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If only lens resolution and sharpness were the lowest hanging fruit for improvement of underwater images! Realistically, there are about a dozen things that are likely to have a greater impact on creating better images than lenses or camera sensors. Sorry if that's not a helpful comment!

Unfortunately we are drifting away in this thread with a lot of speculation, hairsplitting and nothing new brought to the table by some contributors. This was not what I wanted in the topic opener. I want lens pitches ( „potentials“ ) which we can explore and test AND quantifiable (lp/mm and LW/PH) to get an idea where they possibly stand. These of course have to be ranked in separate lists for each camera brand bayonet and are not cross comparable. It‘s also problematic if you compare testing website source A with website B or have to compare underwater or topside values. But you have to start somewhere to get a vague idea on what’s possible. Also I think it‘s important to relate to something you know. Many of us have the EF 8-15 (or an RF100) and can therefore relate to how pixelpeeping a 54 lp/mm (or 86,5 lp/mm) candidate looks like.

Wahou. The visibility was not great but what amount of mantas! As I said earlier, at which period di you go? During the wet season? If so, what was the weather? Did you stay on a local island like digurah or on a resort island? It would be perfect to combine a nice island with a very good house reef (black tips, curls, eagle rays...) with boat trips to hanifaru

For Belize, we went to Turneffe Island Resort. The dolphins were around several of the dive sites, so we saw them (and swam with them) on both surface intervals, and twice, on safety stops. They do offer snorkel tours (twice a day), however those are mostly for viewing fish and coral, not dolphins. They do have several snorkeling siteds where turtles are found.

IMO, you are chasing a tiny improvement at best, there's thousands of great shots taken with the Canon 8-15 with the recommended dome dimensions. The test shots displayed on here of the banknotes certainly didn't set the world on fire. I would be interested to see some shots also - test shots are generally preferred as they are a shot of a flat surface and you don't have to work out if the softness is due to optics or if the foreground is falling out of the depth of field.

Does anyone have any real world photos they've taken using this setup, but with a different extension?

Please let me know what you'd like to see or hear more about as I continue to evaluate the new Retra Maxi strobes! Any questions, configurations, or test case suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As an added note, I have the Backscatter HF-1, Backscatter Atom, Inon 330, and a buddies Retra v1 strobes available for comparison.

This post represents an initial start on a review of the new Retra Pro Maxi strobe. I've had the strobes for just 1 week and wanted to provide some initial experience and images taken over my first three dives with the Maxi's. I'll be building up to a full review as I use in a wider range of environments over the next couple of months. Introduction Reta was very generous and agreed to provide me with a pair of their new Maxi strobes for evaluation. I’ve been shooting the Backscatter HF-1 for over a year now and have often made comparisons with Retra’s strobes. To be perfectly honest, I have been critical of Retra’s highest end Max and Max II strobes due to their relatively high price compared to the HF-1, and their use of older AA battery technology. I consider AA power outdated in a lithium-ion era, resulting in limitations to core features like recycle time, video lighting, and run-time. The new Maxi strobe seems to have answers to each of these critiques. I appreciate their confidence in allowing me to consider their new product. Retra included the required batteries, and two sets of their Reduction rings and Wide Angle / 4500k color diffusers. I am very happy to have these accessories as they match what I routinely use with my HF-1 strobes. First Impressions I was not able to do a proper unboxing unfortunately as my Maxi’s were provided in generic packing materials rather than Retail packaging. However, the hardware lives up to Retra’s familiar high level of refinement and precision in manufacturing. The Maxi’s silver-gray aluminum construction and controls are directly comparable to the Max II strobes despite being sold at nearly half the retail price. I spent some time reading the manual and exploring the controls and features. I won’t regurgitate the specs in this preview, but I suggest reviewing Retra’s web site for details. I am a Manual mode shooter, so I have not experimented with any of the TTL modes, and I don’t have a trigger capable of HSS. My Nauticam Z8 housing comes standard with a Nauticam manual mode flash trigger. Configuring the strobe in “M” mode, it shot perfectly in both single shot and rapid bursts at 1/8 to 1/4 power levels. I didn’t notice any loss of power in short 3 burst images. The Spotting light is dead center of the strobe, making for easy and accurate aiming with a snoot or super-macro reduction rings. The spotting light is approximately 300-400 lumens with a 50% and 100% modes. I can’t find this documented in the specs or manual, so hopefully Retra will provide this detail in the future. My Maxi’s include the optional Video Light, which is capable of an impressive 6000 lumens. Conveniently the Power Knob provides fine grained levels from 0 to 100% in its 17 positions. This is a very nice feature, but I suspect most users will just go to 100% if shooting occasional videos. I don’t have enough time in the water with the strobes yet to comment on battery life. On the two macro focused dives conducted so far, I had one of the strobes running with the spotting light on for nearly a full 70 minutes. The battery indicator never left the green-zone of 100-75% power remaining. From my experience with earlier AA power Retra strobes, running the spotting light was sure way to drain the battery. This seems like a solid improvement so far. Configuring my RigBefore setting out on some initial test dives I swapped out my HF-1 strobes with the Maxi’s. My first dive would be limited to Macro shooting only as recent flooding in the Pacific Northwest have wreaked havoc on the usually excellent winter visibility. Rather than my usual Snooting setup for macro with the combo of an MF-2 + Snoot and HF-1, I used the two Maxi’s with reduction rings. I shot with a Nikon Z8, 105z lens, and double diopters MFO-1 and Subsee +10. The first point of comparison is the weight of the entire rig in and out of the water. The Maxi strobes are just slightly heavier than the HF-1s using identical battery cells. (Nitecore 5300mah) In the photo above, I have a custom ring float on the macro port that adds about 400 grams of buoyancy. I had to remove it after my initial dive with the Maxi’s as my rig became positively buoyant and wanted to go belly up! The in-water weight of the Maxi’s is essentially neutral while the HF-1 are about 250 grams negative, each. The Maxi is a bit larger and 20 grams heavier than the HF-1. However, the additional volume seems to be quite deliberate in order to achieve near-neutral buoyancy. Image - Bottom to top: Retra Maxi, Backscatter HF-1, Backscatter Atom After removing the port float, I took the following measurements: Dry Underwater Maxi x 2 11.34 kg 0.1 kg HF-1 x 2 11.30 kg 0.63 kg Preview imagesAs of this writing I have done three dives in the last week with the Retra Maxi’s. Two macro dive, one set for Wide angle. The Wide Angle dive ending up being a challenge, so I only got a few usable photos. This was due to fairly poor and hazy water clarity and strong currents at the start of the dive, and worsening visibility at the end of the dive once the current slackened. I’ll get a better sample of photos in the next few weeks. Scalyhead Sculpin (Artedius harringtoni) on a bit of frayed rope. Redondo Beach Park, WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, MFO-1 diopter, f13@1/200s iso200, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes Pacific Red Octopus (Octopus rubescens) in a bottle Redondo Beach Park, WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, MFO-1 diopter, f10@1/200s iso320, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes Diamond Back Nudibranch (Tritonia festiva) Alki Beach, Seattle WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, MFO-1 diopter, f5.6@1/200s iso64, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes Sea Spider Alki Beach, Seattle WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, Subsee +10 diopter, f16@1/200s iso250, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes Diamond Back Nudibranch (Tritonia festiva) Alki Beach, Seattle WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, MFO-1 diopter, f5.6@1/200s iso64, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes Stubby Squid (Rossia pacifica) Alki Beach, Seattle WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, MFO-1 diopter, f14@1/200s iso160, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes Female Wolf eel (Anarrhichthys ocellatus) collecting an urchin snack Sunrise Beach Park, Gig Harbor WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikon 60mm lens, Kraken KRL09 WA, f5.6@1/40s iso500, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes, Wide Angle 4500k dome filters Pacific Red Octopus (Octopus rubescens) with fist-sized urchins Sunrise Beach Park, Gig Harbor WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikon 60mm lens, Kraken KRL09 WA, f11@1/80s iso500, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes, Wide Angle 4500k dome filters Red Irish Lord (Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus) Sunrise Beach Park, Gig Harbor WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikon 60mm lens, Kraken KRL09 WA, f13@1/80s iso500, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes, Wide Angle 4500k dome filters Hazy visibility with diver and Sea Lemon nudibranch Sunrise Beach Park, Gig Harbor WA, USA Nikon Z8 w/Nikon 60mm lens, Kraken KRL09 WA, f6.3@1/40s iso1000, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes, Wide Angle 4500k dome filters

I get one about 2 years ago but I have to say it's not so good as I expected. Especially when you are trying to adjust the buoyancy by squeezing it, if you squeeze too much air out, you have to tak off your mouthpiece and blow it again, so on and so forth, then you will give up to use it again...🤣

That looks more like the material you get from Beneath the Surface (us brand) which I've found quite durable. I wish I could track some down in sheet form for a couple custom designs. Can you share a link?

I really liked my 6500 but that battery definitely didn't last long. I'm currently on the hunt for a 6400 although since a large focus will be video I debate if giving up IBIS is worth the improved AF and battery life.

It depends on how small a subject you find and want to photograph, the MFO-1 reduces the frame covered from 36mm wide to 30mm wide providing 1.2x magnification. The SMC-3 gets 2.3x with the frame being 15.5mm across with 47mm working distance. The SMC3 focuses between 47 and 103mm and I expect it won't give you any overlap with the MFO-1 range. For me I would also factor in how often I find these things, if it's once on the entire dive trip maybe a better solution for this one critter is to crop?

Looking to add to the equipment collection and considering either the SMC-3 or MFO-1 (already have the MFO-3!). I know they are designed for different uses, but from your own experience, is one or the other more useful. For macro, I have the Sony 90mm (on A7C) and have CMC-1 and 2 for use with the kit 28-60mm lens (and they work great), but at times getting a little more magnification on the 90mm without a TC would be nice. Otherwise, having extra depth of field and less hunting on the lens make the MFO-1 a good option. Couldn't find a good thread for both of these lens, so I'm just looking for opinions.

I like my Sony A-6400 in Nauticam. I use either the WWL plus a Sigma 19 or the kit lens behind the WWL. I also use the Sony 16mm pancake by itself, with the wide angle or the fisheye adapters inside the 4.33 dome. The WWL easily produces better image quality than the 16mm pancake but at the expense of only a 130 degrees FOV. The problem for me with the A-6XXX series of cameras is the 1/160 sync speed and the preflash that cannot be cancelled for manual only. Using the UWT trigger I can trick the camera into 1/200 sync speed and it works fine. It also has the booster battery or I can run onboard charging thus making it possible to shoot several days without opening the housing if need be.

USD $900 shipped at buyers expense.

Regardless of housing choice, if you decide to go Sony, don't choose the 6500. Get at least the 6400, which still has built-in flash and has vastly improved AF over the 6500.

Two YS-D3 Mk ii Lightning strobes for sale. Excellent condition and both working perfectly. USD $750 for both or will split for USD $400 each. Strobes located in Canada but I can ship at buyers expense.

I ordered some arms and floats from Temu. 2x 20(8inch)cm arm and four of the floats total of 35€. Arms arent real high quality with treatment on balls deteriorating. The floats (175g each) feel real good. I dont like the porous material of stix, and these are solid. All in all, about 60 dives in, im giving the arms 5/10 and floats 9/10.

While this is certainly an interesting exercise, there is a fundamental problem. You will see this notice on sites like optical limits: Please note that the MTF results are not directly comparable across the different systems! what does this mean - it means they are testing the combination of the lens, sensor, anti alias filter, de-mosaicing algorithm and any camera specific changes. But what does this actually mean? Well searching around I found a website that tested the same lenses on different camera systems. They tested a SONY 50mm f1.2 on both a Sony and Nikon camera and on SONY (A7RIII) its peak Imatest score was 3611 at f2.8 while on Nikon (z7) it was 4128 @ f2. There is also a test of a 35mm f1.4 EF lens on SONY, Canon and Nikon. The Canon camera used has an anti alias filter so returns significantly lower scores on the same lens Here is the site: https://photographylife.com/our-canon-and-sony-lens-reviews-will-have-imatest-data-comparable-to-nikon So where does this leave us? We can certainly work out the fastest knife in the drawer in any particular brand of lens if they are tested on the same camera. We know that a 3600 score will pretty much certainly sharper than say a 2500 score, but unless the top contenders are tested on the same system we will struggle to decide which is first place. We could use the plots supplied in the link above to approximately convert between the systems, however they only really apply to the cameras they use for testing. As for the Nikonos test the biggest problem I expect is the fact that the testing was done on a completely different system. The centre score in LP/mm should still be valid for a full frame sensor with the same characteristics - the corners of course are a different story. And to be truly comparable the Nikonos is tested UW, you would need to test the other lenses UW as well to compare them. Then there is the problem of different amounts of water between the lens and target. You could probaly validly compare the 8-15 with a Nikonos 13mm equivalent but perhaps not a 16-35 lens for example.

Go South (Marsa Alam) June to August (more crowded but good weather ) Caution: if you go in winter and the wind is above +30km/h they close the port (Hurgada) for security reasons and no sailing aloud. Last couple years theres was lots of liveaboard accidents, and in 2024/25 the government implemented lots of restrictions to prevent more accidents, 2 motor engineers on board now is mandatory and they ban night sailing. The liveabaords are refurbish old yachts made of wood, and their bottom is flat.. meaning not made to break the waves. Sometimes the boat operator add extra deck to accommodate more passengers, messing with boat stability due being taller, get a windy day and the thing shakes a lot (flat bottom remember). The times ive went ( emperor ) the captain told us, he had inherited their boat license from his father, fisherman, 40 years at sea, at sea since age of 10, very experience, know the tides, currents, cross winds, but there's no navigation charts, everything is done visually avoiding surface corals + with a smartphone with GPS.. In November 2024 we booked a chart (20 divers) and before we leave the port, the captain refused to make the south route due the weather conditions, he made an ultimate, or north or we won't leave, and until today im glad the captain took that decision, because 2 days later, other boat that leave same day has us, the Sea Story sank capsize...killing 11 people onboard. Ive worked 15 years at sea, weekly drills, fire fighting training, sea rescue, etc, etc, some stuff what ive seen in Egypt shock me, other has pleased me. Staying at Sharm el-Sheikh resort can also be good option (safer) .. theres dive centers booking daily to SS Thistlegorm or Ras Muhammad National Park. Need to return one day to go to Rosalie Muller & Salem express (liveaboard)

I've been to the red sea 3 times, two of them from Sharm el Sheikh and another one from Hurghada. This is everything north Red Sea, if you expect big stuff is not the place, Although I dove with dolphins for more than one hour in Abu Nuhas reef, very good spot for wrecks. And I dove with a big hammerhead in gordon reef, that's all north. If you are lucky you'll dive alone in the scattered spots, but in famous spots like Abu Nuhas will be a bit crowded, and if you go to the very famous Thistlegorm you'll dive probably with more than 200 divers at the same time, it's very crowded, but it's worth it. Be careful with the boat you choose, a few of them say they are luxury and charge like luxury when they are actually not. I was in the Agressor II in October 2024, they sell luxury, but it's not. Not a bad boat for a normal price in Egypt north, 1300 € more or less for a cruise saturday to saturday plus flights, plus tips, plus beers..., but nothing else, even they are very friendly and well equipped for photographers, big tables for the cameras and air whips to dry up the housing after rinsing.

Comparing land performance figures against an UW lens seems less than valid no? I'd like to see how it performs on a FF sensor in a controlled test. I don't personally have the time, infrastructure or desire to do so but I am curious. I have the lens but have yet to be able to take it underwater.

The Cabo "tax" scam is a menace, but it's a play the odds scenario really. Most of the time the screening is random, and you might increase your odds by putting camera gear in a boring looking suitcase. For Mag Bay you also don't need a lot of gear. Just a housing, 1 port, 1 lens. No strobes or light as you will be snorkeling the entire time. You might have a pay 100-200 usd, but that's a small expense you can plan for in a much more expensive trip. I've been there about 4 times since they started taxing photographers, but I have not been hit yet. So it's not a sure thing.

Thanks for letting me know. I can't make the purchase right now. I'll let you know if anything changes.

Makes sense and you are right, can adjust easily enough and less important for macro anyway.