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I'm using a bayonet holder for my MFO3, I'm on m43 so the magnification of the 60mm macro lens is sufficient and I don't use a diopter. So only taking the MFO3 on and off and not needing to park a diopter. Swapping them is fairly easy, the MFO3 is a heavy lump above water, but doesn't give me problems below water. I also used cargo shorts when diving in Lembeh, I only needed to fall off the boat so no issues with them falling down, not an option shore diving in Sydney where I use the bayonet. The bayonet holder is mounted on a strobe arm, when I'm entering/exiting the water I have the neoprene bag it is supplied with covering the lens. Getting washed into the rocks exiting is a common enough occurrence that some protection is needed. Once UW I remove and clip off the bag.

I really think the fundamental problem is the response curve of the camera. That's not a fault rather that is how they are designed. The way around I think is to reduce the exposure. Easiest is lowering the ISO if possible, but looks like you at ISO 50 already, so maybe place a grey card on the wall and measure brightness off that or double the strobe's distance from the wall. You might run into problems at the low power end, but within the limitations of equipment you have available seems like this might be the best solution. You would need separate sets of measurements for the high and low powers. Also as I understand it ISO 50 on the Z8 is extended ISO which is achieved by over exposing the image and pulling the exposure down which tends to blow highlights. Maybe for the Z8 base ISO might be a better option?

@g3cko Sent a DM

I’m a long time user of a Nauticam flip holder for a single wet diopter. Usually starting a macro trip with a +5 SubSee before switching to an SMC-1. The discussions about the MFO-3 make it sound like a great lens to have around when geared for macro (Nikon 105VR). I learned a long time ago that trying to screw lenses on and off underwater was NOT a task I favored. A double flip looks super bulky, appears to add a lot of front weight, is a bit $$$, and the length of the MFO-3 doesn't seem very amenable to a flip holder. I have reason to move to a Nauticam bayonet mounting system for other reasons. But - The pricey arm holders for extra lenses on bayonet look like they again add a lot of front loaded weight & bulk. I do have a large front velcro pocket on the waistband of my backplate/wing as an option to store the lenses when not in use. What are folks’ experiences with wet swapping lenses using the bayonet system from Nauticam? How do other folks carry around the various lenses for macro shooting while on a dive?

FYI: Photoshop also shows a mean average of luminosity. A small selection square on the target covers about 20,000 pixels and computes the brightness. Using that mean luminosity value (on a 0-255 scale) instead of the brightness (a 0-99 scale) reading does not meaningfully change any of the results. Your table reads from possibly different locations than I used and is based on an image down sampled from 8000px to about 100px. Converted from raw->>tiff->>jpg 500px->>pasted into Word->>screenshotted to PNG->>uploaded to forum. Not a great way to source data.

Like Tim said, other than dawn, dusk and night dives, I never needed a focus light with D500 and 60mm macro, but with 105mm on the D500 or Z8, a focus light is useful far more often, as I recently found out. There is a wide range of sizes, features and power available and ulcs has some lightweight mounts that fit almost anything. Not what I use, but I just threw this 120g thing together together to illustrate how small one can go: Orcatorch D560 700 lumen 3.5" light with 14500 battery on a ULCS ball mount. To paraphrase a credit card commercial, What's in your housing cold shoe?

The news I was waiting for so long!! Lets see how both will perform underwater!

Better in english, so anyone can understand. I have 4 Idiving batteries, are exactly the same than the Subtronic ones but smaller, nothing else. Subtronic sells batteries that works also as an arm (which I don't like) and they also have batteries with no balls, like the idiving ones, in order to put it in the side of the strobe in the neoprene protector. The difference between the Subtronic and the Idiving is only the size, Idiving is smaller and slightly cheaper. But both share the same issues. They need the Subtronic dedicated charger, when the cells become older you have to buy brand new batteries, 2 18650 good quality battery cells are 40 euros worth as much, the whole battery is 200 euros worth if Idiving and 250 euros if Subtronic. My batteries are absolutely different focused. My goal is manufacture a housing for batteries that I can change the cells in seconds, so when the cells are old I swap them by new ones for a few euros, I can use normal chargers and I double the number of cells, so I can make 4 dives with no changing battery. But I recognize that if I had to do again I would make a design for only two cells.

Make that three for curious.

Very good news for underwater Canon shooters! According to CanonRumors, Canon may announce the RF 7–14mm f/2.8–3.5 fisheye zoom this week—alongside the RF 14mm f/1.4L VCM, which could be another great option for underwater shooters. If true, this would be the first native mirrorless fisheye zoom from Canon/Sony/Nikon, and hopefully a nudge for more dedicated mirrorless fisheye options across the board. Curious to see whether it lands as an L lens (likely) and how it stacks up against the EF 8–15mm f/4L Fisheye USM. You can find the rumour link here.

gran idea,pero me temo que Arturo Telle ya pensó en eso,en su web idiving ofrece una bateria propia mas pequeña y manejable a un precio muy interesante,saludos...

Wow!!!!, this is exactly the information I was looking for. I'm going to start to send emails and organize the trip if my dive buddies agree to go. Thank you so much. I'm pretty sure i will have to ask you for my doubts.

Great summary Ben! I was there in September and really enjoyed it. I’ll add one resort and one operator recommendation. The Palau Royal Resort is very pleasant and decent value. It’s on the water, has a small beach and a good pool, and everything just works. Fish’n’Fins runs a very good operation. I found their dive masters and boat crews to be as good as anywhere I’ve been and very considerate, and the boats were excellent. On my last day, a group of 4 didn’t show up. After waiting a bit, they said, “well , let’s go” and took me out for a full day of private one on one diving. I think most ops would have cancelled so I really appreciated it.

It'a bit like that classic dive saying: "I'd rather be up here wishing I was down there - than being down there wishing I was up here...... Yeah, really annoying if you don't have it when you need it. On the other hand, I find it depends on what lens you're using and the camera's low-light capability. I find with a Nikon D500 and a 60mm lens I very rarely need a light. However, switch to a 105mm and the usage gets a bit more.....

The advantage of a focus light is worth the extra weight, which I can easily compensate for in my case with buoyancy aids from Mike-Dive (unfortunately no longer available). It is exactly as Nemrod said: „…now and then…“ and that's exactly when you'll kick yourself if you don't have it with you. Better to have it than need it.

Some next level DIY stuff right there. 👍 And great documentation for us to see. And you arent the only one (or the last) to notice the horrid battery life on mirrorless compared to DSLR's.

Maybe I just made that less of an issue...

The advantage is ditching about 300g underwater. I'm hoping to use 5" arms for macro and having a hard time arranging enough floatation, whether with float arms or STIX floats.

I do not see that you are accomplishing much by removing and leaving your focus light behind. Mine is useful for minor penetrations, night dives where it sometimes becomes my main light and for signaling. Focus is just part of why it is useful. My light is the Kraken also. Mounted atop the housing in the cold shoe. And, yes, it is sometimes useful for focus. My cameras seem quite capable of focusing most of the time without assist but now and then ----.

This is a very impressive project. I mean, really impressive.

Not that i disagree with you. But give me a break, your numbers are not exactly from an original source having gone through at least 4 or 5 size, compression, and format conversions on the way to your screen.

Hi Dave, I copied now your image with the photograph (hope the inage is unprocessed from raw), reduced the resolution to 120 pixels (long side) and measured now with the eyedropper tool in Pgotoshop the luminance of these big pixels (average from the four pixels, diagonally adjacent to the center, since there seems to be an arrow in the center and above and below the arrow there are some enhanced regions)... Here is the result in numbers (luminance), arranged in the your order: Indeed the luminance values go into some kind of saturation at higher intensities (Retra Maxi above +3/+2.5; Backscatter above Full/0.5) and this completely supports the impression that I get by direct inspection of your photographs... => Since this is not in accordance to my observations that I got from 2 years of using the HF-1 UW (switching the power button from Full to +1 and further to +2 brings substantial improvements in strobe power, not just few percent (almost within experimental variability)), I conclude that the experimental setup used is not suitable for assessing the strobe power at high settings (Retra Maxi above +3/+2.5; Backscatter above Full/0.5) => There may be numerous factors responsible (only you can check and find out). One likely one could be that the pixels on the sensor got oversaturated at these immense light intensities (flash positioned 65cm from the wall)... Wolfgang P.S.: Here the coarsened image of your results, in order to make the eydropper readings more representative: RetraTest.tiff

Wow, Incredible! Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It is a beautiful project where your skill, experience, and available tools definitely matter a lot. It is not for the faint of heart! Thanks

Not using Lightroom but Photoshop, which has a point selection tool for histogram values. Are these % numbers totally accurate? Probably not, but they are a relative point of comparison that is consistent. And the only quantitative tool available to me. You also have the photos for reference and can draw your own conclusions.

Confessions of a Happy Snapper & Bodger - Anthis Nexus Nikon D7500 Housing Conversion for Nikon Z6iii (and Z50ii) I am a self-confessed happy snapper having been taking underwater pictures since 1978 – I will get it right one day. But as a wise person once said ‘If it was easy it would not be half as much fun’ . . . .closely followed by ‘buggerit where did that water come from’. I had been holding off on jumping onto the mirrorless band wagon for a while as I was happy with my existing rig, but with the arrival of the Nikon Z6iii I decided to cross over to ‘The Dark Side’. Once I had the camera and lenses in my paws it took me a while to get used to the differences from DSLR but after a couple of months I was sold on the upgrade . . . . but that was for land photography. Gearing up for underwater use was a different story. This is not a detailed technical article or indeed a review of the camera and optics, but rather a general ramble about the conversion project. Pic-1 Housing with the 3rd version of the Z24050 port with Nauticam bayonet mount - enouigh is enough! What did I want? There are a few housing options now for the Z6iii but not for my existing system namely Anthis Nexus which I have been using since 2007 for Nikon D80 . . . D90 . . .D7100 . . . D7500. With only one housing change during that time as I was able to get it upgrades to the housing as the cameras improved. I was very keen to use the Nauticam WWL-C with a Nikon Z 24-50mm as the main ‘Jack of all trades’ setup having read some good opinions on it (Thanks Dr M and others). But I would have to retire my much loved and idiot (me) proof Tokina 10-17. I did treat myself to the new Nikon Z105mm for dedicated macro. I was keen to stay with the limit of 2 lenses as I did quite happily for many years with my APS C cameras (Tokina 10-17mm and Nikkor 60mm or 85mm DX Macro). So I looked at various options: 1. Wait until Anthis Nexus offer a Z6iii option – that could be a long wait. 2. Buy a new housing and ports – Nauticam & Ikelite were the only options in November 2024 when I investigated. The problem was cost and the fact that I really like my Anthis system. It is small and light and battered. 3. THE CHOSEN OPTION - Upgrade the housing myself – YOU FOOL! The modification/build saga spanned many months and a few hundred hours of work and many €€€. It is still ongoing but only for relatively minor tweaks- I hope. I am lucky enough to have my own Man Cave with a good selection of tools including a lathe and home converted 3 axis CNC milling machine. My wife also lets me play with her 3D printer for prototyping parts. I spent much of my working life involved with engineering projects and during that time took every available opportunity to get my hands dirty so was reasonably placed to decide what could or could not be achieved by an enthusiastic idiot. Pic-2 Chaos in the design department Highlights and Lowlights Having decided to pursue Option 3 – of upgrading the housing and ports myself the highlights (and lowlights) were as follows: • Blowing up the CNC motor controller on my DIY converted mill leading to an upgrade of controller and motor. According to my mill supplier I would have had to wait about 8 months to get a replacement from China and even then they could not guarantee that it would be compatible as machines specifications changed from one delivery to the next. So I ripped out the controller and motor and fitted a 3 phase motor and VFD which does a much better job. • Gaining a self-certified Phd in the understanding and elimination of backlash compensation. I do not propose to discuss this further but suffice to say that any errors in tool cutter movement of more of than 0.1 of a millimeter can totally screw up a component - especially where o-rings are involved. • Learning Fusion 360 CAD software to design the components and CNC work flow to a new level. • Turning a couple of hundred €€€ of Delrin (POM), Plexiglass and Aluminium into scrap……I loved every minute of the flying chips. Sorry for the Brit spelling of ALUMINIUM for any readers in the US who are easily offended, but I am an Expat Brit so get over it 😊. • Discovering just how far solid carbide milling cutters can fly when driven too hard. • Regretting throwing away my old pressure test chamber when I moved my stuff out of the UK 4 years ago. I have recently converted an extra large stainless steel pasta saucepan into a low tech pressure pot good enough to test to 40msw – 4 Bar without too much creaking. • Learning how to anodise aluminium. Still working on that one – it is a messy and time consuming process. Modofications I ended up learning and making the following modifications to the housing and ports: • Learning Fusion 360 CAD software to design the components and CNC work flow to a new level. (See Pic-1 computer screen) An all new rear plexiglass rear port involving about 85 individual machining operations in 12mm plexiglass. The port has 13 o-ring sealed penetrations, one of which has 5 different diameters over a 12mm depth. Don’t ask how many times I machined that port before getting it right. Pic-3 Early test of the rear port to get the button positions right Pic-4 Making chips for the 12mm plexiglass rear port Pic-5 The current rear port after 100 dives • Making an eccentric extension boss for my existing Inon 45 degree viewfinder as the camera viewfinder sits farther back and slightly higher in the housing. Pic-6 The 45 degree viewfinder with eccentric mount boss • Adjusting or replacing 90% of the internal control rods to match the different button positions. Pic-7 New mounting plate and modified control rods • Machining a new camera body mounting bracket. (Actually 2 – one for the Z6iii and one for the Z50ii – more on that later). • Making several new lens ports, initially using an existing (scratched) port glass taken for an old port. This was OK but too wide to accept the Nauticam WWL-C Bayonet mount without using a complex interface adapter. Pic-8 Z24-50 Port with bayonet mount and 70mm extension • I then switched to a new port glass, firstly a 65mm diameter x 8mm from Anthis Nexus which was not quite large enough and caused slight vignetting issues at the 24mm end of the zoom range. I actually bough a whole new port (for a Canon housing) but it was about 4mm too long and there was no way that I could shorten it that much. So another lump of expensive anodised Japanese CNC machined aluminium hit the scrap bin. • Then a further progression to a Sea Frogs 70mm diameter x 5mm port glass. The thinner glass removed the vignetting problem and also made fitting the bayonet mount much easier. As you can see from Pic-1 and 8, the port is quite short at 32mm. • I also made a series of port extensions so that I can use the Z105mm and AF-S 60mm macro lens with the same port. After the first trip with the system I simplified this to a single 70mm one. If I decide to play with other lenses in the future I can easily make new extensions. • Making a Usb-C bulkhead connector so that I can charge the battery and download pictures without removing the camera from the housing. I love htis addition. • Building a battery module for the camera with double the capacity so that I can do a busy 3/4 dive day without having to change the battery – I was initially shocked by how power hungry a mirrorless camera is compared to a DSLR. Pic-9 Double capacity battery Z50ii Backup camera upgrade – Or is it a downgrade? Having realised that I would like to revert to carrying a backup camera on overseas trips and that having another Z6iii was not an option as my pension can only stretch so far. I bought a Z50ii with Z16-50mm and proceeded to make the bits and bobs needed to fit it into the same housing. I do not currently have the same control button functionality but should the worst happen and I trash the Z6iii and I can fix the housing flood problem, I can convert it to take the backup camera in about 30 minutes by swapping out a few parts. I have yet to dive with the Z50ii but suspect that it will hold up well against the Z6iii as it has. I think, the same sensor as the much respected D500. After all I have been diving APS-C for 15 years with little complaint so . . . . watch this space. Dive Trips with the System In July 2025 I did my annual 30 day trip to Indonesia with 66 dives and 70 hours underwater, It performed very well. The trip was not my best trip for critter diversity or quality of pictures and I am still not up to the same standard as I was with my D7500, but that is 100% on me and not the camera rig which bodes well for my next trip(s). I also felt rather vulnerable not having a backup camera as I have flooded (several) cameras over the last 48 years of diving. Since my initial version of this article I have also done a 10 day dive trip to the Spice Islands with 33 dives and 36 hours underwater (Oh those 100cft tanks are great for a gas guzzler like me). Once again the rig performed very well and althought 90% of the diving was macro with the Z105mm, I got one of the best shot of the trip of a pair of Pothoni Seahorses hanging out together using the Z24-50. Even after 100 dives, I am still on the learning curve with the Z6iii. Especially when it comes to the autofocus system which can switch from fantastic to frustrating from one picture to the next – but I have the same problem on land so that is not diving specific. Was It Worth the - Blood Sweat and Tears Discounting the cost of repairing machines and the few hundred hours that I spent on this project, I can firmly say that I enjoyed (almost) every minute and I feel a great sense of satisfaction when using the rig in its various forms. It was technically challenging and there were times when I thought that I had taken on too much but managed to muddle through. My wife said that it was great because for 3 months she always knew where to find me as I am also her part time IT systems engineer, model builder, occasional delivery driver and ‘Q’ (Think Bond Movies) for her Architectural office here in Innsbruck, Austria. Final Thoughts My next trip is 5 weeks in Indonesia in June/July 2026 involving 2 liveaboard trips and a couple of resorts including a week at Lembeh where I hope to get to grips with snooting as I have converted a Backscatter OS-1 snoot to (possibly) work with an Inon Z330. I am also looking forward to using the WWL-C for some more exiting big fish and reefscape wide angle shots. And Finally- Does it take pictures? – Yup good enough for me 😊 Pic-10 taken with Z24-50mm Pic-11 Taken with Z105mm