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wow I though the original question was quite simple but this has turned into a technical pandora's box and I have been fascinated to read the replies I'm on a sony alpha 6xxx set up which is firstly portable and secondly cheap(ish) I have always presumed that if you are shooting with a dome, the dome becomes a part of the lens system and may well be the most important quality limiting step as most lenses, even cheap ones, are pretty good. The second thing, at my stage is that there are far more significant factors limiting image quality than sensor size (technique, experience and so on) but I posted the original question while I was wondering if going from alpha 6xxx to alpha 7 ff would make much difference. My guess is not... thanks for all the excellent replies

Consider me suitably warned!😀 I'm still researching tripods at the moment - not racing into a decision. I'm planning on using Helicon Focus for the software - is that one that you have used before?

Just a question about the sync speed of OM-1 with a simple flah trigger. Several users reported 1/400 flash sync speed on their Olympus camera combined with a Nauticam trigger. It appreared to me that with my Olympus-5iii and a Nauticam trigger, as well as with a Underwater Light an Magic trigger, 1/500 sync I also gives a full well lighted image. I'd like to know if the OM-1 (1/2) has comparable sync speeds. Did someone test this out?

don't say I didn't warn you. I have enough issues on land. What sort of tripod do you propose to use? The stacking software is good, but it has a steep poorly documented learning curve.

Don't believe so, this is hotshoe, there are 21 tiny contacts across the shoe, google probelms with Sony hotshoe and you'll get lots of hits.

Dear Fred, another thing you may want to consider for your grant money is a computer / workstation for image processing. I don't know if you are already well served for that at your institute, but image processing can become part of your routine - if you decide that it's appropriate. Using AI to improve image quality is certainly a difficult thing for scientific purposes. The borders of what's acceptable and not are blurry and also depend on the field of research (i.e. whether and how the community accepts these technologies). For cell biology, this is starting to become applied to improve signal/noise of e.g. fluorescence images, in particular before automated image analysis in "-omics" projects. But one has to be very vigilant that the "improvement" does not "iron out" true information or, in your case, introduce artifacts that you may count wrongly as a fish scale. Let your own judgment and gut feeling guide you as to how far YOU find this acceptable. Now, that said, AI processing can make counting scales a lot easier for you. I process my images with a program called ON1 photo raw, the also offer a Photoshop / Lightroom plugin for just the de-noising and sharpening. I wrote a tutorial about it on this site some time ago, certainly the tools from other software companies will be comparable. What can this do for you? Here's an out-of-camera jpg from last summer (Olympus E-PL5, 14-42 RII kit Zoom and Inon UWL-100 wide-lens without the dome): And here is the same image after processing: There's a bit more going on than just the sharpening / de-noising, but I hope the difference is visible even after the website has down-sampled this a bit more. The second picture will make it much easier to count the scales, but if you squint you can see them all in the camera-jpg as well. ON1 offer a free 30-day trial with full functionality (google on1 photo raw). You can try it out on photos from your current setup, see what this can do for you. It will work on both jpg and raw but obviously raw gives better results. If you try this out, you will see that you need a reasonable graphics card for your professional needs - otherwise it is way too slow. The GPU's are viciously expensive these days, so count ~3000 € or above for that workstation. This is a crop from the 16 Mpx M43rd sensor, the E-PL5 has the same sensor as the original Olympus E-M5 from 2012. Here's the full image (processed), limited artistic value but this is a technical discussion.

Great video and cool critters!

Looking forward to you testing it Phil, and seeing if you can get good corners and no vignetting! I can get one or the other, but not both, with the manual version, which is 185 degrees (140 dome, no shade).

First your housing floating, I always find positive housings to be annoying to use . You can get adjustable float arms from Kraken that allow you to get the housing perfectly neutral so it stays where you let go of it. Might be worth thinking about. Regarding cropping - do you crop as you can't get close enough or do you run out of magnification? The G5X covers 21x18mm field at max magnification and 67mm working distance with the CMC-2 The OM-1 covers 17 x 13mm at 1:1 with about 80mm working distance The Sont A7C covers 26 x 17mm at 1.4x and 90mm working distance So the Olympus 60mm gets more magnification on the sensor covering a smaller area at the same working distance as the Sony A7CR with the new 100mm macro. AF and finding subjects is easier with a proper macro lens compared to a zoom with a diopter. On the issue of latest models, yes there is a bit of FOMO, but from an image quality perspective, the improvements are incremental these days, comparing sensors from 15 plus years ago there are big advances but in the last 10 years improvements have come in readout speeds, computational photography and other aspects, rather than image quality measures. Improvements in noise and dynamic range are very much incremental, they are not non-existent but IMO not enough to choose one system over the other. By the sounds of your requirements, a macro is really what you need, many domes options allow you to get close and up 0.3x magnification, but the dome gets in the way for example trying to shoot a fish sitting on the bottom you have to shoot from above. If you are interested to look my website has a lot of UW images and there are quite a few fish of various types, you could look at this folder, all images are OM-1 with 60mm macro and select images with the MFO3. Australian Natural Images

Thx for your comment and explanation! About your question: The Electronic is 30 fps. Strobe should be 20 fps. Mechanical is 10 fps.

I'm thinking to buy DR21 studio version too. Do you need to buy also the GP-TUNE Transform in addition to GP-TUNE plugin? GP-TUNE TRANSFORM as DCTL? And last question: do you still use FLAT or GPLOG? Thank you Giacomo

Yes If you are using it in one of the listed housings.

Thanks Phil! So if I'm using Apollo strobes, this trigger might be the better choice, am I right?😆

A few further comments: Re Sony 50 macro, I like it a lot! Especially behind a dome, where it gives excellent sharpness right across the frame, even at say, f5.6. And I'm not the only one. Alex Mustard has a very interesting clip on 'curved ports' which features this lens. I have good pics of fast moving pelagics with it. But others call it a dog... They are cheap, so suggest you get one, or buy a used one and flog it if you don't like it. It's my 'go to' lens with the dome, and I don't bother with flat ports for this lens, as they destroy the corners. Downside is 1:1 is very close to the dome. Re 20-70, an excellent choice for general photography, especially at the 70 end, but for the smaller stuff, the big 180 port required for the full zoom range gets in the way a bit (subject can move before you find it again in the VF). I have had good results with the now defunct very compact Nauticam 4" WA dome, but the zoom range is limited to 45-70. I haven't tried it with a flat port, but I would expect a similar zoom range, with poor corner sharpness. It has very fast AF, and I can get 1:2.7 mag with it. Re strobes, I use 2 x Inon S220 now, and used S2000 for many years before that. Reason is small size, and perfect for macro, although I use them for everything else as well. I wouldn't go back to a single strobe, unless solely shooting small fish in mid water. 2 x is always better... Unlike seemingly everyone else I come across, I use the shortest strobe arms that will do the job ( 1 x 20cm each side, with 2 x ball joints). Great for shooting in caves or crevices.

I specialize in shooting salmon under water in Alaska where I live now having done it digitally for over 20 years. My very first digital underwater shoot was with a Nikon D1X that yielded the cover shot for a book published by the American Fisheries Society. (I am a fish scientist: an aquatic ecologist specializing in using stable isotope analysis) The technology has come a long way since. I used the Nikon D2X as my main camera for about the first 8 years. Both The D1 and D2 cameras were APSC or DX in Nikon-speak. From participation on Wetpixel I learned the DX limitations could be overcome by the full-frame Canons such as the 1Ds2 which I got and literally used alongside the D2x. I even shot a pic showing this which I tongue-in-cheek titled Nikon vs. Canon: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/i-KS7Jjpz/A I considered the D2X a 400 ISO camera and the 1Ds2 a 1600 ISO camera. Today’s cameras can do much better but there remains this 2 stop ISO advantage due to a larger sensor. The D2X was Nikon’s flagship camera when I bought it so had the best tech available to Nikon at that time. The sub-flagship cameras typically had poorer performance and this still applies today. The “flagship” model changes frequently within each brand. I would say the Sony R6 is their flagship today although they may not agree. One aspect of comparing cameras is to look at the Photons to photons website. I took the opportunity to plot a few select cameras on it. See attachment. You can see the leap from the D1X and D2X to the D850 and now to the R6 - technology advancement continues to march forward! I would not spend a lot of money on older tech. Nikon is overdue with updating theirs. I have a Z9 but only use it for topside shooting. Its secret super power is that the cameras has NO shutter so is truly silent. I gather the Z8 does not too. This is great for wildlife photography. I gather the R6 still has a shutter in it. The Z92 will likely be too late for you. I am all too familiar with the need to spend grant money within a specific time - mostly being the federal fiscal year here in the US. As for housings, if the Nauticam model is too large you might want to look at the competition as they might be smaller (at least the controls and grips may not stick out as far). As you are in France you might want to consider one made in the EU. Service for one will be much easier. I have been using Seacam as my housing brand. They have an R6 housing development as does Subal and Isotta: https://www.backscatter.com/Seacam-Sony-a7R-VI-Underwater-Housing Scroll horizontally to see the various brands. If the Viz is good you will be able to do a lot with the 100mm macro. Basically any true macro lens (various manufacturers) will blow away the lens on your compact camera. I use the Nauticam wet lenses on my Nikon 105mm and 60mm lenses with Saga ports (Saga is located in Barcelona). Instead of the MFO-3 with its 1.5m limitation I bought the new Marelux 60 add-on that fits just like a Nauticam one. To shoot larger things here in AK (0.8m is similar to the subject width of many of my salmon shots showing a female with her mate just behind her). I use mostly fisheye lenses and to a more limited extent the 16-35 zooms at 16mm (both C and N). The 16mm lenses need more working distance so get used more late in the season when the air temps get below freezing ( glaciers upstream stop bleeding in silt). Many shots with these lenses are on my website (exif data avail at the tiny dot with the i on it), As for underwater strobes I VERY STRONGLY suggest you get the Retra Maxi. I was using mine just yesterday with my Nikon D4S shooting in continuous mode at 5 frames per second!!!!! Forget about recycling times. Already a lot has been written on the strobe on this site.

Thanks a lot Phil for your very insightful comment. Have you tried using the Sony FE 20–70 mm f/4 behind a flat port (as for the FE 28 – 60 mm F4-5.6), which would allow adding a CMC-2 (or possibly, a MFO-1 if useful) for very small fish? Nauticam port chart recommends a dome for the 20–70 mm f/4, but I'm wondering whether a flat-port setup could still work (considering I would certainly rarely shoot at 20 mm).

Like the triggers from UWT and Turtle the Marelux flash trigger is designed for the most current Marelux housings and Marelux line of strobes. This current version does not support the HSS function in the Apollo strobes. The trigger is fast enough to shoot at 20+ frames a second and it is a plug and play configurations.

The photos are with the Sony FE 20-70mm F /4. I now have a 180 port in house and will be testing the Sigma soon. The OM 12-45mm F/4 is a 1:4 lens so about the same as FF at 1:2.

Those were all shot with the 20-200mm behind a 180mm dome? I miss the ability of my m4/3 12-50mm as a generalist lens for photos of opportunity. Being able to find something similar for Sony FF is very appealing.

Recently i bought used ipad mini (A17) + Apple pencil... i want something more portable than a computer to take with me on liveaboard/Hollidays and do small color grade tasks.. Test it for couple days with davinci resolve free version....Aces transform ( GP-Tune transform) but the colors/algorithm numbers dont seem good enough for GP-LOG2 use... The xtremesuff developer told me to use DCTL i need the studio version for the iPad.. Decide to give it a go on davinci studio for ipad, and im able to use DCTL and full version of GP-TUNE transform, the diference is night and day... but the ipad version has some limitations that for my use case is not big deal. Did side by side color grade Ipad 8,3" vs Macbook pro 16" and they match, but sometimes is painful and frustrating to use the ipad to color grade, since theres a small learning curves, like cut full audio from the clip..... the job can be done, but for extreme details i will keep the computer.

That is one of the guides out of a fantastic serie. https://www.nhbs.com/2/series/seasearch-guides If you just want a simpler guide, more of an overview of common British species, this is a great one. https://www.nhbs.com/great-british-marine-animals-book

Hi Fred, I have been following your quest for useful insight and this is my take. Most fish are larger than 1cm and will fit into a 1:2 minimum focus distance frame. The 90-105mm macro lenses are most useful for images from the minimum 1:1/1.4:1 hangout to about 1:6 before you are putting to much water between the lens and subject, vis is a contributing factor in some cases. So while I wholeheartedly endorse the Sony FE 100mm as the best macro lens on the planet, (I have one with 1.4 & 2X tele converters) I believe you have a chance of a wider range of subjects with a zoom lens. The attached photos were taken with the Sony A7R V in Marelux housing with the Sony FE 20-70mm F/4 lens using a 180mm dome port. This lens has a 1:2.56 minimum magnification. The camera is 61MP so cropping is no problem for your use I would think. Marelux and Nauticam both support this lens with a zoom gears. Marelux uses an extension ring 50 and Nauticam uses the N100 to N120 35.5 port adapter II and extension ring 35 with the 180mm port. This is a $1200.00 Sony lens. With this lens you would really shoot at less than about F/8/F11. While I have been very happy with the Sony 20-70mm when I know I will be dealing with a verity of subjects sizes I have now found what I consider to be an even better mousetra, the Sigma 20-200mm F/3.6-6.3 DG a $900.00 lens. This is a lens that at this time is only supported by Marelux with a zoom gear. What makes this lens unique is that it focuses to 1:2 from 28 to 85mm behind the 180mm dome and can extend out to about 130 to 150mm before it quits focusing because it gets to near the dome glass. Additionally the Sigma will stop down to F/40 in the macro range. My guess is that I am older than you Fred and I have been using the Sony A7R VI, A1 II and A7C both II and R all with Marelux housings and dual Marelux Apollo S and Apollo Y TTL strobes. Like some other strobes in the market these include HHS which solves the /1/160th sync to a degree, TTL, and multi frames settings. If you decide to go with the A7C II/R I have a like new Marelux housing and very low milage A7C II and A7C R camera bodies for sale.

Sounds like you found your partner! The best results will come from equipment that you are familiar with - whether it’s is new or top-of-the-line does not matter if you can’t find the button for making a particular adjustment. I shoot a 12 year old m43 and it’s not the camera that limits my shots… As I mentioned, your « partner ». 😉 we keep those around for a while…

@Klaus For the strobe : my INON D200 (I also have 2 S2000) have a descent recycling time (1,5 sec). 20 GN is not a lot but it is usually enough for me. I read that popular strobes like Retra Pro Max II does not recycle faster. But I should investigate other brands. It is true that recycling time is limiting for me. This is why I have considered buying a powerful video light (like weefine solar pro) and test using burst mode photography, but fish seem to be very sensitive to such lights, so no sure this is a good option. Prehaps investigating a Backscatter Hybrid Flash HF-1 ? Sorry, my wording was imprecise. If you had a more powerful strobe, then it will not use all the capacity for the flash and you can get another shot very soon after that. The recycling could happen in the background, so to speak. I should thus have written … a stronger strobe with fast recycling … or so. And, as said before, in your situation you certainly want to rely on automatic TTL strobe exposure. The HF1 could be a good choice but I don’t own this strobe.