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I just came across Sea and Sea's 1200 lumen video light. Not cheap, but not outrageous at $385. It has 5400k color temp and 90 CRI. The Weefine Smartfocus 4000 is more powerful on paper--not sure how accurate any of these numbers are? Backscatter.comSea & Sea LX-1200SW FS Underwater Video LightSea & Sea LX-1200SW FS Underwater Video Light: No looseness in both wide and spot light "single light source/center light distribution" for a clean and beautiful image.

@waterpixel I thought I might as well address your questions for the rest of the community. I suspect that there is very little awareness or information about the Sea & Sea 12mm out there, so I'm happy to help with my extensive experience depending on it exclusively for several years. Do you use focus peaking? One of my biggest reasons for depending on the Sea & Sea 12mm instead of Nikonos 15mm is that critical focus isn't nearly as much a concern, on account of the 12mm being a fisheye while the Nikonos is not. The wider the FOV, the bigger the depth of field in general with lenses. As a freediving and wide angle shooter, as opposed to a SCUBA-equipped macro shooter, it was important to me to not have to worry about critical focus. So I simply shot at smaller apertures, f/8 - 11 mostly, to ensure that my depth of field was so large that everything in my composition was in focus. I could do small aperture with the Nikonos 15mm too, but the fisheye FOV of the 12mm still provided significantly more focus dependability. That said, if you've got the time while underwater (I was on breath-hold), you certainly could take advantage of the focus peaking feature. I would consider it if I had to shoot at larger aperture due to ambient light constraint, or if subject especially close to camera, but I didn't have to worry about it for most everything I shot. Everything was simply in focus all the time. This was also important to me for video, where adjusting focus while filming wouldn't be ideal. How far behind the mount does the lens element extend? The element doesn't extend behind the mount at all. In the first two attached images I have the Nauticam mount on the Sea & Sea 12mm (left; right lens is Nikonos 15mm; wanted to show how comparable in size they are; identical height, 12mm just 0.5" wider). The only thing extending behind the mount is the built-in silicone flange that sits perfectly in front of the camera lens opening. The Sea & Sea 12mm is identical to the Nikonos 15mm (and other Nikonos lenses) as far as the mount and compatibility. The godfather of Nikonos lenses, Pawel Achtel (who devised the 3D UW filming solution for Avatar 2), lists those here (https://achtel.com/3deep/, https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17fZ8A5vKT/). With the Nauticam adapter you can use any of these lenses. Achtel is just as much a fan of the Sea & Sea 12mm as the Nikonos 15mm (https://www.facebook.com/share/17afUA2CPd/, https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1XT3qT2zG3/, https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17FSRFEyWL/). Want to add the Sea & Sea 12mm to your wet lens quiver, and see why I preferred it over the Nikonos 15mm? I've got one or two for sale! $600. 😃

As already stated, Stix are pretty much the standard if they provide enough flotation. On an 8" arm I can fit 2.5 of them for a total of about 450g of buoyancy. I use Stix, but they often just aren't enough and I need to add something more. If you want/need the serious buoyancy arms, the Inon megas are much less expensive than the Nauticams and I have never heard of them leaking, but they aren't quite as floaty as the same size nauticams. But close. The Nauticam carbon arms provide the most buoyancy but are overpriced. Nevertheless, I use them when I need all the floatyness I can get. In that case I will pair two of the Inon or Nauticam float arms with an arm with Stix on it. I generally use the jumbo ones and have cut some in half for additional flexibility in flotation. There are other brands out there, but I don't know much about them. By the way, if you go much beyond 130' deep, the Stix will compress and they don't regain their shape right away. By about 150' feet, they lose a lot of their buoyancy.

I've had pretty good luck with the DivTek brank on Aliexpress. Only complaint is the anodizing on the balls isn't as strong as ULCS or Nauticam. I also have a set of ULCS float arms but they don't have the lift for my housing. Too bad since they are bomb proof.

Ebay and Amazon are full of inexpensive float arms. Most of them work quite well. Couple of things, unlike some float arms from the camera housing companies they have no internal connection between the end caps. They often leak, usually if they are going to it will be on the first few dives. When you begin to ascend, the arm becomes pressurized and blows the end cap off. Yes, this has happened, to me. I dumped the water out and glued it back together with epoxy adhesive and it is still in use. Yep, one of those carbon fiber arms in the pic. The Stix/ULCS arms have been in service maybe for two decades, probably longer: [url=https://postimages.org/][img]https://i.postimg.cc/G3KX4QBt/Unknown.jpg[/img][/url] I have a couple of sets of inexpensive float arms I have used on many dives over several years. One of my dive buddies had the same sort of arms and one of his flooded also but ti did not pop apart, just had water sloshing around inside and loss of some buoyancy. So, I guess it can be hit or miss. For absolute reliability, aside from Nauticam or equal floats, the Stix floats on ULCS arms is possibly the best way to go.

If he wants that port and gear I'm going to sell mine. Was going to package it with a GH4 and housing but I could sell separately. You'd need the 45 port for the shorter macros.

Does anyone know the color temp of these? I have just spent 15 minutes looking, even downloading the manual, with n success. I am pretty confident they are cool, probably around 6000-6500, but the actual temp rating appears to be a secret, or my internet search skills are lacking today. 2. Does the remote control work feature with any master strobe, or does it require only another Backscatter strobe as the trigger? The manual and promotional stuff seems to suggest a Backscatter strobe is required, but there is not great clarity and they would surely prefer that customers use the same brand, so there may not be much incentive to be clear on that point. Thank you

I used a previous version of this light. It's the typical cheap Chinese underwater video lamp you can buy on AliExpress around 50-60 Euro. It's not a high CRI light, it's strong but has a typical "blueish" light. I ordered some warm filter for it to upgrade but finally I've never tried. I've checked the homepage you linked and this one looks more interesting: LetonPower Official StoreLetonPower Shark CB 6000 Lumens White/Yellow/Blue/Red Mul...Shark CX Underwater Video Light, 6000 Lumens 5500K, 7 Lighting Modes, CRI 96, 120° Illumination Angle.

Nope, Panaleica 45mm and Pana 30mm share the same port 45.

I agree with Dave. My ULCS stuff is 20+ years old and mt Stix 15. All still good!

Hi bearaway Always great to see an old Wetpixel hand here. There’ll be lots of names you recognise. Great to have you with us. A warm welcome to your new home!

It is tough to do better than good old ULCS aluminum grid arms with Stix Jumbo float blocks. They cost less than the Nauticam float arms and they WILL last a lifetime. They are pretty much indestructible. I am still using ULCS arms that I bought 20 years ago. Change the o-rings every decade or so, and you'll be set.

Hi guys, I'm an old wetpixeler (originally joined in 2003), those days I'm based in new york. Not diving much lately and occasional trip every few years, though in the last couple years mostly kept it to French Polynesia during humpback whale season and diving in Rangiroa I broke one of my old Inon Z240 strobe last year and weighting whether I should find an old used one or upgrade for the next 10 years, so will probably post a few questions to ask for feedback from people diving more than I am. Underwater gear is a Nikon D500, Ikelite dl housing, tokina 10-17 (haven't touched the macro stuff for a while but might come back to it) Trying to see if I can have couple trips this year!

Hi Wolgang @Architeuthis Years ago I had exactly the same problem.... float arms are expensive very expensiv... And before you find the good setup (before you change some part, lens or... ) you will need to buy bigger smaller, longer, shorter etc.. to find the good combination. NOOO Thanks it's the reason I started with DIY... I spend a lot of money with that.... learned a lot... and now I have THE solution (for me) If I need more beyoncy I can calculate how many more volumeI I need... and change my arm to achieve the target. (for the opposit the same ;) ) OK it's a little work, time and some money but I have exactly what I want. I don't know how many know how you have in DIY (3D Printing in this case) but it will be good to explore this direction

I am thinking to purchase one, maybe two, high buoyancy, float arms (When using only a single strobe with snoot for macro photography, I do not have enough space to mount all floats required to the single remaining arm)... When I look at the prices for float arms, I see that a single arm can cost around 200 Euros (e.g.: https://www.nauticam.com/products/90x170mm-carbon-fiber-aluminum-float-arm-buoyancy-450g). While I find it o.k. to pay hundreds or even thousands of Euros for lenses, camera, housing and similar sophisticated gear, I find this price for a comparably simple item of equipment rather daring... In the internet I see that similar float arms can be purchased at a wide price range from a variety of sources, also at substantially lower prices. The range goes from other brands with good names, similar to Nauticam, but substantially cheaper (e.g. Inon, just to name a brand) down to brands that are known for budget prices (e.g. Seafrogs)... My experience with cheap and highly priced simple items is not always the same, so far: #1.: I have a set of regular Nauticam arms (S, M, L and XL) and the quality is good. Previously I was using a set of budget arms ("D&D"). The only difference that I was able to detect is, that the Nauticam are slightly lighter, what is a small advantage when travelling by air, otherwise the "performance" is pretty identical. #2.: The clamps are a different story: The ones from Nauticam last now for years, while the cheap ones lost their grip after about 1 year. Here the saying "buy cheap, buy twice" applies and I always would buy Nauticam clamps again.. Hence my question whether there exist differences in performance and durability between different manufacturers and whether someone could recommend budget priced float arms that are of good quality... Thank you, Wolfgang

This is most excellent news! I was thinking it would fit. Good to know. The 30mm macro may also fit? He doesn’t have the special gear needed to flip the macro switch mid-dive and I’m not a fan of $800+ to add it. I prefer to dive/photo with purpose rather than a do-everything approach.

AOI UH-ACT + UMG-01 Magnifier lcd viewfinder 已經開始預售了！運動相機共享防水殼昨天開賣含廣角鏡套裝已經達到3位數訂單！感謝大家的支持台灣首發將於1月底2月初開始發放也是全球第一批首發預售連結 AOI 水下光學攝影器材-台….mp4

apparently

Filmed was done without tripod second time doing macro with gopro + UCL-03 lens Subject was too big for close up.... Subject was not static and its not slow has a nudibranch or shrimp (focus is 4-to 8cm) Filmed 5.3k 30fps, instead of 4K60 to slow down in post. Its trial and error thing

My understanding is that this is true; if you want any form of TTL, you need to purchase a Backscatter trigger and use that instead of your UWT. I was interested in this issue as well because although I have not used TTL for quite some time, on a recent macro-only trip I switched to TTL part way through the trip, out of curiosity, and was very impressed with the results, and may start using that mode for future macro and was thinking a single small strobe with snoot would be interesting. That lack of TTL, if desired, would severely limit the choices in a smaller macro strobe, since there are few of those that offer TTL and accommodate a snoot. If the snoot were not an issue, the Inon S220 would likely be my choice.

Many thanks! Seems their Smartfocus 4000 model is getting close. Will investigate if I'd be significantly better with that compared to a Leton L15+CTO filter. Not cheap but at least not Keldan money...

Yeah, that's my problem too. SOME (but far from all...) "Aliexpress" lights do deliver near the lumen figures they claim, or at least "bright enough for the money". BUT they do that at 6500K that becomes like 10'000K with a subject distance of 0.5m and have literally a Mariana Trench in the middle of their color spectrum, around @480nm. After days of hunting I found CRI's very rarely quoted, and as with everything in life, I highly suspect that that's for a reason. I got another idea: get a pair of really bright but cheap lights and leave my snorkeling orange filter on, acting as a full CTO color temperature corrector. That'll likely affect CRI/R9/the overall SPECTRUM of the lightsource positively while sacrificing maybe 30% of the light intensity. Started a separate topic with a candidate (Leton L15): I am reluctant to shell out $600+ on lights that are still of questionable CRI, not to mention $4k on Keldans that do what everybody should do...

I have an opportunity to pick up a second hand Leton Power L15 light, pricing seems quite attractive for the claimed output. Does anybody have experience with this manufacturer? I am looking for high CRI lights for my gopro setup, this might be a useful start. Claimed CRI 90 needs to be valid though and thought about further improving that with a filter sacrificing maybe 2-3k Lumens. 4000k, CRI95+ video lights seem to be rainbow unicorn category at down to earth prices...

Just a thought/question... Granted, we are always concerned about corrosion caused by salt water but when talking about the type of corrosion or damage caused to contacts as addressed by Sealife in their instructions or as shown in some of the photos earlier in this thread, I got to thinking about it and wondered if any moisture in a battery compartment, combined with high electrical current and/or heat could cause the type of damage we have been discussing. Some brief research suggests that is so. Overall it was dry and technical reading, but the AI summary (I know, but still) is this: High humidity can lead to condensation on electrical contacts, causing corrosion and rust, which can damage the connections. Additionally, heat combined with humidity can exacerbate these issues, leading to electrical failures and reduced performance of devices. putnammechanical.com cable-world.co.uk When diving we are generally in high humidity environments, or at least I am. Perhaps as we increase the power demands of lights and strobes and the energy provided by more powerful batteries, the increased heat and current combined the moisture in the air alone can cause damage?

Why the footage was out of focus?