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@RomiK I have been using the monitor for a while now - will share my thoughts in a couple of days

Kraken has a new 5.5" monitor. A new iteration of their V2 that, according to their website, is still available. I'll update the monitor spreadsheet soon. From the monitor's page: The KRM05 V3 is the next evolution of our professional 5.5″ underwater monitor — same battle-proven 3000 nit IPS panel, now wrapped in a dramatically slimmer and lighter aluminum housing. We moved the adjustment dial to the side for easier access during dives, and added a rear MicroSD slot so you can update LUTs and firmware between dives without opening the housing. 3000 nit 5.5″ IPS underwater monitor — now in a slimmer aluminum housing with side-mounted dial and MicroSD for LUT/firmware updates. 4K HDMI input. 80m/266ft depth rating. 150 minutes at full brightness. Dual 21700 batteries. What’s New in V3 Redesigned aluminum housing — slimmer, lighter, more compact than V2 while retaining the same depth rating Side-mounted adjustment dial — easy one-handed operation underwater without reaching around the housing MicroSD card slot — update LUTs and firmware quickly between dives, no computer connection needed Same 3000 nit IPS panel, same monitoring tools, same 4K HDMI passthrough https://krakensports.ca/product/kraken-5-5-monitor-v3/

Also interested in your reasoning for going from the Weefine 7" to a smaller monitor, and also what your thoughts were on the Weefine 7"

yes please. I'm interested on a comparison too.

Will be heading to Galapagos this October on a LOB. I'm leaning towards not bringing video lights (2 x Keldan 8XR) for a few reasons: Most of the articles/posts I've read seem to suggest that video lights are probably not critical - either scaring the animals, or they would be too far in the blue anyway. Seal/iguana is shallow so ambient light would suffice Strong currents so no light setup is much easier to handle I am coming from Asia and this is part of a longer trip (will be in the Americas for ~2 months, potentially heading to Mexico after Galapagos), so lugging any non-essential/extra gear is a pain Wanted to hear from those that have done Galapagos - what was your experience with video lights? Did you regret bringing/not bringing? Any tips or advice would be appreciated :) Thanks in advance!

A yes mirrors, those pesky things. I'm adapting to Sony FF mirrorless.

Super helpful table - thanks for this! I used to use the Weefine WED-7 Pro, currently using the Fotocore MR5.5 I quite like the MR5.5, happy to give a short review of it if anyone is interested

Hey tiger! Welcome to Waterpixels. Great to have another old timer with us 😜 Yeah, I remember those 36-shot film rolls with maybe 1-2 worth keeping…….. We hope you enjoy the forum. Best wishes Tim

I was shooting with Nikonos and flashbulbs in the 70's catching the expended bulbs and popping them into a mesh bag. It was frustrating beyond belief. the keepers were maybe one every couple 36 exposure rolls. a friend and I cofounded a dive shop in the mid 70's. Digital came like an angel descended upon me. The intervening years were spent in college and veterinary school. vet medicine overwhelmed my world for many years. retired now , building energy efficient structures , a long time passion , and loving the science and art of it in the age of easier to find so much information. my UW cams evolved from the nikonos to the Nikon d200 then d300 and wonderful aquatica housings and trusty Ike 125's and 160's. I've got some juice still in me so I want to throw my d850 in a used aquatica housing and take another run late in life. I thank Alex Mustard and Martin Edge for teaching me what I know. I read Martin's book cover to cover twice before I got into digital and read as many of Alex's articles as I could. So inspiring. this morning I was on this site and saw that Alex was as well. so close to greatness.... ha! Thanks for building a great site and community.

Hi Michi, I know nothing at all about underwater photography, but since I was bored I tried to test Google Gemini on your question. Surely other members will step in with the right solution and corrections. Do not shoot the piano player! The bottleneck in your current setup is the Nauticam Mini Flash Trigger. That standard Nauticam trigger is a basic two pin device. It only connects to the center sync pin and the ground of the camera hotshoe. The Sony A1 architecture requires a digital handshake via the Multi Interface shoe to activate the flash circuit when using the electronic shutter. A basic manual trigger does not provide this digital communication. Consequently, the A1 assumes no compatible flash is attached and disables flash sync in electronic shutter mode. To fire your Marelux, Ikelite, and Inon strobes optically using the electronic shutter, you must replace the Nauticam trigger with a smart TTL converter. These devices communicate with the Sony MI shoe protocol, tricking the camera into recognizing a native flash. Here are the two best options for your Nauticam housing. Configuration A: UW Technics Optoelectronic TTL Converter 11075 HSS Advantages: Specifically designed for Nauticam Sony housings. Fully unlocks the A1 electronic shutter up to 1/200s and supports High Speed Sync up to 1/8000s for compatible strobes like your Marelux units. Disadvantages: Installation requires opening the electronics bulkhead inside the housing. It is a dedicated board rather than a simple hotshoe plug and play device. Optical quality: Flawless signal transmission with very bright LEDs that easily drive multiple optical cables. Practicality: Runs on two CR2032 batteries with an extremely low standby drain, lasting up to 65000 flashes. Cost: Approximately 495 USD. Difficulty of use: Easy once installed. Flash exposure compensation and rear curtain sync can be controlled directly from the Sony camera menu. Configuration B: TRT Electronics s-Turtle Smart 3 for Sony Advantages: Highly reliable smart trigger that fully supports the A1 electronic shutter. It allows switching between TTL and Manual modes directly from the camera menu underwater. Disadvantages: Requires you to manage battery charging before dive trips. Optical quality: Excellent and consistent LED output. Practicality: Features a user replaceable battery rechargeable via USB type C. A smart button provides battery status via LED flashes. Cost: Approximately 400 USD. Difficulty of use: Very simple setup. The device comes in a standalone box and drops into the hotshoe, connecting to the existing Nauticam LED bulkheads. Important Hardware and Settings Analysis Having the right trigger is only part of the solution. Your mixed strobe setup requires careful configuration. Strobe Compatibility: You are mixing Marelux, Ikelite, and Inon strobes. Inon and Marelux accept optical signals natively. Ikelite strobes require the Ikelite Fiber Optic Converter to translate the LED pulse into an electrical signal. Because these three brands interpret TTL quench signals differently, you must operate the new trigger in Manual mode. Mixing different brands in TTL will result in highly inconsistent exposures. Use the smart trigger solely to wake up the electronic shutter, and adjust your strobe power manually on the strobe bodies. Sony A1 Settings: Even with a smart trigger, the A1 will refuse to fire the electronic shutter if configured incorrectly. You must apply these exact settings: Shutter Type: Electronic Flash Mode: Fill Flash Wireless Flash: Off Silent Mode: Off Be highly aware of the Silent Mode. Sony frequently links Silent Mode to a complete deactivation of the flash circuit. You must shoot with the electronic shutter engaged but with Silent Mode turned off. This configuration will eliminate mechanical shutter wear, completely remove shutter shock for macro photography, and allow you to shoot in total silence while maintaining perfect optical sync with your strobes.

Do you mean electronic shutter? I've used OM1 + Turtle Smart 2 without any issues. In fact the only limiting factor was the fact that OM1 did not allow for speeds greater than 1/100 when using electronic shutter + strobe trigger. Camera limitation itself though.

Hi, my Nauticam Trigger just supports mechanical shutter with my Sony A1 to trigger my strobes (Marelux, Ikelite and Inon) via optical signal/cable. What triggers can send a signal when fired in non mechanical (electric) shutter mode of camera?

Thank you! That looks to be a great option. I'll email them and inquire

I have ports made by Saga to use Nauticam wet lenses via a bayonet adapter on my Seacam housings. This gallery has several pix and flix showing them in use: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Family-ties The lens front element is very close to the port glass. In order to use the EMWL with the Nikon 60mm lens Saga made the port a few mm longer for me in order to accommodate the required diopter lens inside the port per Nauticam. I gather Saga makes these ports to order. Jose is a very good communicator via email (fill in the order form on the Saga web site to get started). Make sure to have them notched like the Nauticam ones. See: https://sagadive.com/en/product/frontales-conicos-delrin-saga/ Scroll down to see the various lenses and housing brands accommodated.

Still have some RS gear some converted by Seacam. Dolls were the department of my 3 younger sisters, seem to recall Bs but not Ks (6 decades ago).

Nice! I'm a Divesoft Liberty backmount with FMCL.

Wow!

Aloha neighbor!

Aloha and welcome @blobsthediver

I have two KISS Sprit LTE units for myself and my wife. I have about 1,000 dives on this unit and it's still perfect. I've replaced the harness webbing, some scuba hoses, and fischer cables, but not much else. About 12 years old now. I had an earlier generation of KISS units as well from 2007 when I got CCR certified.

BTW which CCR are you diving?

A dive buddy made a crazy light modifier out of actual mirrors: The Kaleido-Port!

My understanding was the 60mm is too deep and can hit the mirror in the 5D, am I mistaken on that? I do use the 50mm regularly under a mini dome and im always very happy with that combo

I've been making various reduction rings for Retra, HF-1, and Atom strobes for a couple of years now. Not long ago I tried my hand as making a warming 4500k filter as well. But instead of printing it I resorted to traditional arts and crafts. I used epoxy resin to stick gel filters to acrylic disks and then inserted them into the reduction rings to mount on the strobes. This worked ok, but the filters didn't have a diffusor element, and they required a lot of supplies to buy, prepare, and assemble. The results were okay but not great. Older design: Yesterday I decided to take another crack at the project, and ended up doing a revamp of the Retra Reduction Rings and I created 100% 3d printed diffusors and warming filters. The desktop tests look pretty good, and I will test dive them tomorrow to see how they hold up. I also made the filters for the HF-1 and Atom reduction rings as well, which are a slightly smaller diameter. Updated Retra Reduction Rings: The Reduction Rings are a three part set with a Base 88mm wide angle ring, a 60mm macro ring slots to the base, and finally a 38mm super macro ring. The Base ring can accommodate an optional diffusor/warming-filter insert. I remodeled the Base and 60mm rings as part of this new project. New design with white and warming filters. So far I have made a fairly traditional while diffusor and a yellow one that is a pretty good match for the 4500k warming filters from Retra and Backscatter. They were made sandwiching two very thins layers of Transparent PETG and White or Yellow PETG. Two layers of white, or a combo of white and yellow was too opaque and lost too much light. So making one layer from Transparent PETG was a good discovery. I did some bench tests with a bunch of filters on a Retra Maxi at 1/200s, f11, iso64, @ 38mm. 30 cm range. The Retra power level was mostly between -2 and -1 and tuned to deliver a consistent exposure. My Nikon Z8 was set to manual white balance of 4500 kelvin. No color corrections were applied after importing these images in to Lightroom. Warming filters are most useful for wide angle and ambient light backgrounds, but you can at least see the relative performance. Shown below are the: Retra Maxi 6500k native Retra Wide Angle Warming Filter 4500k Backscatter HF-1 White diffusor Backscatter HF-1 4500k warming filter My 4500k gel filter My 3d printed warming filter My 3d printed white diffusor I'll dive the white diffusors tomorrow for a deep, dark, six-gill shark excursion. Not the best showcase but I'll see if the printed diffusors hold up at a minimum. Hopefully I'll have some new shark photos to share.

Yes, very interesting thought. On quite a lot of cameras you do need to fill the WB calibration square/rectangle completely to get an accurate balance, which is why a larger slate at arm's length is quite common. I really like this contraption here: https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/3745-sony-fx5-released/#findComment-26786 There were multiple WB threads on Wetpixel back in the heydays of underwater video, and yes, sand usually works quite well as it covers a large enough area for calibration. But it also depends on the type of sand. I've had very mixed results with brown/muddy sand, and black volcanic sand is also a no-go. Another recommendation that came up a lot, especially from Nick Hope who did a lot of testing at the time, was using the palm of your hand as a WB reference.