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Thank you guys. Orcas are nicknamed as 'pandas of the sea' and it well describes them. They are completely harmless toward human being, they literally shove you away on their way to food. The bigger problem are humpbacks who always crash the party from down below - open their mouth, eat the ball, make the splash and the story start again :-). I happened to be in the splash zone of one of these and THAT's an adrenaline!🤣

Thanks a lot for the answers, of course Isotta recommends a shorter service interval but honestly one or two years, which mens less than 100 dives for me, is not sensible to me. I change main o Rins every 2-3 years or until I notice any damage. Regards

Welcome!

Can’t believe you splashed with orcas. Incredible, and more than a tad scary! Those things make great whites look relatively harmless!

It's a pity they poorly encoded the video. There are lots of compression artefacts.

Same here, I have not had a housing serviced as yet, my Em-1 MkII was 6 years old and not serviced in that time, My local dealer said it was needed unless you had issues.

It must be an incredible experience. Bravo!

1.1 crop A1 vs 1.5 crop A7R5 in 4k120?

Interesting. Isotta also recommends 200 dives or 2 years. And how often do you change the o-ring of the housing? My last S&S D300 housing it had like 15 years and didn’t change it even once.

We were supposed to finish the day. On the way back to the boat I saw some action across the bay about a mile away. Like geyzers popping up all over the place. I talked others to go to check this out and the rest is history. It was the most spectacular action of our trip and as the guides put it they've never seen anything like it in years. Never mind my battery was exhausted before three humpbacks decided to end the party and splash me away :-)

Although the Pro dome is much much better than original the x5 footage still isn't good for anything else than vertical socials IMO. There are stitching artifacts usually where it matters :-) and the quality in low light is still poor and mushy. Apart from stitching artifacts - dome reflections - for the documentation I would say yes but then it gets quite big that PRO dome and so It gets in the way... So I would stick to action cam as a B-roll or fun dive camera. Here is link to full frame footage scaled to 4k https://youtu.be/721F2hq9XoQ and here is a screen grab converted to jpeg, the HDR version looks better.

So Ikelite won the race to publish the first Nikon ZR underwater video! The magenta tone escaped in some clips 😉

Folks, We all get our information online. For our passion, YouTube has certainly become—for better or worse—one of the main sources, and over the years, each of us has their own reference channels. However, however... I would like to avoid exchanges of opinion about what is best turning into a competition of "who has the last link." It would be great if we discussed things through our own personal experiences, and not through videos with sensationalistic titles made by people who film their dirty laundry in their bedrooms. In short, I would like our forum to be a different place. A place for the exchange of first hand informations and not an echo chamber for other people's opinions. Ciao

I've never had a housing serviced and a couple have done close to 1000 dives over a period of several years. If it works smoothly and. for example, they are not frequently in sandy environments, I'd suggest leaving well alone...... The only thing that could be serviced on my viewfinder (a Subal) would be the o-rings that mate with the housing. Again, unless they show any sign of wear, I would't change them.

Welcome aboard Oliver!

I'm not talking about macro videography, but a normal scene, or fish videos hugely benefit from a better close focus ability of an action camera. For real macro videography I use a Sony A6400 with appropriate macro lenses (but it's still lots of fiddling around).

The older viewfinders will require an adapter that fits through the plexiglass on the back of the housing. I had to do that with for my Nauticam A7c housing. I think monitors are a great but bulky choice. I’m looking at trying one, as I am also trying to shoot more video.

Aloha and welcome @Olli !

The cost of servicing most housings is quite expensive now, and it does take quite a lot of work. Maybe look up the recommended service intervals for your brand @Olli ? Nauticam generally recommends 200 dives or two years, or longer for select housings. I’d be quite happy if my usual servicing company said to wait for 500!

No action camera is designed for close-up or macro photography. If you want to take macro photos regularly, an action camera is not the right choice for you! Before you start equipping your action camera with close-up lenses, etc., you're better off getting a camera that is designed for this purpose. I also had close-up lenses and filters on my GoPro so that I would be prepared for all shooting situations (Flip system from Backscatter). However, fiddling around underwater and, above all, the poor quality of the recordings despite everything annoyed me so much that I got rid of it all.

Matthias Lebo made a quite extensive comparison of the recent action cameras: I made the following comment: "DJI has really bad corners (otherwise colours look good), iPhone is the most versatile and it has a bit more background separation, Insta clips straight out of the camera are the best, but GoPro is surprisingly good, when there is enough light (but I would use a default -0.5 correction)" My opinion hasn't changed. I can still spot the bad corners of the DJI videos. Another overlooked feature is the close focus ability (or lack of it). Yes, they are fixed focus cameras; therefore, the way the focus is set is very important. Many youtubers complained that even from an arm length their face is not sharp. Underwater, it's very important to move very close to the subject, so actually the smaller sensor of the GoPro is an advantage due to the larger DOF and better close focus ability (especially if we used video lights and marginally better noise is not an issue). This close focus feature can be improved with add on lenses (Inon or AOI). Now, you can use those lenses on Insta360 and DJI cameras, but they were originally designed to GoPros, so I guess they work better with GoPro. I used many action cameras including Yi 4K+, Firefly 8SE, various Insta360 and GoPro cameras (also tried DJI). Currently I use GoPro Hero 12. In my opinion, the difference in video quality among those cameras are not that big and the quality of the light, camera positioning and movement, quality of the water (visibility) have much bigger effects on the final quality. So those are all very capable cameras. My next camera will also be a GoPro, or an action camera with AF or some basic focusing change option.

Hi to all, we are just planning our trip to North-Sulawesi in April and as my housing now is 6 years old and has about 230 dives I intended to make a complete revision at our local shop. Surprisingly they recommended a revision after 500 dives and as long as everything works it is not necessary yet. Now Im torn back an forth if I should wait a little bit longer or do it right now for my peace of mind. By the way: Shouldnt equipment like viewfinders also be serviced? Would be great to hear other opinions about servicing. Tanks in advance, Oliver

Olympus / OM System M.Zuiko 12–50mm + Nauticam Port + Nauticam Zoom Gear For sale is a complete underwater setup including the M.Zuiko 12–50mm f/3.5–6.3, the Nauticam port, and the Nauticam Zoom Gear — a combination whose level of versatility is absolutely unique within the Micro Four Thirds system. A range no other setup can matchThis setup enables underwater capabilities that no other lens in this system can offer: True macro, with electronic macro activation Mid-range and fish portraits Wide-angle, when paired with premium wet lenses such as the WWL-1 or WWL-C Being able to shoot super macro, portrait, and wide-angle all in a single dive is something only this lens/gear combination can achieve. There is literally no other setup in the MFT world with this level of flexibility. This versatility has personally helped me win photography awards. All the images here have been shot with this lens. Rarity & ValueThe 12–50mm lens is no longer being produced, is sold out everywhere, and has become increasingly hard to find. Original price for lens + port + zoom gear was around €1,300. Condition & NotesEverything works perfectly A section of the Nauticam Zoom Gear was carefully shaved down to ensure perfect fit inside a Nauticam OM-1 housing → full functionality, no limitations Optics are clean, no scratches Macro switching works flawlessly IncludedM.Zuiko 12–50mm f/3.5–6.3 Nauticam Port Nauticam Zoom Gear (modified, fully functional) A proven, extremely rare, and uniquely versatile setup — ideal for anyone wanting to shoot macro to wide-angle on a single dive, with no need to change lenses. 500 €