just coming to the end of a wonderful trip to komodo and gili air.

came with quite a lot of gear that I hadn’t really used much before - but after doing Alex Mustards excellent reboot course and then fannying about underwater for a fortnight several things are apparent

1. taking good photos on a group dive is impossible- you need time and ‘normal’ dive groups don’t give it to you. ‘drive by’ snapping are very hit and miss

2. you get what you pay for. The salted line alpha 6xxx housing is usually waterproof and cheap but don’t expect to be able to change the settings at 30m- at one point it was randomly scrolling though the iso settings for no reason - another times the shutter wouldn’t work

3. the sony macro 90mm 2.8 is a stunning lens- when you can get it to focus! next time i even think about it i’ll put it on manual and set the focus before the dive - use a snoot and just take pictures of things that way. Should be great

4. I’m definitely coming back to Indonesia

Hi Mike

Some excellent learning points!

Yep, group dives are pretty hopeless for taking "good" pics. If you go back to Indonesia and you want to photo macro, I'd recommend the Lembeh Straits. Not only amazing (weird!) diving, buy most operations run a two guests-to-one dive guide system. So spending time taking images is relatively easy. And yes, you definitely need a guide but, believe me, that's good!

Wide-angle shots with a group is, errr, challenging to get all the flailing, inelegant legs out the way. Take a buddy (preferably with good legs) and a guide.

Sounds as though the Salted housing buttons may have been subject to the water pressure at 30m and just kissing the camera buttons sufficiently to cause unexcited activations. Expensive though they are, that's one reason why the aluminium housings (Subal, Nauticam, Isotta etc) are so good. And so expensive! Yes, by and large, you get what you pay for.

Sounds as though you had fun though - which is a large part of what its about......