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Hi Dreifish, I think your Apollo III units where not functioning OK or your test setup was faulty in some way. I cannot confirm the way you trashed that strobe, having now shot this and the HF-1 for two years. I bought the HF-1 because of your disruptive Excel sheet back in the days. In fact my HF-1 does not deliver the power you claimed at high frame rates and does many blackout frames and light variation. You may want to reach out to your dealer or Marelux to get your strobes replaced.

Review of somesorts from Bluewater. I havent watched it yet.

with or without strobes? I use AWB and it's generally pretty close when shooting with strobes. I've shot a few subjects purely with ambient and also used AWB as I recall, it wasn't perfect but provided a good starting point for adjusting the raw files.

I ran the test you're describing 2 years ago between the HF-1 and Apollo III (basically, normalized power output after the initial dimming period) to see what the max power each strobe could achieve in a continuous shooting scenario at 3fps, 6fps and 12fps was. Here's the results (also in the shared google spreadsheet that's pinned at the top of this forum). My results were that in actuality the HF-1 puts out more power at each frame rate than the Marelux Apollo 3 despite the latter marketing its MTL feature heavily. (I have no incentive to make this up -- I own the Marelux Apollo 3 and have been trying to sell my 2 units since.. 2 years ago :)) Strobe GN @ 3fps GN @ 6fps GN @ 12fps Backscatter HF-1 16 11 8.5 Backscatter MF-2 13 2.8 2.8 Supe D-Pro 13 10 8 Marelux Apollo 3 11 7.1 6.3 Ikelite DS230 11 0 0 Inon S-220 10 5.6 5 Sea & Sea YS-D3 9 4.5 4.5 Seacam 160D Retra Pro Max

A fellow WaterPixel user asked me if it would be possible to make a hard dome port cap for a new port. They were not comfortable with the provided neoprene cover and wanted something that would provide more protection in and out of the water. I considered it for a bit and came up with the following design for a "universal" dome port cap. It's a parametric model so a port cap can be generated from just a couple of dimensions, providing it's for a conventional dome port style. I prototyped it for a Nauticam 140mm dome port and made another version of the users 6-inch dome. I printed this in a very tough TPU with a 68-shore hardness. It's flexible but quite rigid. I used an open face grid design to avoid the typical resistance that makes removing port caps harder than necessary. A pair of clips hold the cap in place, with bungees for a more secure connection. What do folks think of this design? I've not tested it in the water yet but will soon. Nauticam 140mm and 6-inch dome: (the smaller part in the photos is incomplete...)

For sale a never been wet Big Blue VTL2600 P (in pink) with 2 batteries and charger. The batteries are NOT the Big Blue ones, my Big Blue battery refuses to charge. Great light 2600 lumens wide, 1000 lumen spot + red. New this was $439, for sale $225 shipped in the U.S. Bill

Updated the Lens descriptions to better describe the lenses: AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED (**This ultra wide-angle lens, designed exclusively for use with Nikon’s DX-format, provides a versatile wide-angle zoom perspective.) AF-P DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR Tokina AT-X Fisheye DX 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 Kenko N-AF 1.4X Teleplus Pro 300 Teleconverter AF-S DX Nikkor 55-200 f/4-5.6G ED VR (for topside photos) (**Big versatility. Compact design.Powerful DX-format 3.6x zoom lensThe AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 55–200mm f/4-5.6G ED offers compact versatility with a powerful focal length range of 55-200mm designed exclusively for Nikon DX-format DSLRs. It’s an ideal 3.6x zoom lens for portraiture, sports or wildlife photography and an excellent companion to the AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18–55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED.) ** These statements came from the nikonusa.com website

Going diving in 10 days and will see if i can analyze. The hose is stiff. Will provide more feedback as I troubleshoot the issue.

Yep, we stayed at Buceo but way back in December 2017. Black sand diving, definitely macro, accommodation was arranged up a steep hill, all boat diving with no house reef. Thats about the best I can do!

Good points. Thank you. If Tim does not chime in, I may send him a message. I can see that both are solid choices. Do you feel the shore dives on the house reefs are more-or-less equal or is one of them "better." Not sure I wold spend much time there given the number of boat locations available, but curious.

No worries. One thing I didn’t mention before is the amount of open space at each place. Crystal Blue essentially takes up the slope with buildings and decks and has little in the way of gardens around it. Buceo is much more open feeling with lots of green. They are not so far apart so there is no difference in access or travel time to dive sites. Maybe Tim will chime in too about Buceo, I know he liked it very much. Both are nicely done in their own way and I don’t think you can go wrong at either. Being around Mike and his vast experience and enthusiasm for a week should be factored into the decision as well.

Guys, Just to let you know, if someone contemplates replacing the front glass element of a Subal macro port with the curved front element of the Zen WA-100 EP port, it will not work. The front glass element of the Subal port is about 99.9 mm, whilst the one on the Zen WA-100 EP port is about 103.8 mm. I was led to believe their sizes were the same, but it turned out they are not.

I was thinking about WeeFine WED-7 or -5 Pro underwater monitor…

For me there is a very significant improvement with long macros as well, though different people have different standards for what is/isn't acceptable.

Hi Michi, I normally use the Nauticam 35.5mm N100/N120 adapter plus the 25mm&35mm N120 extensions (totally 60mm) for the Nauticam 140mm domeport. When 8-15mm fisheye alone, I take just the 30mm N120 extension... User Dreifish made careful testing for ideal positioning with regard to entrance pupil and recommends 5mm more. I tested this also, but did not find a noticeable difference in IQ and often the raw files showed vignetting, probably due to sensor IS and unstable holding of the setup...

All of the strobes have fired at least 1000 times now, HF-1 tens of thousands at least. I won't be doing any static in water testing.

This has been an excellent rig for me over the years. I just got a new rig for a Nikon D850. Looking forward to your DM.

Didn't you make A/B comparison yet (just topside shots)? My commlite is on it's way...

So... update! This is what I heard. S&S made some trials with existing ports but didn't get very good results. Apparently they now aim to design and produce a new flat port suitable for 24-50 and WWL-C use, and also a 24-50 zoom gear. Hopefully this will exist in about three months. If that turns to reality, it's very good news for me. Much more wallet friendly than switching to Nauticam everything.

yeah, 8-15 without TC is a beauty... sharpness and microcontrast are TOP!

you're welcomed. Have you decided on monitor yet? Curious.

Thx for your Feedback! Good to know! I once had an issue underwater with strange Camera behavior after several overheating warnings (in normal Mode)… I am about to buy a monitor…

oopsie ... was on an orca trip back then and didnt check back... not wanting to be seen as ignorant 🙈 no worries about heat damage again, camera will switch itself off well ahead of such problem even with temp set to HIGH as for the monitor - using it achieves 2 goals. One is "heat from lcd screen operation elimination" - you can leave screen off in both 'clean hdmi' and 'control display' and second is the battery longevity as LCD does consume energy. But even with this I can overheat the camera - especially when I keep recording after pressing wrong lever (you know that rocker lever one for recording and the other side for focus) I leave camera recording for many minutes accidentally 🙈🤣 (and i have no idea since I am not looking at the camera at all, I am only using clean HDMI on monitor which doesnt show controls) 🤣

Just want to report back that I am using the 8-15mm fisheye with Kenko 1.4x and 2.0x TC on a Canon, unable to take advantage of the Sony 2.0x TC…. but… … recently I got myself the comlite EF RF and modified it to host the Canon RF 1.4x TC. I am really curious to try this and consider buying also the RF 2.0x TC to upgrade my IQ by a small fraction.

I think this supports also the 5% measurement and test + item variation delta I previously pointed out. Also a fresh from the factory strobe will be brighter than one that already has fired a few hundred shots. So no need in beating a dead horse and over-doing and over-interpreting these land tests. What would be interesting though is a beam (1-1.5m) wall test submerged in water to see the different dome and reflector designs come into play.