My TG5 Setup

There are a handful of photos there, be sure to check them all out.

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Olympus TG5, reporting for duty. Nauticam housing with light ring. #underwaterphoto #underwatermacro #supermacro #diving #nauticam #tg5thuglife #olympustg5

A post shared by Michael Smith (@ryzhe.kuznetsov) on Jan 2, 2019 at 7:25am PST

The buildout:

• Olympus TG5
• Nauticam NA-TG5 housing
• Nauticam light ring for NA-TG5
• Nauticam flex tray with handles
• Nauticam M10 ball
• Scubalamp F24
• Nauticam clamp
• Coil lanyard with clip

What I Like

Light Ring.  I’m a big fan of light rings.  That’s why I got the housing at $800 instead of the $300 Olympus version: it had an optional light ring (also at extra cost).  What the light ring means to me is smaller, more portable size, both in the water and in my pack.

Right-Side Handle.  I’m doing a lot of drysuit dives here in Boston.  The thick gloves make it hard to hold the camera and push down on the shutter button.  A handle gives you much more positive control over the camera.  More importantly, a handle lets you work the camera with just one hand and reduces task loading so you can do other things with your left hand while you shoot.

Trigger.  I love my triggers.  Nauticam handles do a good job of having a trigger mechanism.  The trigger gives you much more fine finger control for shots and it isolates the firing motion from how you hold the camera.  This means better focus because you don’t move the camera while you fire the shot.

What I don’t like

Width.  With the two handles, it makes the camera wider.  That makes it harder to fit into some cracks and get close for some shots.  It isn’t an issue with my G9 because it has a port that sticks out towards the subject instead of a flat camera body.  However, the left handle on this setup can be removed, which is how I’ll be trying this setup for a handful of dives.

Lanyard Length.  I use this same lanyard with my G9, which is a bulkier camera with arms and strobes.  It works because that camera needs more space.  But with the TG5, I want to hover close to the bottom to look for subjects or even tip head-down and look at things closer more often.  It seems like the camera is hanging down too much.  The TG4 setup I have also does this.  This means that I need to hold the camera with my right hand and that’s less than optimum.  So what I’m going to try is to just add a ring and bolt snap to the back of the right handle instead of the full lanyard.

Dedicated to Light Ring.  The light ring is screwed into the M52 mount on the front of the lens glass.  You can’t really take it off during a dive.  You can’t use any other accessory like a diopter with it.  I think this is a minor issue.