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Good to have you with us. A warm welcome to Waterpixels! Weren’t we always suckers for doodads and doohickeys!?

Maybe something is happening... Post by a dive operator in Cozumel: Nothing official from customs and nothing about the root of all, Cabo. But maybe something is happening...

Just starting to get back into U/W photo after a 30 year break - seems like everyone needs a lot more cables and doodads and doohickeys now!

I am in Tenerife now, diving with the Gopro M1P and Inon lenses. First impression very positive, still quite some testing to do but I am really impressed by the image quality, much more pleasant then the Ace Pro 2. These days the sea here is quite rough with quite some swell so visibility is not the best, especially till 20m but still I got some nice realistic clips which I will compose in the next days. As first, I wanted to test the G165II and I can say it is a good match with the M1P, nice close up, from 5 to 40cm approx (rough estimation). This is a first sample:

Keep in mind that for the Z5II with Nauticam you need the ($500+) Nauticam N120 FTZ adapter which has its own zoom knob which engages with the F mount zoom gears. You could avoid this and use the housing zoom control by making the zoom gear 25mm longer. You still need the extra extension though and Nauticam don't make a 45mm ring it seems but you may already have extensions to make up what is required. I know I had the adapter mounted knob for my rig using a Canon 8-15 and I didn't really like it. The zoom control gears on the FTZ look like an improvement on the older style adapter mounted knobs though.

Let's wait for Rich's feedback of course but do you use the unread content button? All marketplace listings appear there as other posts.

Interesting that you can't use Isotta on S&S. I see S&S has a Macro port 15: https://www.seaandsea.jp/product/port/macroport.html It seems this might be short enough to work with the 24-50 which is reported to be 75mm long in working position. If you could borrow a 24-50 you could try it out with your extension rings. to see how far it projects beyond the edge of the ring. Typically the dimension of a port is from the flange of the port to the inside of the glass. All they would need to do is make an extension ring of the right length it seems and looking at other lenses it seems it might be a 25mm extension ring. I would add that in terms of viewfinders, the Nauticam are superior, the new models were designed to deal with larger viewfinders used on mirrorless cameras which require a a greater angle of view to work well. I have the original Nauticam 45° and the corners are blurry on my OM-1 viewfinder. Not clear if you have an INON currently, if you do performance is probably similar on Z7 vs Z8. You can get adapters to use Nauticam viewfinders on Isotta housings.

Getting to malapascua takes practically half a day, so if 4 days includes travel time, you're left with 3 full days diving and maybe 1 night dive on the first night. (maybe less if you need to take a flight the next day?) Last time I was there, we did 3 diving days in Malapascua. We saw the Tiger shark on the last dive of the last day. We were there primarily for the sharks, and wouldn't mind more diving days. If you are also after the macro and night dives, I don't think more days would hurt. Get in touch with Malapascua Thresher Divers (MTD) if you don't have a dive operator yet :)

Can it be made visible from the forums? I pretty much only go straight to the forums page, but do like to browse what's for sale.

I'd not spend the money on an Inon viewfinder, the Nauticam units are far better. You can use the older DSLR style on most mirror less with just a little corner distortion.

All right, so here's a general update on the things I remember that I found out today! Isotta says that yes you can use S&S ports on Isotta housings, but not the other way around, on account of the double o-rings on Isotta ports. I don't know, maybe it's possible to remove one o-ring and then it would work, and then again maybe not. If Isotta is right it can't be done, then that rules out the cheap option of continuing with my S&S housing, provided I want the WWL-C Sea & Sea intended to make a solution for 24-50 and WWL-C but hasn't had resources to do that yet. (Ok this I learned earlier than today.) Given that what needs to be done is more or less a) figure out the length from lens mount to the front glass in Nauticam's solution, in order to make the very simple port b) figure out the diameter of the 24-50, in order to make the zoom gear I kind of despair about S&S. Also, their homepage looks like something from 1998 and is not well maintained. I get the impression that S&S is not that interested in making underwater housings and ports. What S&S is interested in making is strobes. This got me into the jungle of TTL flash triggers, because yes, I do think TTL works fairly well. I thought that as long as you had a TTL trigger for your camera brand you were all set. Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh no. To the credit of S&S, they do list which triggers work with their strobes. This is important; I have YS-D1 now and may upgrade in the future but maybe not right now. Apparently the UW Technics TTL triggers work well with Nikon and newer S&S strobes. Nauticam's own trigger, however, is currently under evaluation. Ok, whew, good find Dan, I thought Nauticam's trigger would be the safe option. Now to take a look at UW technics trigger... hang on... comparing the user manuals of the Nauticam trigger and the UW Technics trigger, it's obvious that it is the effing SAME TRIGGER. In their version of the manual, Nauticam has removed references to UW Technics. But it's absolutely the same. My god, this is driving me crazy. Viewfinders! If I go the Nauticam route, which right now seems like the wise choice (that or do nothing), there's an Inon 45 degrees viewfinder (I like that) for about 5000 SEK, or a Nauticam similar viewfinder for about 17000 SEK. That's a whopping difference. How much image quality difference is there in practice? Do I pay thrice the price for a modest or a dramatic increase in visibility? No one knows. At times like these I wish the uw photography world were larger, like the computer nerd world, where you can always find a test of the most obscure parts. I have sent some questions to Nauticam too, but that was earlier today and it's totally fine they haven't replied alreay. Phew!

Thank you so much for the information. One of the "wanna go" reason is the mandarin fish and I love night dive, so I will nor miss it. Right now what I'm not sure about is I have find that due to the flight prices it will be cheaper to stay one more day in Philippines, and I'm not sure if to stay one more day in Malapascua or one more day in Moalboal.

Hi Tino I realy enjoy your 3D Models for Nauticam. Actually your efforts motivated me to get a 3D Printer in the first place. So thank you and all the others. As I am hustling getting into the Printing I will upload my edits and designs here. Tino would you be so Kind to upload this model to maker world or here in the Forum? Warm regards from Zurich Selim

Hey, I am interested in these. PM

ah I see thanks - Yes, cinetone is nice, I also like cine2. At the moment I've returned to HLG-3 as I've realized I could set the colour gamut to Rec.709 directly in camera, so no conversion needed, and it's nice. Otherwise I've narrowed it down to cine2, cinetone and HLG-3 or PP off for workeable non-log profiles. I also just got and NLE upgrade yesterday so can edit on FCPX12 or Resolve Studio, which broadens possibilites!

Hi Ratna, welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy!

Oops! I meant s-cinetone, not cineEL. Have you given it a try yet?

Hi everyone! I’m Ratna from Jakarta, Indonesia. I’ve been diving on and off since 1993, but it’s really only been the past couple of years that I’ve gotten serious about underwater photography. I shoot Sony with a Seacam housing. Really looking forward to learning from all of you here and soaking up as much knowledge as I can. Thanks for having me!

I am sure that Tamron 12-20mm F/2.8 should be an excellent lens for U/W shooters using a 230mm or like port because of the 18cm minimum focus distance V.Sigma 14-24mm F/2.8 Sony 12-24mm F/2.8, Sony FE 12-24mm F/4 and Nikon Z 14-30mm F/4 which have a 28cm minimum focus distance. If I am going to spend $1700.00 my choice would be the Rokinon/Sanyang 14-24mm F/2.8 now $979.00US (on sale now) and the Laowa AF 12mm F/2.8 zero-D at $699.00 or a total of $1678.00. My reasoning is that #1 both lenses take thread in front filters. This allows you to use filters like grad neutral density filters for splits which works very well however you need to commit to landscape or portrait prior to the dive. #2 Both lenses max out at F/22. #3 The 14-24mm has a minimum focus distance of 18cm and the 12mm focuses to 14cm which allows both to be used in ports under 230mm in a pinch when weight is a factor. #4 both lenses could be used with the S&S correction filter but I find it to be less useful with lenses that focus this close. #5 Both lenses have had very positive reviews from land reviewers. I love primes for splits and the Laowa 12mm is the best I have used so far. In the last two years or so we have seen an explosion of third party lenses that are relatively inexpensive V. top camera brand lenses with many having as good or better IQ just without all the extra buttons that can't be used underwater anyway. I reviewed the Rokinon 14-24mm F/2.8 using the Marelux 210mm acrylic dome and the Laowa 10mm F/2.8 using the Marelux 230mm dome for uwpmag.com. I prefer the Laowa 12mm for stills and the Laowa 10mm for video.

It’s been quite a while since I was in Malapascua, but one thing I really enjoyed and that doesn’t get much publicity is the night diving. Typically shallow and packed with interesting life including mandarinfish. Don’t miss it! Everything else you read on the internet is generally informative. Mid November does not feature the best visibility but should be OK.

Hi all, I'm planning a trip starting the 15th november to Moalboal, diving 4 days diving the more the better and after another 4 days diving the more the better in Malapascua. I have read a lot about it but I appreciate your tips, what do I have to expect ? Chances to find the whale shark with no feeding ? It's 4 days too much in Malapascua ? What about the visibility in the water ? I have contacted with Savedra diving center in Moalboal, for the moment they are very helpful and looks like they can organize me a full pack of transfers, diving and accomodation for a fair price but I don't know anything about them other what I have seen in Tripadvisor.