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Thanks Chris!!! I found online a test with the 12-32 and the guy didn’t had vignettes also at 12mm… but I think he was with the M67 old wwl1… although zooming in a notch isn’t a big issue.. 😅 Thanks again! 😉

Hmmm, not sure I've seen anything I'd call strobe brand bashing. Well not since the old Sea & Sea issue anyway. Seems to me these are all perfectly good strobes we're talking about. We all have brand preferences based on personal experience, a specific feature or just their good looks. Producing truly accurate comparisons is incredibly difficult given the vagaries of environment, set up, batteries etc. Some amazing work has been posted here by folks who have put hours of work and thought into testing - for which, massive thanks. After that, yeah, I'm sure one can be tweaked slightly differently from another. But aren't we getting a bit beyond the point? Take your pictures and enjoy them. No matter how perfect the bit of gear might be, something underwater is going to lead to some sort of degradation in perfomance.

Thanks for the Eizo recommendation. I’d seen that brand mentioned, but am not familiar with it. Will dig deeper. I came across this 6k 52” from Dell that is intriguing as it promises to work with up to 4 computers simultaneously, working as a single monitor or multiple monitors. Dell 52” Wide 6k Monitor

No please do not get me wrong. I am not saying anything is better. The HF-1 is a tick stronger than my Apollo III 2.0 when put to +2 mode and you do not want to utilize burst shooting. But when you want high fps strobe burst shooting it seems to me that no other manufacturer has mastered this technology than Marelux. Maybe also the other competing companies did just not aim their design at this particular discipline. And I just want to say that I have noticed that this particular aspect of the product seems to get downplayed in many reviews or comments during the last 1.5 years. Most reviewers seem to have adapted their testing ground to an fps level or use case that the competitor products still can cope with. The only guy who can not be critiqued for being an Ambassador and having written a fair independent review about the Apollo III is Henley Spiers on DPG. Many others seem downplay the aspect and image opportunity of high fps strobe shooting, even if they found the product to perform that decently during their tests. I own and paid both strobes (HF-1 and Apollo III) and think their are both great tools where they go stellar in different disciplines. My impression is that for some reason I do not understand there seems to be some kind of Marelux or Apollo bashing going on or beeing popular to say - and just few people credit this brand of having introduced a new piece of tech that others still need to catch up to. The whole thing with the high fps downplay reminds me of my old Hugyfot housing, when that brand introduced vacuum systems on their housings as the only manufacturer around. Everybody else was making fun about them for this and said „our housings also seal without this“. Look now 20 years later and vacuum valves and pumps on housings are a standard. Especially on brands that were shouting Extra loud against them in the period were they did not sell this technology.

Thx a lot! Vignetting should be only between 8-11,2 correct?

I would observe that we have two independent people stating the HF-1 out performs the Apollo III strobe and one person reporting that the Apollo III is better compared to their HF-1. Surely it's equally possible that the HF-1s in question(or their batteries) are under performing compared to the Apollo III samples as the only data available is the comparative performance of the strobe samples that are owned. It could also be related to the batteries being used in each model as these seem to critical to achieving this sort of performance. Backscatter in particular are quite vocal about using the right type of battery and it's not unheard of for batteries to lose performance after some use.

As you suspect, for my gear combination (OM-1, AOI housing, Atom flashes), the flash output would be reduced if Super FP (OM name for HSS) is ON, but shutter speed is below flash sync speed of 1/250. Super FP should only be used at speeds above that, then. As I understand it, other cameras might support Auto FP where this would not be true.

That seems a bit different from what you said in the video. I actually stumbled across it again while trying to find Dr. Alex Mustard’s Marelux Apollo review. It’s not easy to locate, because the review is kind of “hidden” under a subtle title and isn’t as heavily keyworded or clearly titled as the RETRA strobe episodes on The Underwater Photography Show. As a regular viewer and big fan of the show, I’d like to suggest something: maybe you could give the Marelux “Apollo S” and “Apollo III (revisited)” strobes their own dedicated episode, so they’re covered as fairly and prominently as the Retras and Krakens—which have been episode headliners, sometimes with less overall content. Anyway,... Thanks to ChatGPT I was able to pull out a well formatted and still exact quote from the videos transcript. This is actually where you 100% confirm my experience with the Apollo III 2.0 ... The Backscatter HF-1 on quarter power will approx the same at 1/4 power as the Apollo III 2.0 at FULL in MTL - It will hold it's stamina at 12fps .CR3 RAWs for approx 1000 frames. And the Apollo holds its stamina: it can keep up at around 12 fps shooting CR3 RAW bursts for roughly 1,000 frames. In my case, the limiting factor is my camera buffer * — not the Apollo III strobe. With the HF-1 set to 1/4 power and trying the same kind of burst, the strobe quickly starts producing blackout frames or underexposed frames every few shots. * Well,... if you cross 1000 shots the battery cells in any strobe also become a limiting factor. When there is talk about power drain, I can confirm that firing above 800 shots will drain strobe batteries... but not light output provided in MTL by the strobe. That is until you cross a critical battery level signaled by the strobe indicator light going yellow or purple.

I shot the Apollo III for both oceanics in the Red Sea and blackwater in Anilao (see below). I shot the Apollo S during the day in Anilao.

@Alex_Mustard Didn't you shoot Apollo S strobes, not Apollo III 2.0 in blackwater ? From what I understand smaller sized Apollo S are supposed to be much weaker than HF-1. I just recall you not finding the MTL mode when you had Apollo III 2.0 in the Red Sea with Oceanic Whitetips? You must have gotten distracted by the lovely bouncing batteries, you were so enchanted about 😏

Great Job and some very inspirational imaging in the video! The complete system is quite a canon though. 😂 Question: I noticed the test person shooting the OS-3 most times had two aiming lights coming out of the OS-3. Could you find out if it the HF-1 was used in spot-light mode or will the flood light also produce these two beams? Furthermore, can the crossing of these two beams (paralax) be used for something, such as finding the optimal working distance for the OS-3 + HF-1 ? I assume this would be where the beams cross? "Crossing The Streams" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyKQe_i9yyo

I should have also mentioned - you can stay on a shallower part of almost all the dive sites in Anilao and work on your technique, etc. Just let your guide know a head of time... I've done this quite a few times... as long as you stay somewhat near the boat your group will reunite with you eventually ;)

The Europeans solved this problem a long time ago - they just book ~3 week+ vacations ;) Seriously - I dived with a guy from Gernany years ago in Sangalaki. We were there for ~9 days and didn't want to miss a dive (ever). He was there for 22 dive days, and started with 1-2 dives a day for the first few days... he did the first couple of days without his camera - just getting used to the diving. There were a couple of days where he wanted to take a nap after lunch, missing a dive, etc. Definitely a much more laid back approach ;)

I have a naive question on HSS generally: When camera and flash are operating in HSS mode, but one selects a shutter speed slower than the fastest flash sync. speed possible, is the maximal flash output still reduced, compared to manual mode?

Matthew and I recorded this last week about the Maxi. Not much new here - we summarise a lot of what is in this thread. But we do show lots of photos taken with the Maxis and also video of us shooting with the strobes.

I found the same thing using the Apollo strobes vs the Backscatter HF1s shooting blackwater back in March. Working in the desirable range of 2-4 frames a second shooting blackwater (you really don't need to shoot faster than that), I found the HF1 always gave me more light than the Apollo. Marelux suggested there might be something wrong with both of their strobes I was using.

The field can be estimated same way as any lens and 8-15 with 1.4x becomes a 11-21mm lens. You still get the full 180deg diagonal at 15mm actual focal length, this means 11-14.9mm (actual focal length vignettes with the corners dark, similar to what you see between 8 and 15mm on the bare lens. I've done the calculations assuming an equisolid fisheye projection and with the 1.4x at 15mm FL (11.2mm on the zoom ring) the horizontal field is 144 deg, while zoomed all the way in to 21mm the field is 96 deg wide which is about equivalent to 16mm rectilinear lens. Comparing horizontal fields gives a better idea of coverage in my view.

Big rabbit hole!

Hello, thanks for the useful Feedback to @Wolfgang @Adventurer @jjmochi . Unfortunately I have the Sigma mc-11 and an Old Version of metabones nex to ef - my 1.4 tc doesn’t fit (like written in here before - the tc is too big and hole of Adapter to small but now you know mc-11 doesn’t fit as well… before I Jump In buying a new metabones Adapter: do you know if with the tc you can still zoom to have a wider field of view (like 180 degree field on the normal widest end 15mm without TC)? It would be critical for me to have a big coverage and a bit Zoom would be amazing)…Thx in Advance

Hi, 100% agree with Chris. Eizo is the benchmark. Tested several monitor and ended up with Eizo for my picture editing. Little pricey, but really true color after right calibration, long warranty and no dead pixel. And my monitor is working for years now without any issue. Second monitor together wit the Eizo I use a cheap LG but this one is only for the toolbars, open folders, rename/edit files etc., not for picture editing. Br Markus

There are lots of monitor choices around these days, but the field for truly colour accurate monitors is much more limited. I have a pair of Eizo color edge monitors, One is a CS2731 and the other is a more basic Eizo model. I use the good panel for my image and the second screen will have the various toolbars, like actions, libraries, history etc on it. It is also used when I need another app open and visible at the same time. Realistically as far as I have been able to work out Windows only properly supports one monitor profile, though I haven't dug in more deeply recently. If I recall correctly I calibrated the secondary panel once and used a workaround to apply the calibration. One of the reasons to have a high end monitor is so that they can be calibrated well to show the full colour gamut they are capable of, so to me it makes sense to have one good quality monitor and a second for more pedestrian work that doesn't need the colour accuracy. I think you won't go wrong with Eizo panels. Though they mostly have 27" panels and some larger ones in the high end CG range but they are quite pricey. They have good warranty cover and dead pixel policy. This company is enthusiastic about colour accuracy and you read their monitor recommendations here, they recommend Eizo and for cheaper monitors BenQ range: Monitor Recommendations | Image Science

Is this the boundary you measured?

118mm OD 45mm height It's a wet lens but these dimensions should work

I'm looking to upgrade my 2x27" generic HP monitors to one or two 32" monitors that can work with my PC as well as with my MacBook. I'll just use the PC for basic computer tasks, and use my MacBook for Lightroom and iMovie editing. The Apple Pro seems to be a safe if very expensive choice, and not so good with the PC. I see a lot of rave reviews of the ASUS 6k monitor. Benq seems to get good reviews for a combination of photo and video editing.

The issue with the 12-32 is you need to zoom in to 14mm to stop the vignette, a minor inconvenience I guess. I recall that the non-pancake Panasonic 14-42 was tested some time back and found to give the best performance.