I’ve been diving for 33 years, the last 30 of which I’ve been testing underwater equipment for print media and recently also for internet magazines. With Olympus D-SLRs I got into contact initially in 2003 when Ikelite made and underwater housing for the pro camera Olympus E-1. From that time on I’ve been astonished by the sensor’s and razor sharp lenses’ quality. Having only 5 megapixels, it still enabled large format prints in diving magazines, partly due to the outstanding lenses.
   

In the meantime Olympus has managed to become the leading camera brand in the underwater segment, offering their own underwater housings with a range of lens ports and housing for the flash unit. With the growing lens series and especially the super wide angle 7-14mm and the 8mm fisheye lens Olympus has been established a position in the underwater photography pro segment. There are currently no better lenses on the market – I’m unbiased to say so as I also test all competitors’ products.
To what extend Olympus has changed the world of underwater photography you can sense when you look at the fabulous E-330 with Live Preview function: there are five third party manufacturers for its underwater housing.

Vita:
Herbert Frei comes from an engineering background and has been diving since 1973. He’s been photographing underwater for over thirty years, and since the late 1970s a permanent author for several European diving magazines (tauchen, UWF, unterwasser, Aquanaut, Divemaster, Duiken, Sporttaucher) and for several years on the internet.
Frei is a freshwater specialist, the most published image author in European fishing magazines, editor of illustrated books, diving tour guides, a magnificent 14 underwater specialist books and various calendars. His publications include BILD, Bunte, fotomagazin, Photographie, Computerfoto, Terra, Aquarium, Geo, Stern and many others.

www.unterwasserwelt.de
   
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