All Activity

That's catch 22 I will stick to my small sensor GoPro

Thanks, Markus. I am told that for the South African sardine run, there is a good amount of snorkelling on the surface with the bait balls. There, a smaller setup would likely make it easier to swim after the bait ball. In the end, I have decided to take the Canon/Tokina 10-17 system after all. The faster AF and more modern sensor swing the deal for me.

Hi, have two Sola 2000 and checked charger polarity just now with multimeter.1 = plus, 3 = minus. Pin 2 is is only to prevent plugging in the wrong way round. Had the same problem with defect charger a couple years ago and found third party one at ebay. This charger is still working fine. Will try to find out which one I had bought back then. Br Markus

Ive been working on an article titled " The Ocean Still Has Stories To Tell" SLOWLY.. time is tight these days but eventually ill get it posted. But while working on it the other day a Storyteller came to mind.. and inspired a new design for some t-shirts, now in the shop. 🤪 Got test prints today to check it and they came out great.

I also have an additional Subal T4 machined port (screen shot above). @Atanas_Petrov

If you look at the port charts, they list short port 22 and 25 for both the LX100_II and L10 and they can zoom to either 30 or 40mm respectively on both cameras while the standard port zooms to the full 75mm. You mention your LX100 port is fixed to your housing - presumably that is a type one LX100? - which it seems also had interchangeable ports, so presumably that short port is discontinued You say you can't get your off the LX100 housing? Have you tried a strap wrench? What are you trying to achieve, are you looking to use an M67 wet lens other than a WWL? There is the Nauticam bayonet adapter: https://www.backscatter.com/Nauticam-Bayonet-Mount-Adaptor-for-SMCCMC-Lens which says it works for SMC/CMC/MFO M67 lenses, though it may not end up with the right spacing for other wet lenses. Looking at the M67 short port it mentions there is no zoom, so it may be shorter and not allow you to zoom in or perhaps the L10 lens protrudes a little more at minimum zoom.

If your light still has some charge you should be able to use a multi meter to work out which socket on the light is positive, that then tells you which pin is positive.

That's exactly what i used. If you are interested i can set you up with the port itself and you can insert the glass. If you know the height of the adapter we can figure out the required additional extension. You will need the distance from the mounting ring on the camera to the housing port base. If it's different from Nauticam we need to account for that. Message me if interested.

Thank you, Dave, Yes, the glass I have is from the Zen WA-100-EP PEN DOME, and I measured it as 103.8mm. I will try to find a Subal to n120 adapter, as it will be a quicker solution.

I once charged a buddies Sola with another similar spec charger on a trip to Indonesia. To make contact i made a "connector" with paperclips, a wine cork, and rubber bands. 😃

Interesting. Does the 70-180 zoom internally? That seems like a cool option. I will look into that!

What glass do you have? For my Olympus dome I think the diameter is 103.85 mm and I used a 103x 3mm oring that cost a few cents. If there is a Subal to n120 adapter, that would be all that is needed. I can make the port any length or just add the proper extension.

Hi, hard to say. Always a lucky punch. I shoot FF and mostly Nikkor 16-35 and Nikkor 08-15 with Kenko1.4 in these situations, like baits or big group of fish. I balanced my my rig positive on Sardine run in Mexico last year. Worked fine for me. I think it is not a big difference handling a slightly bigger rig in this situations. (I am 64 years old and not Arnie Schwarzenegger). But this is my point ot view. Different minds different thoughts. Br Markus

So, I went to the local UW photo/video shop to ask for information about the Nauticam L10 housing. They don't have it in store and have to be special order. Anyway, I was trying to get quote to put together the system. Even though it's a N50 system like the Nauticam LX100, I was told the short port from the LX100 housing won't work, and I wasn't given a reason. Instead, they told me the Nauticam L10 short port is either the Short Port 22 or Short Port 25, which none of them allows 67mm wet lens! So you're force into the bayonet mount system. There is no bayonet mount to 67mm converter. Therefore, you now have to spend extra $1400-$1700 depends if you get the WWL-1B or WWL-C. My questions is, those who have the short port for Nauticam LX100, can you find a L10 housing and see if it works? My LX100 short port is permanently fused with the housing so I can't remove it.

Just came back from holyday an saw the WWL-1B blurb issue came up again. Like Dave Hicks I never experienced problems, but in an older track a member posted photos wherein the camera focused on bubbles on the port glass. In my opinion it depends on the configuration you use. My good old Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II ASPH can't focus that close, so I don't have that problem. And my WWL-1 is mounted on a bayonet, maybe that helps as well.

Yep no probs @TimG not really looking for an answer and will ensure any questions are raised in the appropriate section

Hi hamsteRfury If you’re looking for advice on this, it’d be better to start a new post rather than continuing in this thread. More people read and respond in the Technique forum rather than in this one which is essentially for new members to introduce themselves and is part of our anti-spamming system.

Thanks for the warm welcome both 👍 @humu9679 I’m starting steady 🙂 I had considered getting a second hand housing for my Nikon D700 as it doesn’t see any use these days but decided that was probably too ‘all the gear no idea’ even for me so bought a tg-7 and housing on a prime day deal this week to get my feet wet with and will go from there. I’m a sucker for wide angle so may well end up getting the 120 degree backscatter wet lens but am in no rush as I’m not sure how useful it’d be in local water, and I fully appreciate I need light before glass anyway. I’m trying to do some reading before making a purchase in that area.

But at that point you have more compact capable cameras expressly made for content creators with proper af, microphone and I/Os

In my opinion, when the 1 inch sensors were introduced, they should have also implemented an AF system into these small cameras. I wouldn't call them action cameras but small content creator cameras. Most of them are not used for sport anyway.

Dave, great to see the project is successful. I am very interested in whether you can do it in a Subal mount. I have got the glass and o-rings and am willing to support such a project. I also believe others are very likely to be interested, too.

I am off for the Sardine Run in a few days, and am suffering complete paralysis-of-analysis re what lens to use: Fisheye or rectilinear WA. My options are: Olympus 8mm FE in Nauticam system Tokina 10-17FE in a Marelux system Panasonic 7-14mm in Nauticam At present, I am leaning towards the Tokina because of the flexibility it will provide - but the Marelux setup is significantly heavier and harder to swim with if chasing action on the surface. So my preference would be to take the Nauticam MFT system bc of how much smaller and lighter it is - in which case i need to decide between the 8mm or the 7-14. For those of you who have shot the Sardine Run - what’s focal length/FOV gets used the most often? I realize there is an element of luck involved but how likely are you to be close enough to the bait ball to need a fisheye? Any thoughts would be appreciated. ChatGPT says that generally people dont miss fisheyes and a rectilinear WA will be sufficient for most shooting scenarios.

My good old Sola 1200 Photo light is still working, but… my charger suddenly stopped working. The green LED indicator light does not illuminate when I plug the charger into the power outlet, there is no DC currency at the golden contacts, the LEDs on the Sola lamp body do not flash. I opened the body of the charger. No visible damage, but I cannot remove the board, maybe it is glued to the housing (with some reddish substance). Seems to be impossible to buy a replacement charger, all out of stock. Plan A: If someone on this list is willing to sell his/her charger please contact me (I live in Germany). Plan B: I could buy a standard charger with 8.4V/2A output, cut the L&M plug from the original charger and connect it to the new charger. BUT: Where is -, where is + ??? I cannot test on my broken charger... On the plug there are two golden contacts (#1 and #3 in the attached pic) and a silver pin (#2, which probably is only needed to prevent a wrong connection). Could anybody help me with the polarity? Would be too bad to say goodbye to my Sola just because the charger is broken. Greetings, Jock

I have been using a small Subal dome on my Nauticam for years now-learned it from Seagipsy. way nicer than a flat port. Nauticam does not make a big enough glass port to use the lines we want shoot so Subal and Seacam hybrids are the ticket. Subal stoped making these small domes long ago. I think Seacam did the same. My favorite least for fish and macro on same dive is the Nikon 70-180 macro lens behind the small some (not a fisheye) like the one you are making. Just did 65 dives with that setup in Bali Last month. Dave you should start making these for sale.