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

Mafia Island is located in the Indian Ocean, off the East African coast of Tanzania. I learned about Mafia Island from reports of several scubadivers in internet platforms, who consider it an “insider tip”. In November/December 2024 three divers (Lisi, Franz and me) set out towards Mafia in order to experience firsthand the diving and possibilities for UW-photographers. Mafia Island is not difficult to reach via international flights from Vienna/Austria to Dar es Salaam/Tanzania. From there, t

A few months ago in November, Scubalamp showed a new "small strobe". I like small strobes and wanted one, but they have never appeared on the Scubalamp website. However there is a Fotocore GTM (the same ones in the Scubalamp posts that are available. I bought two of them, and last Saturday, I got to try them out here in Los Angeles. The strobe is a bit larger than the AOI RC strobes, and a bit smaller than the YS D3 Duo. The strobe is machined aluminum and appears to be very solidly built

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

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!

With thanks to Conrad Gowell (DriftC) for this article: A legal victory for the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) marks a turning point in the protection of Orcas and Chinook salmon in South-East Alaska https://wildfishconservancy.org/wfc-legal-victory-marks-turning-point-for-southern-resident-orcas-and-wild-chinook/

Nikon announced on 31 March a firmware update to v5.32 for the Z9. Nikon's Download Centre explains the update does the following: • Changed the way the aperture was adjusted on a lens when the standby timer expired. • Fixed an issue where the camera would sometimes stop responding if a picture was zoomed in during filtered playback while FTP upload was in progress. A link to the firmware is here: https://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/589/Z_9.html

An update to LR Classic was made available today. This is to v15.2.1. According to the usual blurb, this update includes "critical fixes". This has loaded without a problem on my Mac system

Not sure if this truly a landmark or not, but thanks to all the activities of members, the 23,000th Waterpixels post was recorded today.