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HSS on my Backscatter HF-1didn’t work with my UWT trigger. I was probably doing something wrong. I’ve since gotten rid of that HF-1, but I may revisit Backscatter’s strobes again in the future.

Aloha and welcome @littlehighland6 !

The Panasonic 30mm lens is very underrated, fundamentally because it reaches its maximum magnification practically on the port glass. But actually, for many situations, in my opinion, it is excellent. All reports say that its AF is snappier compared to its 45mm and 90mm macro cousins. If you then need greater magnification, you can always compensate with a light diopter.

Yes, it was an immediate regret 🤣 Never again...

You didn't say much about what you have the camera set at which can can make a difference. If you set the flash to second curtain sync on the camera you can use that together with a slow shutter speed around 1/2 sec or longer to tell if there is a pre flash as well as a main flash, that may help with trouble shooting. I'm not sure I understand how you would need soldering to use the old TTL converter. The fact that the strobes work with the old trigger tells you something is not right with the new trigger. I see a few possibilities, with the m43 you don't tend to need as powerful a strobe as in wide angle shooting at f8 is generally sufficient. You could buy new strobes ( huge selections these days,) pick ones that work well with the UWT trigger and OM-1 You could switch to fibre optic triggering with new strobes that will use that, plenty of strobes now work with R1C! olympus triggering, though ask here first there have been posts with some strobes proving troublesome. There have abeen a few posts on this recently. You could trigger with the UWT trigger of you you could try using the mini flash for the OM-1 - that will work better in manual triggering than TTL possibly. You could explore different cables as suggested by Pavel?

@Troporobo Thank you for sharing your experience. The Pro Trekker is even thicker as the Pro Tactic (25 vs 22 cm), do you know how thick it is when everything removeable (such as shoulder straps, belt e.g.) is removed? We have many airliens in europe which only allow 23cm or even the "new" standard of 20cm.

Welcome aboard! We hope you enjoy the forum. Ciao

with the 30 last night Bill

I have been shooting the 30 for blackwater and out of laziness I left the 45 on. WAY WAY more PITA with a lot fewer keepers. To keep it simplest, the AOI with the 30 macro lens and the Kraken add on wide angle lens on a flip adapter. To shoot really tiny things, add the extension ring and shoot the 60 with a CMC or similar. But to be really simple just the 30 and one Kraken/AOI wet wide angle. Bill

Welcome Jens.

Yes, that is the problem. I would wish for "classic" or what I am calling mimic TTL mode for the Atom flash that will sync with either the pop up flash or the UWT trigger board when set for TTL operation without a proprietary board that will not work with many existing cameras and housings.

Aloha and welcome @Jens H !

Dear all, I have problems with my brand new UW Technics TTL converter with my rather old Subtronic pro 160 flashes in my new Isotta housing for my OM-1. With the correct setting (internal switch on TTL converter to position 8), most of the time the images are too dark, sometimes black. With setting for Inon Z330 (internal switch in position 6), it works much better, but everything else than perfect. Especially when there are white parts in the picture, the flash goes crazy. But sometimes also with very easy objects. The flash is connected via an Subtronic N5 cable, on the housing end (Isotta) 2 pins are inserted in order to maintain good contacts (there are 2 spring-loaded pins in the flash bulkhead). I have to say that this cables and flashes work perfectly fine since years with my (old) OM-D E-M1 and an TTL converter from Heinrichs-Weikamp. Whenever the images are black or almost black, I realize a VERY strong preflash - or even only one flash. Thats difficult to say. Pavel from UW Technics was very cooperative, since at least one week I am in contact with him seeking for the problem. Pavel thinks that the problem is the connection, but I can almost rule that out, I already tried 6 different cables and new pins. I believe that my flash units (purchased in 2011) may be getting old and that the flash tube, thyristor, and/or capacitor are no longer powerful enough. Subtronic is already involved in my discussions, I already got another flash from them to testing purposes - which shows the same problem (also that one is about 10 years old, however). Further considerations and observations: In general I can say that the preflash is much stronger than the preflash with my Heinrichs-Weikamp converter. It looks as if the pre-flash is already discharging the flash much too strongly. In manual mode, the TTL converter works perfectly fine as described in the manual (setting flash strength eigher via camera or on the flash; thats really nice!) my Hartenberger 250 hs flashes behave the same as the subtronics (except that in position 6 of the TTL converter I have to reduce flash strength by -1 to -2) Subtronic is currently working on a faster software for my flashes, but I think UW technics built the TTL converter for the original Subtronics without adapted software. Therefore, it should work (at least with new flashes also without software adaptation. Isotta claims that TTL should work without a converter, just with the originally shipped connector to the 2 N5 bulkheads. The old TTL converter works even with the new camera, but I don’t see a way how to install it into the housing without losing guarantee (soldering necessary) and furthermore, I would not have the option to switch between TTL and manual any more (in my old housing, there was an additional switch which disconnected one line of the TTL converter to the bulkheads to switch from TTL to manual during the dive) My problem now is that I have no idea which parts to exchange: TTL Converter? Flashes (renew the internal electronics means about € 400 per flash)? No guarantee that it works after investing in renewing the electronics of the flashes or even getting new ones. Any ideas are welcome, Jens

Interesting, I suppose that RC mode only has the relevance with camera body, seems I need try the lens before making the order. Thanks for the suggestion.

Honestly, I can’t even imagine trying to chase blackwater critters with a 90mm — that thing would make it impossible.😆

I'd chime in here and say the 30mm Panasonic is great for blackwater. The 60mm would be very hard to use in my opinion for that. Maybe the MFO-3 would make it similar to the 30mm for blackwater, but it's twice the price of the 30mm lens. I also tried the OMD 90mm macro lens once on a blackwater dive and it was almost impossible to use, don't think I got nay usable photos 😅

Price droped US$2,500

Very neat ! I was interested in a loupedeck but the eye watering price pushed me to go open source on this one. I bought a MIDI controller and used Midi2LR to program it! works very neatly :) PetaPixelGoing Open Source to Make Your Own Loupedeck AlternativeThere is an extremely talented landscape photographer called Thomas Heaton whose YouTube videos I find very instructive and entertaining. Recently he

Hi, I'm new here and I'm looking forward to meet some enthusiast like me. I like underwater photographs. Looking forward to reading through the forums. Thanks

I use both the Pana 45 and the Olympus 60mm mm only for photography. I prefer the AF of the 45mm as the 60mm has a stronger tendency to hunt, especialy in water with floating particles.

I think that the Lowepro Pro Trekker BP 450 AW II backpack is fantastic and perfect for my m4/3 system. I switched to the roller version of one of these a year ago and love it. The flexibility and organization options are the best I’ve found. However, the backpack is 2.7 kg empty so that’s a consideration. My roller is nearly 14 kg with everything I carry, so not a good solution for flying on airlines that weigh carryon items. I start every trip on an ATR-42 with a strict 7 kg limit, so have had to get creative.

Get two cables. +1 to making your own, but DIY is not for everyone. If you need two cables for two strobes, buy 4. They do get broken, damaged, and lost. So that comes to $400 for what is about $30 of industrial fiberoptic. If you have a 3D printer, you can make your own connectors and buy your own fiber. These days, you could buy a printer and the fiber optic for less than $400! You can get more info here, including a reliable source to buy top quality, industrial grade fiber: https://makerworld.com/en/models/846729-diy-optical-fiber-sync-cable-connectors#profileId-1454437

Here's hoping it works with my wet lens.

It doesn’t make much difference really. The price is ridiculous though. You can make your own for a few $s. Here’s an article I wrote a good while ago on the forum about how to do it.

I am looking to update my video lights with a pair of strobes and have a question about cables. I have a TG-5 w/ PT-058 housing, eventually want to get a wide angle wet lens so was going to purchase the Backscatter flash adaptor linked below to accommodate the lens. https://www.backscatter.com/AOI-FCA-01-Fiber-Optical-Cable-Adapter-for-TG-3-TG-4-TG-5-Cameras It looks like it can accommodate 1 or 2 cables so my question is if I am doing dual strobes is it better to use an individual cable for each strobe or use a single dual cable for both like this https://www.backscatter.com/Backscatter-Dual-Fiber-Optic-Cable-with-Sea-Sea-Ends Or does it not really matter? Thanks.