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Greetings from a fellow Northener and a warm welcome to Waterpixels. We hope you really enjoy the forum. Good to have you with us.

Hi, I’m a long-time overland photographer just starting my journey into capturing images under the surface. I came across waterpixels whilst trying to find out what was happening to what had appeared to be a major online resource for underwater photography and I’m glad to have made the discovery! I’m in full information consumption mode and very much looking forward to the learning curve of applying what I’ve learned in the last 25 years to a very different environment. I’m based in the North of England so a lot of my diving is in cold water with less-than-ideal vis but I occasionally to manage to get abroad and out of my dry suit

Would be interesting to know if the dryer was actually marine certified (more expensive) than just normal off the shelf fitted on the boat. I would imagine that dryer is pretty much running 24/7.

Welcome to WaterPixels. I am also in Washington State, here in Seattle. Both are great communities full of avid divers and photographers. Look me up if you need a dive buddy!

Glad that everyone is safe! I was in an Emperor boat before in Maldives...

Hi All, I have been a long time member in the previous forum. Lived in Singapore for 6 years and got into diving and underwater photography there. Recently trying to get better at codl water diving and do more UWP here in Washington state. Happy to meet everyone. Thanks!

Some more tests on it https://www.seacam.com/en/opp-test/ Includes also a huge 900mb pdf link to test images.

this is an interesting topic. I (now) always travel with two 8 cell chargers, and a backup 4 cell charger. Most recently in Lembeh, one specific slot on one of the 8 cell chargers "died" (wouldn't charge, regardless of which AA cell I inserted). I tried cleaning the terminals... no go. This charger is now disposed of... my guess it may have been an internal wiring issue. Not worth the hassle, and certainly not worth relying on without a backup when you're on location after significant cost & travel time. As to "boat" comments above - yep, I travel with three 8 cell chargers when I'm doing a liveaboard. Power can be flaky at times.

I successfully used the exact MH-C801D Powerex Charger discussed for YEARS, following previous use of various Powerex chargers. Sadly, ~2 years ago all my Powerex chargers decided they wanted to cook batteries, not charge them. After ruining several sets of white and black eneloops (all massively swollen and charge cycle never completed) - I dumped Powerex completely (different model charger did the same to some Energizer D rechargeables). Since then I have exclusively used a Panasonic charger/conditioner for my eneloops, and an Energizer brand charger for the Ds Sorry - I know that doesnt help in your situation, but I thought I might add my similar experience with Powerex products for anyone considering chargers...

When I was using Eneloop cells, i would buy a new set every year. I was doing about 100 dives a year at the time. I used two sets of 8, so replaced one of the sets every year. A few years on now, most of my old Eneloops won't consistently charge anymore even for use around the house in remotes, thermostats, etc

Dave, thanks for the tips on USB powered chargers, I like that approach and will follow it Tom, I believe the same issues are happening to mine, thanks for the data point. I think that I may have isolated one issue. I found two cells that were completely dead and couldn’t be revived. Although the charger is supposed to take any number of cells at any state of charge, and bring them all to 100% independently, maybe it’s not so smart and maybe one bad one in the mix stumped it. I’ve now got enough good cells to proceed thankfully. My next trip to the land of Amazon will give me a chance to update it all.

Note that, according to Ikelite, the menu item for accessories should not be set to FCON-02 if it is being used because it will stop a flash from firing.

Just wondering, has anyone tried taking a picture with the x5? I see from the spec sheet that it does 72mp and was wondering how good (or bad) that is. The reason I'm asking is because I'm building some 360 virtual tours for some resorts and I'm wondering if this might be an acceptable way (image quality-wise) to produce 360° equirectangular images. I was hoping a combination of the x5 + pro housing + dive buddy could be an easy solution to take 360 images underwater - if the quality is good enough. Otherwise I'll be embarking on a really complicated journey on finding a way to build a rig with an 8mm fisheye, rotating at the nadir point, shoot 6-18 images and stitch them together.

I have been using 8-cell Power-X chargers for many years. My 4th copy is black whereas the 3 older are grey. I am looking at the tiny label on the bottom of the black one now - It has MH-C801D in the name but no mention of smart. Mine all came with AC adapters for US current that connect with a DIN type plug. The only issue I have had is that segments of the LCD display seem to fail after a while (years). This happened to one unit of my first two bought (close to 2 decades ago) so bought #3 and more recently #4. The now 2 units with a semi-functional LCD still charge but hard to tell with missing segments. It is a good idea to have 2 of any type of charger so one can swap them out or have two to charge more batts (16 at a time is minimal for Retras). A possible issue on boats is unreliable electricity. This was a problem on a research vessel I have been on. So all computers were plugged into UPS units. On one cruise it was reported that one UPS unit caught fire as a result of the ship's poor power (a 1960s vintage vessel) on the previous cruise. I would not be surprised if the longevity of power adapters is much less when used on boats. Possibly with portable generators as well.

So much for the conventional wisdom that AA batteries are superior to LiOn because you can buy them anywhere... For what it worth, i used a pair of 4XAA chargers that are USB-C PD powered. Redundancy and no issues with local power supply. Carry a 60W USB brick and run all chargers off of that

Thanks for the ideas. I have checked all of those things and yes I’ve been using this charger here for a year without issue. Since my first post, I’ve now had two batches of cells complete the full charging cycle and one batch not complete. I checked voltages to confirm. It’s clear that the charger is working only intermittently. I did manage to find a cheap 4-cell charger that is very slow. (And just by the way, the only replacement rechargeable Energizer AAs here are USD 8 per cell!). I will just have to limp along and hope for the best on this trip.

It sounds like lights come on the charger but it doesn't charge, is that correct? I assume you have tried unplugging the charger and plugging it back in. Try unplugging the barrel jack to the charging cradle and clean that too. Try charging only a 2 or 4 batteries at a time and if that doesn't work, swap them to different slots. Have you used this charger in Fiji before? The back of the charger will be stamped with the charger input AC requirements. It should say something like 100–240 V AC, 50/60 Hz. This is most likely not the problem but worth checking. According to the internet the outlets in Fiji are 240 V/50 Hz so if the charger is only for 120V/60Hz, that would be an issue.

I also lost a shakle from the Nauticam clamp and bought later another shakle at the hardware store, but in the meantine during ten diving vacation a keyring that I had with me was also fine...

Good advice in general, for sure. But not the cause of my current (!) problem.

To satisfy my curiosity regarding the CFWA abilities with 50mm total extension rings + N100-N120 35.5 adapter, I set up this very basic test scenario. (Sony a1, Sony 2x TC, Metabones V, Canon 8-15) (NA-a1, N100 30 Extension, N100-N120 35.5, N120 20 Extension, Nauticam 140 done) The figure is sitting with basically the nose to the glass dome with fast, solid focus. Lens was zoomed out to wide 8mm. In short, excellent close focus capability and no vignette with the shade installed.

I wonder if this would be true of the ULM laser trigger as well