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Hi Johan, I look forward to see u there soon! Thanks!

Hey everyone, I could really use your advice. I’m planning to upgrade from my RX100VA to full frame, but I can’t decide between the A7 V and the A7R V. I’ll be doing both video and photography, though not on the same dive. I’ll also use the camera topside alongside my A7S III and A7C II. Here are my thoughts so far: Pros A7 V: • Faster sensor • 4K 60 without crop • Dual base ISO of 8000 Pros A7R V: • Ability to crop for macro with 61 MP • Basically two cameras in one with APS-C mode • Better viewfinder Which one would you go for? Thanks!  Edit: Or should I go for the A7CR and use the A7C II for video dives, and the A7CR for photo dives? The only downside is that I’m not a huge fan of the smaller bodies for topside use…

These days the need to use sRGB is less than it used to be,browsers these days have colour management by default and the blues are so much nicer in Adobe RGB. I think you should at least try it out. I work a different workflow to many by Raw processing in Capture one and then finishing in Photoshop and I do it specifically because I can access levels as I find that the very simplest to way to colour balance a photo. Unfortunately Lightroom doesn't give you levels, you can do something similar with the tone curve though. You don't really go into what processing steps you take - with the wrong steps it's easy to get messed up and become totally lost, You mention Calibration and HSL, I only use these sorts of tools very sparingly. In Raw processing typically you have ability to adjust the colour temperature and Tint. Temperature is blue- yellow balance and tint is green magenta balance. It helps to have a good understanding of colour. basics are adding red reduces Cyan, adding magenta reduces green and adding blue reduces yellow. You should be able to get the balance close there. Typically I find adding some magenta to the image darkens the blues and makes them richer. If you wanted I could try processing one of your raw files assuming of course my copy of Capture one will open it.

Gopro 14 will be presented from 19 to 22 April 2026 at NAB show Las Vegas according to Digital Camera World.

The kit for night divr depends on what and how I am going to shoot. For timid creatures that don't like light, i use a small flashlight with a narrow beam is used, sometimes with a colored filter. When photographing squid, I like to use a separate flashlight that I hold in my hand. This makes it easier to lure the squid to the desired location. If the location is new and I don't know what I can see there, I use a powerful modeling light with 10,000-15,000 lumens. Plus a modeling light from the flashes. Art photography is a separate category. Here, lighting setups can be quite complex, such as individual mini-tripods with lights or flashes.

Ive work on liveaboards so from that point of view, generic advice, deck space is limited. You might get away with 1 person with a personal tank but if more than that have the same idea there really isnt space. Theres also the issue fresh water is a finite resource so constantly refilling/emptying personal rinse tanks isnt great for that. Depends on the boat of course. Decent boats will have a rinse tank thats clean, fresh and hopefully policed so people arent putting mask soap or god knows what in it (all boats im on camera buckets are separate from the rest of dive gear buckets...and dive gear is only rinsed at the end of the trip). As a photographer, ive had a camera setup destroyed in a rinse tank. Left it there while i legged it to help untie the mooring line. Came back and a "helpful" entitled teenager with parents had put their dslr setup in the tank on top of mine (a Canon 70D in ikeite housing, 8" dome and 2 DS161 strobes in a black bin isnt hard to see), found resistance to their housing so rammed it as hard as they could. This crushed my at the time ikelite, snapped the dome port off and flooded/destroyed the whole setup. Rinse tanks are for rinsing not leaving. Swill it, remove it, take it away. If it needs further washing use the shower (if fresh water) when you wash or whatever. If you bring anything at all, make it a cooler bag type thing and nothing rigid. And be mindful of fresh water usage etc.

Im in Japan and buy a load of stuff there. Just ordered a Nauticam. Websites are indeed awful. Not sure about Retra but Mic21 (big dive shop chain) are the nauticam main dealer and they do answer in English to emails. They have some English speaking staff in shops at certain times too. Fisheye are the distributor/importer and they organised my housing, in English via Mic21. If theres something specific there you want its worth contacting Fisheye https://store.fisheye-jp.com/ (distributor) or Mic21 ( https://www.mic21.com/foreign/english.php ) via the emails. Replies are quick. You'll get 10% tax free. Unsure about Retra though - maybe contact Retra themselves and see if there are dealers? If its general electronics, Bic Camera (10% tax free plus 7% for no clear reason if foreign), Yodobashi (tax free) etc. Websites are woeful but good enough to find stock in which shop. Shops themselves you can get by with English and translation apps. FWIW tax free currently you dont pay it at all. Its deducted at purchase. From October its changing to claim back at airport.

That depends on the Japan import fees and what you get back at the airport. You get 13% more Yen compared to year ago and 40% more compared to 5 years ago. But like i said, i havent found a shop that sells them to see the price. In Europe you pay VAT that you cant get back as private customer. Absolutely no point buying them in Europe as a private person, specially if going abroad when you can buy them.

Not sure that will matter as i can just set that after the event in LR as its Raw anyway.

My setup for night dives is the same as for dives during the day. I always have a torch with a neoprene Goodman handle on my right hand, as well as two small torches that can be switched between spot, flood, red, and UV modes. The latter are mounted next to the base mount of my strobes (a dual ball mount on each side of the housing: one for the strobe arm, the second for the light). They are used as focus lights and for video. This setup gives me maximum flexibility: I can direct the main light in any direction using the Goodman handle, while at the same time I always have focus lights pointing in the same direction as the camera. The focus lights are only turned on when needed, whereas the light on the Goodman handle is almost always on. Why red light? Some creatures, especially fish, cannot see red light. This allows you to approach them more closely without scaring them away.

Are Retra going to be any cheaper in Japan? They’re made in the EU, presumably against Euro pricing converted into Yen?

I have some work trips coming up, and one is going to be Japan, Tokyo/Yokohama area. Been contemplating on buying new strobes, and as the exchange rate is very favorable this got me thinking. Why not buy them from Japan? Found atleast S&S being priced very nicely, but i would be probably on the market for Retras. Problems im facing are the design of Japanese website. And finding the suppliers online. So any help on websites and/or diveshops with Nauticam/Retra would be appreciated.

I wonder if setting white balance in camera to 4800k would make any difference? On the HF1 with diffusers I see it is recommended to set the same colour temp in camera as the diffuser used. The HF1 is a much warmer strobe at 6500k and personally I found the 4500k diffuser with WB set at the same temp also produced blues that did not look real (well to my taste ayway)! Best of luck John

I should have included that really. My display is a correctly calibrated DCI-P3 (95%) on both laptop and when home, the external screen. Output is going to always be sRGB as output is for screen use and rarely if ever printing. Its LR/PS so is using higher than 8 bit colour. I dont see banding or things falling apart, its the default "look" causing me issues. Viewing software is ICC aware as well. Camera matching.... Historically ive never found any of those actually come close to matching the camera (either in camera or applying the same in Canon DPP). Camera landscape comes closest to making the water blue but at the expense of messing up saturation on this or other colours. Ive tried with my own preset but no amount of fiddling with calibration or the HSL gets something really useful, certain now an import preset "starting point" level. The DS161s are basically half stops from max down to i think -6 stop adjustments. Generally if i have diffusers on then anything less than -0.5 stop (ie one click down) is too little. Without diffusers i can get to maybe -1.5, Shooting at 10mm (APS-C Tokina fisheye) and subject distance is typically closer than forearm length ish for turtle/reef shots. In the above examples max distance is about 1m. most are 20-30cms. Macro i can go down to -3 or -5 but for wide angle i just cant throw enough light onto them to get loser than iso400/f8 most of the time. Might be positioning related, no idea. I dont think tubes lose output with age that much (they're about 15 years old). Ive never been able to get satisfying water colour starting point from any of the 4 (i think) Canon DSLRs ive used underwater over the year and not found a useful picture profile (or preset) yet as a starting point. For obvious reasons i dont like/want the one click "adaptive colour" to do "things" on every image as a starting point.

Where I do most of my dives (the Pacific Northwest), 10-15 ft is considered good viz and once I drop below 50 ft, day and night are pretty much the same. I use a Kraken Hydra 1200 focus light on the hot shoe, but it's mounted with a long clamp to give a little more offset to minimize backscatter on the subject and keep the camera trying to lock focus on particles. With the long clamp, I can angle it to the left to allow me to see past it easily enough, and it's set to wide to give me some idea of what the strobes will pick up around the subject. I use a tight beam dive light in a soft hand mount on my non-dominant hand for spotting. It's an older light from Dive Gear Express, but anything in reasonable size range would work. Overall, this is a fairly minimalistic setup; I've considered more lighting but it just means more drag, more batteries to deal with, and more moreness to scare away critters and irritate my dive buddies. My strobes have modeling lights built in, which gets me the redundancy I need for safety.

Correct, Cinebags is no longer available, but the Kraken would be the direct replacement. They are exactly the same in every way (layout and size) but I have been told that the Kraken one is now of better quality. The cinebags one for the price had some hardware durability issues and really could have done some refinement. My gripes with it are: Stitching: I had to redo the stitching on the pockets, bungee loops, and handles as the stitching came off. Material for eyelets and bungee ties: Eyelets were normal metal and corroded. I had to replace them with stainless steel. Bungee ties frayed and pulled out of the bag, I had to sew them back in. Drainage holes: The accessory pockets don’t have a water proof zipper, so sea water is bound to enter the pockets and don’t drain (they start to smell bad). I needed to punch drainage holes for the accessory pockets. I wish they just used the old plastic mesh for this so the pockets don’t hold moisture. I am always having to wipe the inside of the pockets to dry and store at the end of the day. Everything else about it I love: the layout is well thought out and usable, accessory pockets for everything, base material is super durable and water repellent. It does fold flat. But is still like 2 or 3 inches thick when folded flat (Lots of material). But it makes it easier to fold flat and store in your dive bag versus an AO cooler.

It looks like the Cinebags cooler is no longer available, but the AO cooler is. I can't tell from the photos--does it fold flat? Thanks!

I think the “personal rinse tank” is many things. As a bag it can serve multiple roles: it’s my travel bag, boat bag, and rinse tank. I always bring it because it covers those three functions. I’ve used both the AO and Cinebags versions. I am the same. On crowded boats, I avoid the communal rinse tank since people often toss gear in carelessly. Heavy systems can easily damage mine, so I set up my bag in a quiet corner of the ship — away from foot traffic. That way, I can safely soak my camera without worry. Its main value, though, is as a protective boat bag. It shields my gear from impacts on the boat and keeps essentials organized—prescription dive mask, computer, phone, gloves, food, water, and camera—all in one place. For that alone, I think the soft cooler is worth it. In practice, I use it about 10% for transport, 80% as a boat bag, and 10% as a rinse tank.

Hi All, this is a general question to compare notes on how do you conduct night dives, as I am curious at how others do it. What dive/focus/modeling lights do you use? How have you set them up on the camera? How do you use them for navigation, search and modeling? On my own journey these are my notes: In my first setup, I used a single focus light (Light and Motion Gobe 1000 Wide) mounted on the hotshoe as my navigation, search, and modeling light. This worked well for navigation and search since the beam aligned with my camera’s view — I simply pointed the camera toward where I wanted to move or search. However, in murky water the in-line light illuminated suspended particles, causing the camera to struggle with focus. Additionally, because the light was hotshoe-mounted, it blocked my line of sight whenever I looked over the camera to visually recheck the subject. For my second setup, I moved the focus light off the camera and mounted two lights on the strobes (aligned with their direction) — Light and Motion Sola 1200 Photo. This gave good cross coverage and avoided illuminating particles directly in front of the lens. The drawback was navigation and subject search—because the lights weren’t aligned with my vision, it was difficult to peer into crevices or see far ahead when navigating. My third setup I decided to just have a single focus light (Light and Motion Sola 1200 Photo) on a triple clamp at the base of my strobe arm. This kept it clear of my line of sight when looking over the camera and angled enough to avoid lighting up particulate matter. For navigation and subject search, I decided to use a separate hand mounted dive light (generic dive light). This allows me to move freely without constantly maneuvering the camera — keeping it light and nimble until I find a subject, at which point I bring the camera into position. I am now thinking of optimizing the focus light to just light up the immediate working area and minimize disturbing subjects (red or low lumens) — the Sola 1200 is too bright on both the red and white light. I am thinking of getting one of the inon focus light as I heard they can go very dim. Any suggestions here would be happy to hear. While the dive light can be bright and provide good long range illumination — again any good suggestion on dive light would be appreciated. I am looking to the OrcaTorch D570-GL Light with Laser Pointer at the moment, thinking a laser would be helpful in pointing out subjects.

I've got a pair of YS-D2 and z240 I'm currently using.

You should have a good starting point with 4800K strobes. The idea behind warm strobe light is that to colour balance you shift to cooler colour temperatures. which gives you a deeper blue. I don't use Lightroom so can't offer anything specific there, though I would think any sort of profile designed for land use might be problematic in water. I'm not sure what the adaptive profile does, but I expect if the initial results are good it shouldn't matter - all the profile is doing is providing a starting point. I would suggest a number of things: Work in Adobe RGB, the blues are more extensive there, if publishing to web ensure a colour profile is included so it display properly. Don't convert to sRGB as it will crunch the blues Work in 16 bit colour - it gives you more latitude to work with, you can change to 8 bit when you save if you want to reduce storage space Have you tried camera matching options - it sets the image to what you set in camera. You could also try Neutral as the starting point for your own preset? What sort of display do you have? if it is limited to sRGB, it just can't display the deeper richer blues. I'd also ask what settings you are using in camera any settings are typically recorded and as I understand things applied to your image as a starting point. I'd also mention that ISO400 f8 and half power sounds like you should try to get closer, the Ikelite is quite a powerful strobe and people shoot at f11-13 regularly with similar or less powerful strobes. If you are not close enough the flash on the subject is diluted more with ambient light and the whole image needs to shift warm to get the colours you want on the foreground, but this warms up the blues.

Which strobe are you using?

Maybe try here for a reduction ring? Underwater Light and MagicUnderwater Light and Magic

I'm sure it's coming, I think these are custom-printed. Reach out on his contact form, he wrote back to me in an hour.

Strangely no Nikon / Nauticam model. I didn't even know Aquatica was still in business and there are models for that. Perhaps its because Nauticam includes a simple manual flash trigger in their Nikon housings with a similar infinite battery life.