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F11 is the bare minimum. F13 and F16 are necessary sometimes and who cares about diffraction 😀 On these macro shots a tripod is mandatory. What NLE are you using? On Davinci Resolve, the Midtone details tool makes miracles. It's a micro-contrast tool that sharpens or softens areas with high edge definition. Ciao

Hi @Chris Ross , I have version 1 of the EF to m43 Metabones adapter and I am having issues with AF-C to the point I can only use it with AF-S which is not great for moving subjects and forces me to recompose all the time or get the odd blurry shot every now and then. I am running the latest firmware on the adapter and the camera (OM-1). I was wondering if version II which claims to have full PDAF compatibility has this issue. Have you used the 8-15 with AF-C or AF-C + tracking? Cheers

@Alex_Mustard has published an excellent review of his OPP test drive in Raja Ampat on his homepage, which can be found here: https://www.amustard.com/seacam_opp/ What I especially liked and found very helpful to sort all the optical choices is the AOV graph he provided as a slide in this review. It especially emphasizes the range of the FCP that jumps right into your face when viewing the graph. I personally wondered how the popular Canon EF 8-15mm fisheye with teleconverter solutions would fit into that scale and created this refined graph:

Hi Adrian, I am currently shooting the OM1 mk2, also in an AOI housing with SUPE D-Pro strobes. I use Standard Live View for all underwater photography, and I shoot a fair bit of macro. I too have found the LCD can be dark in some situations, and to compensate I increase the brightness of the LCD screen. You must always remember though that it is not giving a true indication of exposure, so to assist me in this regard I also have a histogram included on my LCD information, and use that to adjust my composition, lighting and exposure. I find it helps me also finding smaller subjects. I have found a similar situation to @Chris Ross in that images tend under-exposed slightly, but thats how I like my images, so it doesn't worry me too much. I have been using the AOI LCD viewfinder accessory attached to the LCD bracket of the back of the housing for some time now, and have got to the point where I would not dive without it. It does take some getting used to though. I found using the camera viewfinder itself is a quite limiting, as @Chris Ross said.

Thanks a lot James. I’m familiar with your work on the A7S III (the Lembeh WB-at-depth test is gorgeous and really impressive!) and I’m happy to hear you’re still using this camera after all these years. I understand what you mean about the higher base ISO, and I really don’t think shooting Log is worth it for what I do (which doesn’t involve sending footage to a third party for grading or matching multiple cameras), so I’ll follow your advice. In my experience, artificial-light-dominant footage just doesn’t require as much adjustment, so getting it right in camera does seem like the best approach in this case. Just to be clear, when you say "standard picture profile" do you mean turning Picture Profiles Off (rather than using PP1 / Movie), or are you referring to PP1 (movie standard)? It's interesting that you mention doing a custom white balance to the lights, as that was exactly what I was planning to try today. I use three main lights (Kraken Hydras and an MW4300), and on my previous camera I settled on a fixed 4700 K white balance to better integrate the warmer MW4300. I was thinking of setting up a custom white balance on the Sony instead for better accuracy. Edit- I just did the custom balance test, and result is surpringly close to what I had: with the Hydras + MW4300 in spot mode, 4900K and M2, and with the Hydras + MW4300 in wide mode, 4700K and M2.

Honestly, my biggest piece of advice for underwater video: DON'T SHOOT LOG. Film in the standard picture profile. I see a lot of people using Log just because they watched a YouTube video recommending it, but Log is really designed for shooters on land. Here's the issue: with Log, you're forced into a higher base ISO. Underwater, we are already in a dark environment, so boosting our ISO even higher means most Log footage just looks really noisy. Plus, you basically need a pro colorist to correct it. The A7SIII already has great dynamic range and brilliant white balance at depth, so shooting in standard gives you a significantly cleaner image with great color right out of the camera. Give me underwater footage shot in Log and fully graded, and put it next to correctly exposed, white-balanced footage shot in the standard picture profile. Trust me, you won't see any difference. If anything, it's most likely that the standard picture profile image looks cleaner. These are my go-to baseline settings for great looking footage straight out of camera: Standard Picture Profile. Aperture: f/8 Shutter: 1/125 (because I am shooting 60fps) ISO: Auto ISO Exposure Comp: -0.7 (this helps protect the highlights of the surface) To be fair, those specific exposure settings are mainly what I use for wide angle, but the core philosophy is basically the same for macro and blackwater. Since you are shooting macro and blackwater with artificial light, here is the real trick: make sure you custom white balance to your video lights. If you do this in standard profile, it gives you incredible color accuracy right out of the camera so you don't have to fiddle with it in post at all. I have been shooting the A7SIII since it came out and it is still my absolute go-to workhorse for work. If you want to see the results, check out any video on Backscatter and you will see most of the underwater footage was shot with this camera and these settings. Hope this helps you avoid those editing headaches!

I was shooting an OM System OM-1 Mark I in an AOI housing Wide: -- Lumix 8MM fish eye -- BackScatter Hybrid Strobes Macro - -- m.Zukio 90MM -- Backscatter Miniflash-2 -- Backscatter OS-1 snoot on the blenny d

@Davide DB I was shooting 60P and 1/125. I THINK I was F/8 and also auto ISO. So you feel a bump to F/11 would sharpen it? The focus was the hardest part because of the thin DOF and the fact that the little suckers kept moving in an out of the focus plane. I tried to get a focus. Then as they came closer re-focus. The sideways movement was easiest of course. For the head-on shots, I was trying manual focus on the green slug and trying to time the focus changes as he got closer but that was hit or miss. The black one I backed off distance wise so the DOF was a little deeper. And of course every breath in changed my buoyancy and that made it hard to keep steady too. I'm retooling from OM-1 to Sony a7rV right now so will have to work all this out again next trip.

Thank you, I quickly color graded in Premiere Pro and without blurring it, I see slight focus different between the front fishes and the ones in the back, but it is very gradual and I do not find it an issue. On the contrary, I think it makes the image quite appealing.

Nicely done, especially for a first video. You are correct, macro video is challenging, which is largely why I keep trying to get better at it. I probably shoot 5 or 6 hours of video to get a good 20 minutes or so of usable material. Lots of material on the cutting room floor as you say.

Underwater 240fps (opinion at 3m34s in first video)

you can capture details underwater that are impossible to see with naked eye. You got a camera that is able to do high frame rates and you dont test it.

Ive sent you link with original file..see for yourself

My custom mode setting for Wide Angle is Standard LV and for Macro S-OVF. With OM1 you could add a third mode for CFWA.

I like the editing idea. The blenny watching what happens around it. At least that is how I understood it. Nice. I love videos that are not just simple slideshows of nice pictures. In general, macro images seem very soft to me, maybe too much. The focus almost always seems ok to me. On these little creatures we should always be careful to have the focus on the head, and preferably on the eyes when they have them. Maybe it depends on the aperture used? Here you really need F11 and beyond. And if you are at 50/60p you must be at least at 1/100 or 1/125 shutter speed. If you want to get a darker background, raise the shutter even more. The 180-degree rule is not so important underwater. Well done.

Well, I tried LV Standard and it was miserable. Couldn't see a damn thing, even with focus light and Atom Flash LED lights on. I'll use S-OVF, the histogram, and reviewing the shot on the LCD. Thank you for all the input. Adrian

They are amazing. It's the so called Golden Kelp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminaria_ochroleuca) and it's present on both shores of the strait but it's deep. It starts form 65m/213ft. The colony on the Sicily shore is the best (the ones filmed in this doc). Roberto Rinaldi filmed the Laminaria with his Canon C500 MKII. P.S. A tragic note. The researcher speaking in the video is Lorenzo Bramanti. One of the top experts on mesophotic systems in the Mediterranean and a researcher at the French CNRS. Unfortunately, Lorenzo died suddenly at the age of 52 in his home in Banyuls-sur-Mer, France, at the end of June 2026. https://reporterre.net/Lorenzo-Bramanti-chercheur-et-defenseur-des-forets-animales-marines-est-mort

Out of curiosity: what's the meaning of shooting @240fps?

This is in French but subtitles in English work. Some beautiful shots and i discovered that there are kelp forests in the Mediterranean?!!

I had once problems with condensation on a Nauticam 140mm domeport in a cold mountain lake on a rainy day: reason was a 120N extension where screws were missing (from factory). Few droplets of water came in (maybe half or quarter of a teaspoon), not enough for the vacuum or moisture systems to react, and this caused the condensation...

Hello all I've begun my transition to Sony with the A7SIII, and I'm curious as to what people using this camera or other Sony cameras ended up using when it comes to video shooting profiles. I've been digging into the archives, and there was a lot of excitement back in the day about S-Log3, but I shoot mostly macro and blackwater-type video, so it's either artificial-light dominant or fully artificial light (BW). I'm not convinced shooting in log will add much other than the hassle of handling ETTR exposure. I plan on keeping S-Log for ambient light or mixed lighting (ie wider shots), which will come one day when I'll have a wide lens, a boat trip planned etc. Not for now anyway. I finally got the A7SIII in the water yesterday for two test dives and shot in HLG3. Hybrid log seemed like a good compromise for grading: excllent dynamic range, but without LOG's exposure/ ISO issues. However, I'm not impressed by how it behaves in post. I'm on FCPX (no, I can't run DaVinci due to a big fat hardware issue - I need a computer update and don't have the cash for one at the moment), and the HDR-to-SDR 709 conversion is underwhelming. Dynamic range is certainly there (wow), but other than that, there is still quite a lot of work needed after the conversion. The image is still pretty much flat (not much changes), which could be due to Final Cut, but who knows. Other than trying to recover clipped highlights, I might not need as much DR. I don't really lift blacks and it's heresy for BW. Colours need a lot of saturation lifting, which is great for precision, but then again I could start with something of a less flat-base to grade with. Long story short, I can make HLG3 work, sure, but the question is: should I? This first test has made me wonder if I should shoot in standard picture profiles instead. I've read recommendations for Cine2 and Cine4, asked AI to search for published material, but it ended up hallucinating verbose pseudo-technical garbage that went nowhere, as usual with LLMs... I'm really curious as to what actual humans out there are actually using in this situation. Actual hands-on experience. I understand artificial light / macro / BW video is not the most common shooting scenario, but I'm really happy to hear what people have used, are using, or would use in such a situation. On my previous camera, the Lumix LX10, I was shooting in Cine-D with flatter settings, which worked fine (of course there were no log options, which narrowed it down quite a bit ˆˆ) Thanks!