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No please, don't go!

Shoot a bit of video to heat up the camera 🤑

Welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Aloha and welcome @rlmalisz Video is more popular that ever. Just sayin.

Proof of protection🤣 Found this after a blackwater dive, seems some collisions happened when they put my gear on the boat, it really helps!

You've given me an idea to help with 20 battery quotas. I'm going to make sets of sealed battery "banks". For example, I'll have 8x AA batteries in one bank. It will have a single hex or Philips screw that holds a lid on so it can't be opened by airport staff. The "bank" will have 8x 2450mAh x nom 1.5v = 29400Wh "capacity". This will be under the maximum 100Wh limit for single pack. I'll do a similar thing for the 21700 and other lithium cells, ensuring I stay under the 100Wh capacity. I'll get some professional looking stickers printed that indicate the battery capacity in total, so the airport staff can easily read the numbers and confirm they meet international rules. I'll just open the lids when I get to my destination and use the batteries as I normally would. Will report soon on an update to the design, including STL files. Welcome anyone with further input that will help everyone here.

I currently have a small bolt snap on the OS-1, but thought a mount clip would potentially work as mine is usually off by default. The example on Printables has the aperture slides; nice touch. Always takes about 3 to 4 iterations to get these things right, if not more!

Based in the US PNW, have been diving since 1996. Some cold water (Puget Sound, BC, PNW freshwater lakes), cool water (Australia). Mostly warm...Caymans, Bonaire, Hawaii, Solomons, Thailand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Philippines. Have hung up the cold water fins, and it's been all warm water for over a decade. Took a UW Photo course at Grand Cayman on a Nikonos V, but had dragged along a Hi8 Sony camcorder and a midget housing. After the class ended, shot video the rest of the trip, and it's been video ever since. Have gone through at least four video systems, finally working my way up to 4K with a Gates-housed AX100. But am going to give still UW photo a run, and let video go. Aside from diving, do a lot of cycling, gardening, hiking/walking. Worked at Intel for nearly 30 years, and am still a recovering nerd.

FCP is not a lens I have used so no first hand knowledge. I have however heard similar feedback from some that have used FCP. Perhaps a new thread should be started to hear others opinions.

More or less every time I start my trip from Zurich airport... they have very strict rules... it is CH... I travel with 2 box of 16 AA 1 box of 6x32650 small box of 6 AAA and the drone with 3 batteries. I try now to separate the boxes in different backpack to avoid to have all in one and with that avoid "to much questions"

Thanks for the clarification Phil, I recall people saying the FCP had noticeably small depth of field.

Hi, do you think you can split the package? I can be interested in the mirrorless 45 viewfinder… 😅

I use the OS-1 on by default and only remove it occasionally so letting it hang is reasonable. If you kept it off by default you might want a mount. Here is one on printables: Backscatter Miniflash 2 (MF-2) and Snoot (OS-1) holder by DarrylB | Download free STL model | Printables.com

The short answer is yes, also keep in mind that I found WWL-1B to be noticeable wider when used with the Marelux N100 to 5 inch, 17mm adapter. I have used Laowa 10 & 12mm, and at least four different versions of both 14mm and 14mm zooms that have all had better DOF. This is an issue I was discussing with a well known U/W photographer at DEMA who has compared fisheye water contact optics V. lenses like Canon 8-15mm in 140 to 230mm domes and he remarked that the differences are even greater with fisheyes. I have used 28-60/70 zooms and the 28mm F/2 and DOF at 28mm is about the same across all of the wet optics I have tried that are advertised to be 130 degrees. With WACP-2 you can use lenses up to 14mm and DOF then improves.

I will 3d Print something with the slightest excuse, but for this scenario I think a small bolt snap and an oring zip tied to the MF-2 ball mount is hard to beat.

Has anyone made a caddy clip for the Backscatter Mini Flashes to OS-1? If not, looks like I'm off to another project.

I had Ikelite housings for years with the D70, D300, and briefly the D800. With the D800 I felt like the Ikelite design had gotten out of its depth. Wide angle lens/port combos with full frame were not good, clipped the image and had terrible ergonomics. I moved up to a D800 Nauticam housing and never looked back. To their credit, Ikelite updated their housing design and completely re-vamped the port system to address the issues I experienced. Recently, I had some experiences with Ikelite housings while trying to assist a friend having trouble. My friend had bought a used Ikelite d850 housing and sent it to Ikelite for servicing and overhaul before using it. It came back with a Broken hotshoe wire, that I had to solder together. The zoom gear for a 16-35 had to be screwed down and prevented the camera from being removed from the housing. If the lens release lever was not positioned just so, the camera would be trapped in the camera, Catch-22 style. An improperly installed ISO button control that depressed the control and froze the camera. Had to remove the c-clip and reinstall the button. Finally, the shutter dial knob would not engage with the camera control. I would no longer recommend an Ikelite housing to even my worst enemy.

OP: If I remember right, my first "real" underwater setup was and Olympus E330. I progressed over time to an Olympus EM1 and used that for several years. Focusing in lower light and fast moving subjects was not always ideal and dynamic range always seemed a bit limited to me. I shot mostly wide angle. I later moved to a Nikon D500 and was delighted with it, although I missed the small size of the Olympus. Over the past year I have decided to move to mirrorless camera and spent a lot of time agonizing over what to get, because I would have liked to move to a smaller setup if possible. What I found was that when considering housings and ports the weight and size differences between any of the full frame and crop sensor camera options is not very great, usually within an inch or so in any dimension, and weight differences were a max of 2 lbs. Once you add arms and strobes and focus lights, the differences get even smaller. The few crop sensor options out there involved compromises I did not want, for a small size and weight savings. I also love using my fisheye zoom lens and did not want to lose that, which affected my decision. The crop-sensor formats are great for underwater use, perhaps unless you intend to make really massive photo sizes, but the camera manufacturers seem to now view them as an entry-level camera format and are slow to release new stuff and often new lenses are aimed at a different market. I moved from the Nikon D500 to a Z8 primarily because my old eyes were having trouble seeing the LCD display clearly and I wanted to have an electronic viewfinder, otherwise, the D500 with an 85 or 60mm macro or the 8-15 fisheye did everything I wanted. Going full frame was a byproduct, not a goal. I considered going back to M43, since I still have many ports and lenses, but since that since the product line was taken over by OM, I feel that real improvements have been minimal and they have not really invested in the product line in a way I would want to see. I am sometimes unsure if the product line will continue, at least as a contender for underwater use. My comments are subjective and based on my skill and usage. Others will feel differently and some here do great work with the format. If I were in your situation and I heavily prioritized size and weight, I would get an OM system camera, probably the OM1 Mkii. There are some relatively less expensive housing options if desired, such as from AOI, although I am fond of Nauticam. If willing to consider greater size and cost for potentially improved quality (or maybe just it being easier to take better photos?), would look closely at the options from Sony, Canon and Nikon, balancing cost, size, weight, port and lens availability and size and, of course features sets. If you also want to do video, that can change things. In any case, pay attention to flash sync speed (I think 160 is too slow), and focus speed and accuracy, minimum focus distance of the lenses of interest and so on. Any system that does not do what you want is going to frustrate you. Figure out what lens(es) you will want for any camera you are considering and be sure you like the lenses and ports available in that system. As you can tell from some of the posts above, some lenses are well-regarded, and some not so much. Burst photo rates, massive ISO ranges and "creative" photo options are not important (to me). Battery life can also matter, as changing batteries at depth can be challenging. I have never used Ikelite housings, but I have never seen much enthusiasm for them on photo-centric forums like this, so make of that what you will. Also some housing systems are better supported on different continents, in case that matters. Good luck.

To Dave Hicks and Gary R and others.... Absolutely global decline with water warming to previously unheard of levels is affecting coral worldwide. My only point was that posts basically telling people don't go here, there or anywhere may not be realistic. I doubt there's anywhere left on the planet untouched by global climate change both land and sea. I can look at my first digital photos (below) from 2001 shooting a lowly 3.3MP Nikon Coolpix 990 in Papua New Guinea and see the decline of reefs and all too. Doesn't make me happy either....... I'd say do what you want and share your thoughts, but me? I'm still going diving (and photographing) since I'm lucky to be able to at my age :) DH

You should bring up the Insta360 AcePro2 on your radar. It‘s slightly more capable than the GoPro and the Osmo with the out of the box footage. Personally I use Insta360 AcePro (version1) as a small secondary cam and that one already smokes the other cams around. Due to the larger sensor and leica optics of the insta you already notice slight performance differences in the underwater optics. I have tested AOI, Backscatter and INON underwater action cam optics and found the INON image quality to be slightly superior than the others. There was also a thread here somewhere on the forums seconding my personal impressions about the superiority of the INON action camera optics.

Hello @Nando Diver did you try EXPL to lock exposure? I didnt find the command within QRControl app...

It might be hit and miss. I've travelled with a lot of batteries before and never had any confiscations... plenty of questions though.

Nice box.... but for sure in Zurich / CH you will have some problems at the security check... that is to many batterie ... the rules are strict.... 2 x 16 AA bat... is allready to much for a person. I was lucky to be with my wife I gave him one set... other wise ... :(

Just an update on my personal experience with the MF-2s: I am now using one MF-2 with the snoot together with one MF-1 and this works fine. Even without HF-1 there is plenty of light for small subjects (e.g. nudies). I am still not convinced that two MF-2s (without snoot) are plenty of light for how I shoot macro and prefer the HF-1s (altough they are big). For snooting, however, I find the MF-2 very usable.. I am certainly interested in the new HF-1 snoot, but have now mixed feelings about the HF-1s (that performed until now): one broke during the holidays in Tansania (Mafia Island) where I am still for another week. The ON/OFF switch first made droubles, sometimes it worked, sometimes not and after few days of diving it broke completely (no more possible to switch the flash ON despite of full, fresh, batteries). The other HF-1 still works, but the ON/OFF switch also does not work reliably (I almost lost one dive because I could not switch the HF-1 ON UW (I only had the MF-2 with (and without) snoot for making photos during this dive)). => I will send both HF-1s in after I am back and will then decide whether to stay with HF-1s or switch to another big flash, unreliability is really a contraindication and at the moment I am really pissed off at the moment (I also have still my Z330s at home))...☹️

Thanks, @Alex_Mustard ! Would you be willing to share your setup file for your A1 here at all?