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Hi @pdxDiver Thanks for this nice travel report and also nice photo. Hugues

It's not going to be first vs second curtain sync, that just moves the timing of the pulse from the beginning to the end of the exposure. I don't know of any explanation apart from shooting at higher than the maximum sync speed. Shooting macro you would notice any other issues like dark background water as the exposure is entirely from the strobe. Look at the EXIF data in your original files, what ever you use to process the images will report the shutter speed used. More than likely you could review the images in camera and get it to report the aperture/shutter/ISO used.

Hi @Oskar - Retra UWT I'm on a diving trip... again I didn't turn my Retra Max II of back in the room. Ok it's my fault but to old Pro X had the green or other color on it was evident that the strobes are not off. --> again the next day.... batteries empty. Please give the information to the developer of the firmeware.... The strobe need to Beep or what ever if on more than 30 min for exemple without made a flash. It is realy the only one problem I see with the new Max II Batterie life is so much better in comparaison of the Pro X.

Does Retra have a pre-flash learning mode? You want that to be OFF. If there is no way to force it off, it could be a trigger problem. I've reported and had issues with the Nauticam trigger before, but with Backscatter strobes. In my case Backscatter was able to get Nauticam to send me a replacement trigger with modified firmware to address the problem. Contact Retra directly and discuss the Nauticam manual trigger with them.

A couple of Marlin, Sealion, and Baitball photos!

Hi all, Just getting around to putting together a trip report from our trip to Indonesia this summer. See the link to my blog post below. https://blog.pdxdiver.io/posts/2025-indo2025/

Wow!!!!

Aloha and welcome @skeptic14_uw

This is clearly something else, on minimum power they should allow for rapid firing, something is preventing this. The suggestions I posted above are test for potential issues. My first inclination is a problem with the trigger, online I see various issues reported with the Z8 and trying to sync with manual flashes.

Hi, welcome to our new den. I am sure you will find many familiar names again. Ciao

I'll try this out later with my Retra Pro Max strobes. I seem to remember struggling with burst shooting above 1/2 power but under that it was okay.

Hi, was previously a member before the recent drama and move to this new site. Glad to see this site is "back"!

I just recalled that Henley Spiers has shown the RETRA fast recycle time performance in his review: https://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-special-features/article/first-impressions-marelux-apollo-iii-2-0-strobe It‘s showing a lot of struggle at 7fps. The Marelux strobe smokes the oneUW and RETRA in this discipline.

It's been discussed here and also I think on old Wetpixel forum, here's one link I found: There are probably other posts as well.

10fps are done at easy with Marelux strobes at full power in their ultra-fast MTL mode. But you have to use them in MTL and with fibre optic cable (not Lumilink) to squeeze out the maximum repetitive performance. They are currently leading the fast recycle time without blackout frame technology in underwater strobes. Here on the forum is a pretty dismal measurement of mx strobe strength by dreifish though - something I could not agree to when comparing it 1to1 to my Backscatter HF-1. I can only assume the Apollo tested by Dreifish must have been a monday model or malfunctioning pre-production unit. On any AA eneloop powered strobe you will struggle to get fast recycle times near 8 - 12fps. You need a strobe which utilizes 18650 or 21700 high current discharge cells. Otherwise the capacitors cannot fill back up at the speed you desire.

Sold on Gumtree

You should be able to look at the meta data in an image file to see the shutter speeds and other settings.

Funny about the tools. When I used to go to Cozumel often, airport security coming back to the USA would not allow ANY batteries other than those installed in things to be carried on...Lithium, Eneloops, Energizers...it did not mater. I learned this from having numerous eneloops and alkaline batteries taken away. Of course TSA in the U.S. did not allow lithiums in luggage and if I packed a bunch of eneloops in luggage, I had trouble staying under the allowed weight and my bags were frequently opened and inspected, which I worried about. So between myself and my wife and my son, I started taking about a dozen cheap flashlights or other battery-operated devices in carry-ons, all stuffed with batteries. Worked great and I still have the electronic Trojan horses around here somewhere. Then on one trip I asked my son to pack my tool kit for me, because I was close to the max weight. He put my tools in his carry-on. So much for my tool kit.... But I no longer go to Cozumel to dive due to the camera and lens scam. I just am not going to play that. Plenty of other locations where customs agents don't try to rob me. Frankly, the way airfare is now, I get to the Caymans, St. Maarten, Fiji, Tahiti or the Philippines for not much more than it costs to go to Cozumel, although it does take longer.

I dont remember what shutter speed I had. I was wondering if this was an issue after losing all my previous settings and knowing myself, I was probably "trying a bunch of different things to see if I could get rid of the black horizontal line", then the strobe cratered before I learned anything.

Great shots! While i'm familiar with Nikonos adapter for Nauticam, are there similar ones for the Sea&Sea lens?

What was your shutter speed? If you set the shutter faster than the sync speed of the camera, you get a partly black vertical band. A quick search says the max sync (shutter) speed for the Canon 7D is 1/250th of a second. Anything faster than that will create a black curtain.

Has anyone shot the basic Sony 28-70 behind WACP? I'm asking because I was doing some cleaning and found that I had it, but never used it. How does it compare with the 28-60 (which I own and love for its size/quality). Thank you Alex

Illustrated review of shooting the Sony 100mm in Lembeh is up on YouTube:

Hello, Way back in 2011 I bought a Canon 7D and ikelite housing (80mm lens for macro), and sea and sea strobe via TTL sync cord. Everything worked well. Fast forward to 2023, I dug everything out of the case as I booked a dive trip, and I updated the firmware on the camera, erasing all the settings I had previously (dumb move on my part). Problem I was having on the first couple of dives was getting a solid black, horizontal line in the bottom 1/3 of the photo. In conversation with another diver with a camera he suggested I needed to go from 1st to second curtain in my settings. Between the 1st and second dives I pulled the camera out of the housing to make the changes and neglected to turn off the strobe. When I was reinserting the camera into the housing I hit the shutter button and the strobe fired full blast as the protective cover was over the front port. This fried the strobe. So I was never able to test if this solved the issue. Has anyone experienced a similar issue? Do you think that was the issue? He described it as the mirror still being in the way (on 1st curtain). Thank you in advance! T

Good work @johnvila . Keep on going.