How Ryo Minemizu captures the hidden wonders of the ocean at night

Some great photos and information about his setup.

Naturally, there's the gear component to consider as well. Minemizu uses Nauticam housing and the Canon EOS R5 with the EF-EOS R converter. For lenses, he sticks with the EF-S 35mm F2.8 Macro IS STM and EF-S 60mm F2.8 Macro USM lenses. He's opted for APS-C lenses because the equivalent focal lengths are ideal for his subject matter, especially the 35mm lens. He says he's eagerly awaiting an "RF-mount standard macro lens that fully takes advantage of a full-frame sensor’s capabilities," however.

When it is time to light up a subject, Minemizu relies on five lights: two Marelux Apollo III 2.0 strobes for ultra-high-speed flash photography, two RGBlue (Super Natural Color) lights with high color rendering for use as target lights and for video recording in the dark ocean, and one INON LE-250 light used to illuminate subjects that exhibit phototaxis (when an organism moves in response to light). He uses the maximum flash sync speed to freeze movement, since the tiny creatures are constantly in motion. But it's not a set it and forget it situation. "Both the exposure and flash intensity are manually adjusted on site to suit the transparency of each subject," he explains.

Edited July 12Jul 12 by shokwaav

Great find, thanks! The rig itself seems fairly standard for a mixed stills / video rig, but the tray section is intriguing. Looks like the Inon light is mounted at the bottom? Too bad it's not exactly the same one used in the clip.

His Blackwater dive© setup, with multiple low intensity (1000 lumen) lights is very intriguing. He's doing this mostly on Kume island, but I've heard he's organised things on Okinawa main island, Cape Maeda specifically.
Really fascinating work, and local as well for me - too bad these masterclass setups (like Horiguchi's Hori Nights) are way over my head budget-wise.

Edited July 12Jul 12 by bghazzal

12 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

Great find, thanks! The rig itself seems fairly standard for a mixed stills / video rig, but the tray section is intriguing. Looks like the Inon light is mounted at the bottom? Too bad it's not exactly the same one used in the clip.

Looks like it has 2 arms attached to it in the bottom, so taken out and positioned as needed. Maybe lighting with that from under?

Also the main strobes/lights are attached from bottom also, makes it very stable, but position is fairly locked in. But with his experience im sure that is where the position is optimal for him.

5 minutes ago, Sokrates said:

Looks like it has 2 arms attached to it in the bottom, so taken out and positioned as needed. Maybe lighting with that from under?

Also the main strobes/lights are attached from bottom also, makes it very stable, but position is fairly locked in. But with his experience im sure that is where the position is optimal for him.

Yes - I think there's two float arms under the tray, and the Inon arm mounted to the right side one.
Also I'm not 100% sure but I think on of the video lights are on the bottom tray (and linked to the centrally mounted remote), but the strobes are on the two arms.
Interesting to see he's got diffusers on the video lights as well, not super common!

Edited July 12Jul 12 by bghazzal

3 hours ago, bghazzal said:

Yes - I think there's two float arms under the tray, and the Inon arm mounted to the right side one.
Also I'm not 100% sure but I think on of the video lights are on the bottom tray (and linked to the centrally mounted remote), but the strobes are on the two arms.
Interesting to see he's got diffusers on the video lights as well, not super common!

Heh, yes ofc the strobes are on top and lights bottom, not dual up/down attachment.

Bit too early when looking at the picture.

23 hours ago, shokwaav said:

Naturally, there's the gear component to consider as well. Minemizu uses Nauticam housing and the Canon EOS R5 with the EF-EOS R converter. For lenses, he sticks with the EF-S 35mm F2.8 Macro IS STM and EF-S 60mm F2.8 Macro USM lenses. He's opted for APS-C lenses because the equivalent focal lengths are ideal for his subject matter, especially the 35mm lens. He says he's eagerly awaiting an "RF-mount standard macro lens that fully takes advantage of a full-frame sensor’s capabilities," however.

Nicely written article.

Very interesting lens selection. If he's using EF-S lenses, I'm assuming he's shooting his R5 in 1.6 crop mode? I take it the RF-mount lens he's waiting for is a RF 50mm macro?

11 hours ago, JayceeB said:

Nicely written article.

Very interesting lens selection. If he's using EF-S lenses, I'm assuming he's shooting his R5 in 1.6 crop mode? I take it the RF-mount lens he's waiting for is a RF 50mm macro?

I thought it was interesting, too, that he was using EF-s lenses in crop mode. Clearly, his images are great, so crop mode be damned. I’ve done that on occasion but I had a less dense full frame sensor (Sony A7c). Maybe the new MFO-2 will be of interest to him.