Having bought a Nauticam housing and OM System OM-1ii recently as the base of my new underwater camera setup, I needed an LED trigger to fire the strobes. Although I havn’t used TTL underwater for many years, I did want HSS as I often include the sunball when shooting wide-angle.  This usually requires high shutter speed to avoid exposure burn outs. HSS options for an OM trigger seemed to boil down to the Turtle or UWT. The Nauticam flash trigger, although an attractive option, doesn’t provide

You may have read or seen pictures of the fire that broke out in the Maldives on the Emperor Explorer liveaboard on 9 May. My partner and I were on it as part of a group of 25. Like many members, we’ve been lucky enough to have been on lots of liveaboards. During the pre-departure safety briefing we were given the usual advice:  If an alarm sounds do not return to our cabins to collect stuff: head immediately to the muster station by the dive platform; put together a grab bag in case of emerge

DIY Fibre Optic cables   Like most members, when I bought my first system that used fibre optic cables, I paid for the ones that the dealers sell. Reading various articles about fibre optics, I realised later that they were relatively easy to make and that DIY cables could cost a fraction of shop-bought. I gave it a go.   I thought it worth a write-up here on Waterpixels. And yes, they are really easy to make and are cheap.   The Cable   The best fibr

I have long fascinated with shooting ring lights underwater starting with the Inon Quadflash, through the various Athena modifications to Sea and Sea strobe heads, continuing to the Saga fiber optic rings and now to the Weefine 3000. The Weefine 3000 is the latest version of the LED lights made by Kraken and Weefine. The Weefine 3000 CCW Weefine 3000 CCW Ring Light It's similar to the earlier 3000 lumen LED modules but has adjustable color temperature and a 3000-lumen burst (strobe) mode. It

Some time back, I wrote an article about creating your own fibre optic cables: a quick, easy, inexpensive and very satisfying process. In case you missed it it, a link to the piece is here. https://waterpixels.net/articles/articles_technique/diy-fibre-optic-cables-easy-r32/ Now, many months on, a couple of additional suggestions: BURPING On entering the water and descending the plugs at both ends of the cables often need burping. Tiny air bubbles seem to be able to block fibre optic light tra

Afterhours Magic: An Ambient Light Video Workflow for Action Cams (and Other WB-Challenged Cameras) INTRODUCTION Getting good colours in underwater footage, especially when shooting in ambient light, has been a challenge since the early days of underwater cinematography, and action cameras are no exception. As divers learn in their certification course, water absorbs light unevenly, with longer wavelengths like reds and oranges fading quickly as depth increases, leaving underwater scenes dom

Panasonic achieved a result that Apple, Sony and Nikon did not. The Japanese Intellectual Property High Court invalidated a major RED patent concerning raw video files. RED had historically used this patent to demand licensing fees and stop competitors. Nikon initially challenged the patent in court but purchased RED before a ruling and dropped the case. When Panasonic recently challenged the same patent in Japan, Nikon defended the claims it had previously opposed. The court ultimately rejecte

It's almost hard to keep up with the updates. Version 15.5 for LR Classic now available. Adobe report the update: "includes enhanced crop tool, mask refinements, render to DNG option, support for newly released cameras and lenses, bug fixes, and more".

On a recent dive trip I met someone who is writing a dissertation on people who are 50+ and diving. If you are interested in contributing, the following is a link to a simple questionnaire which takes about 5 minutes to complete. I've become paranoid about online scams, phishing etc. But this looks fine and I know the author - and the information gathered is pretty innocuous. https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=e3VPRDDLUkaTvMqNbR74E5Cna1DJ6d1KvM2oRz5_gAdUM0Y3UEpYTkZERDJON

.... and another update to LR Classic. This to version 15.4.1 Adobe report this as: "includes improved Subject Masking, Keyword Sync to Cloud, upgraded Assisted Culling, Duplicate Detection, a Background Process Indicator, Al-focused metadata filters, performance improvements, support for newly released cameras and lenses, bug fixes, and more. Available from the usual places

Another update from Adobe for Lightroom Classic. Some details courtesy of the Lightroom Queen: All Versions: Keyword Sync! Yes, between the Cloud Ecosystem and Classic! How long have we been asking for this?! As well as our June release blog, see our special post How do I sync keywords? Classic:  new native duplicate detection added Classic & Desktop: Assisted Culling refinements and additional options with faces All versions: dramatic improvement in Subject Masking (see example below)

There's yet another update to LR Classic - to version 15.3. According to the Adobe website, this includes background Al feature processing, performance improvements, a new Al culling model, PSB file sync support, film-inspired presets, support for opening images in Firefly Boards, support for newly released cameras and lenses, bug fixes, and more. Hard to keep up with all the updates!