photography is that you can set a minimum shutter speed of 1/125th. This setting is something Mark or Steve will talk you through - it will help you avoid getting blurred pictures! It even helps you to add a little ambience, as it will freeze shafts of sunlight.
The Panasonic FT3 is an ultra compact, slimline camera that can easily fit in a shirt pocket. Without a housing, it is actually waterproof to a depth of 12 metres, though there are time restrictions on how long it can remain submerged. This makes it a perfect camera for shooting around dive boats or on the beach and, of course, it's an ideal ski trip camera as well. The FT3 is very straightforward to use and the menus are simple to follow. Divers wanting colour in their pictures without the expense and bulk of an underwater strobe will find setting manual white balance is quick and simple to do.
The Panasonic Lumix FT3 benefits from a Leica lens, so this underwater digital compact offers superb image quality. The zoom range is from 28mm semi wide- angle to 128 mm medium telephoto. Minimum focus is 5cm on wide- angle and 30cm on telephoto. The very close focus distance when zoomed in makes the Lumix FT3 adept at small to medium sized fish photography. For critters, we recommend using an INON UCL165 or INON UCL330 close up lens or two. This will allow you to take highly detailed pictures of subjects smaller than a 5 pence coin. For most subjects, Lumix FT3 owners will benefit from adding an INON UWL -H100 28LD wide -angle lens to their camera. This nearly doubles the field of view that the camera sees underwater compared to the built in lens. This lets you work from about half the distance, making for sharper, more detailed and more colourful pictures. You can also photograph bigger subjects including mantas and large sharks. The special design of the INON UWL- H100 28AD allows you to add the INON Dome Lens to increase the angle of the UWL -H100 28AD by a further 50%. The near fisheye angle of 150 degrees is ideal for wreck and reef holidays, shooting big schools of hammerheads, humpbacks or low visibility diving typical of the UK. It's also great for creative forced perspective pictures. The INON Dome Unit can be bought with your UWL-H100 28LD lens or added later. Mark or Steve will be pleased to assemble and leak test the Dome Lens for you (dome ports depend upon a sealed air space to work).
The Lumix FT3 has a 12MP sensor. You can choose from four aspect ratios, including the popular 4:3 and 16:9 widescreen. Sensitivity settings range from 100 to 6400. There's a built in flash, which can be used for close up photography or to trigger an external INON S-2000, INON D-2000 or INON Z-240 underwater strobe, allowing you TTL automatic flash exposure for simplicity and virtually guaranteed perfect flash exposures or a full range of creative flash manual settings. Naturally, the Panasonic Lumix FT3 has a large selection of scene modes for shooting on land.
The Panasonic Lumix FT3 also records video at the full high definition standard of 1920 x 1080, with smaller formats for shooting for social network sites, for instance. The Lumix FT3 offers a comprehensive selection of scene modes for video filming as well. For lighting close up scenes, like anemones and clown fish, INON LE Series video lights are very effective and inexpensive and can also be used as focus lights.
The Panasonic Lumix FT3 is an excellent choice for divers who want to take good underwater pictures or record basic underwater video without having the camera take over the dive. It is one of very few point and shoot compacts to provide some basic, but useful, creative overrides.
Panasonic Lumix FT3 DMW - MCFT3 Underwater Camera Housing
The Panasonic Lumix FT3 housing is ruggedly made, safe to 40m, compact and with an easy to operate control layout. The Panasonic DMW -MCFT3 is straightforward to prepare for diving and Mark or Steve will be happy to spend time showing you how to seal and test your housing to prevent leaks. If you buy by mail order, they'll call you and talk you through these steps by phone. This, together with explaining how to set and use some of the features and benefits of your Lumix underwater compact, might take 30 minutes or so. This can usually be done out of hours. Steve and Mark teach diving instructors to teach the INON UK underwater photography courses they developed, so you can get a lot of useful advice from them. Check out the teams media credits and endorsements pages to see what's so special about the Ocean Optics service.
A key benefit of selecting the genuine Panasonic marine case is that it can accept optically matched INON underwater cameras lenses using a special adapter. Other housing brands may not accept INON lenses or may do so only with some important restrictions.
Alex Mustard Magic Filter
If you will be shooting sunlight pictures, rather than using flash, an Alex Mustard Magic Filter can greatly improve colours down to depths or 15 to 18 metres. These polyester filters fit over the camera lens. Ocean Optics underwater camera shop has a choice of Alex Mustard Magic Filters for blue or green water. We can advise you on best filter options and give you useful tips on using them.
INON LD Lens Base
The INON LD Lens Base is used to attach INON UWL-H100 28LD and INON UCL165 and UCL330 close up lenses to your Lumix FT3 underwater digital camera. The INON Lens Base has a quick-change bayonet mount that lets you switch lenses during your dive in seconds. So you can change from shooting the bow of the Thistlegorm with a wide - angle lens, to using the built in zoom to photograph batfish, then switch to a close up lens to picture the eye of a crocodile fish. The INON LD Lens Base features a lock to ensure your lenses won't fall off - an important safety feature. The Lens Base is designed to ensure your INON underwater lenses are perfectly optically aligned for the best possible results from your Lumix FT3. The INON Lens Base also has a built in accessory shoe for mounting focus or video lights, such as the classy aluminium INON LE series models, or a strobe for close up photography.
The Panasonic Lumix FT3 and DMC - MCFT3 marine case represents a good choice for the diver who wants to take high quality underwater photographs and is happy to rely largely on the cameras automation to get it right.
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See also: www.oceanoptics.co.uk/inonuwl-h10028ld.html www.oceanoptics.co.uk/inonclose-uplens.html www.oceanoptics.co.uk/magicfilters.html |
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