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In the past, I had some good result with a water burnt diopter using California Gold water spot remover. That product is no longer manufactured but maybe any car water spot remover could possibly do the trick. I haven't tried other products.

For what it’s worth, Nauticam (Phil) also confirmed that the coating is on the interior surface of the flat port glass, not the exterior (“The optical coating is just on the interior surface of the glass.”). I have staining or etching on mine despite not allowing water to dry on it. I tried a premixed Japanese cerium oxide paste recently, but the marks remain. I did not continue for long for fear of making things worse. As far as I can tell, the marks are not visible when the glass is wet.

Hi guys, Here is my "silly question" again. Can someone please explain the rationale behind applying the coating to the outer surface of a port? Does anyone have a technical or optical justification for this? I do not know the optical sense, but the problem with coating on outer surface is, that we clean/wipe the port after every dive. Even if we use the softest cloth available, we inevitably remove a little bit of the coating each time—however minuscule that amount may be. Unless there is some specific optical purpose for it... why put the coating on the outside of ports? However, I’m certainly open to being corrected if someone can offer a clear explanation for a reason for outer surface coating on ports. May be there is difference on super macro lenses due to optical setup. Hope someone can help. I use ceroxyd for years for my ports and my old macro wetlens and it works perfect. It removes watermarks and even tiny scraches without much effort. Also Seacam confirmed that optical coating is on the inside of the ports. Let me give you also two other example not UW related -first not from the field of optics- but still related to the loss of coatings. I had my car's paintwork treated with a very expensive ceramic coating (a very hard coating). After three years—and very few hand washes the coating was virtually gone due to the washing process and environmental exposure and it had to be reapplied. -second from my optician. I have glasses with expensive progressive lenses with hard coating for protection. My optician recommends to clean this one only with warm dishwashing liquid and use a supersoft close (no standard microfiber, no standard glasses cleaning cloths) to dry. He too, assured me that otherwise, the coating wouldn't last for a terribly long time. May be our UW camerahousing supplier have a superformula coating😁 Best regards, Markus

Thanks for the article Dan. I've also dived Liberty periodically since my AoW certification there in 2002, and seen the slow decay of the ship over the decades. I guess the statue garden on it's right side came up partially to diffuse out the crowds that dive it. Personally, I am happy to see more divers (including at the wreck) - it's good for more people to enjoy the UW experience. My solution to solving the crowd problem would be to find another old ship, and sink it off the coast, somewhere between Seraya and Liberty, haha.. Kind regards, Ajay

After I saw the article from Wetpixel , I also use DIY cables. Cables are expensive and it's hard to get in Maldives , so I 3D print the plugs and use high quality optical audio cable. this has been used with Retra , Inon, and Sea&Sea strobe and recently with the Meralex strobe with housing. Also TTL with the Retra. I don't use any glue , it's very tight and I have no problem. If anyone one need any cable in case of emergency while you are in Maldives , pls let me know , I am happy to provide for free.

good stuff!!!

As I already wrote, the WWL front element has no coating.

Read your question more carefully. I asked about the front element, not the real one. I don't think the rear has coating but, to answer what I "heard", I believe Phil only answered about the font element because that's the one I was trying to fix. Gary

Yes, I spoke with Phil, if you know him. But if you want more assurance just mail them. They are very responsive to questions. Gary

Let me verify, you spoke with a knowledgeable person at Nauticam and the WWL-1 and WWL-1C do not have external coatings on the dome and rear element nor their other water contact optics?

Looking to buy one, if anybody wants to sell. Gary

I'm another one who corresponded with Nauticam. The outer surface does not have any optical coating. I'd expect cerium oxide to work well (or at least as good as possible). You can buy the powder on Amazon. Mix with water to form a paste and polish away. The paste will not scratch the glass but will polish very nicely. Just make sure your towel (preferably microfiber) is clean of any debris, especially metal flakes, from any past use.

Sea & Sea strobes are a topic of debate around here, especially after the widespread D2 issues. I've been shooting S&S since the YS-25auto, had a pair of YS-110a's for many years, and now D3's. I've shot Ys-D3's for ~4 years now on my Sony A6100 system and think they're great. Using the popup flash with TTL, both Fisheye EA (with dome diffusers), as well as macro (with the snoot), and they're great strobes. Easy to use, great battery life, and well priced.

This is correct, the 17mm NA N100 to MX was actually designed for WACP C and the N120 20mm for N120 ports, extensions and wet lenses like WACP 1. I have used all of the above including WACP C, WACP 1, NA 230 dome and Matty Smith 12 inch domes with a verity of lenses. For macro it is best to switch to Marelux unless your macro port can convert using extensions. Attached photos are WACP-1 on N120 adapter, WACP-C on the N100 adapter and MS 12" dome on the NA N120 to MX adapter.

Phil can correct me, but if shooting Sony the 17mm Marelux to N100 Nauticam adapter (MX-31704) should allow all of the N100 ports to fit with the ~13mm shorter extension that Marelux uses. It will still take a little math to get it right across the port range as that is the equivalent of the 30mm extension on Nauticam, not just straight housing. If your Ports are N120, then there is a conversion ring for that as well, but it is 20mm so doesn't account for the 2-3 mm differences between the two housing brands - not sure that matters.

Just out of curiosity: in case one would switch from Nauticam (e.g. A7R5) to Marelux A75(R6) housing, would it be possible to mount a single adapter to the Marelux housing and continue to use all Nauticam ports/extensions (and adjust the regular Nauticam extensions for an easy to achieve distance (e.g. +/- 10mm) to compensate for the difference in sensor<->port mount distance)? Which one?

It found a home

@Mike Saunders Better luck tomorrow!

They could be different types of glass, there are many different types of optical glass around. BK7 is one of the most common. The procedure is straight forward - on a dive boat either keep the lens wet or apply the wet neoprene lens cover and keep it cool. Soak the lens for a period in fresh water. Then remove it and dry it straight away. I have a battery duster that I use, you could also use a blower attachment on a scuba tank or a compressed ir hose, depending on what you have available. Then dry with a microfibre cloth.

I just recently published it on MakerWorld: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2877582-float-for-backscatter-hf-1-strobe-220g-buoyancy

i think i am far away on the other side of the world... are the print file available anywhere?

to be honest it was impossible shore night dive with swell and my mask misting up. could barely see let alone focus. turned strobes off and carried in with ring light only. makes one hell of a torch for night dives but really the surge was too much to get decent photos 😐 a calmer longer dive and more time would help

Mike, Thanks! It makes sense that the ring light would falloff pretty quickly with distance. How did your experiment supplementing with strobes go? Did you use the ring light in strobe mode?