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This is very cool solution. But I do wonder why UW camera manufacturers make very compact and very dense equipment, I get the point of staying small and travel‑friendly. But I realized once you add all the floats needed to make the rig neutrally buoyant, the system ends up being nearly the same size as a mirrorless kit (say if you’re coming from a compact camera setup). At that point, the advantage of going compact feels lost — you might as well start with bulkier gear that’s already close to neutral in the water.

Welcome Don, great you joined. Looking very much forward to your posts and thoughts and contributions! ..especially first hand reports in the OPP thread.

@atus After diving blackwater in a number of locations there are some best practices that can be borrowed from some of the better operators. 1. Placing a light on top of the ball is okay, but suboptimal, as if it is a light shining up into the night sky it will be visible part of the time but may not be visible from all angles. The best practice is to create a small hole in the bottom of you buoy and place the light inside - you can create a gasket around the light so the entire buoy doesn't fill up with water. The buoy itself will glow with a light inside of it, making it visible for both you and all other boat traffic to see. 2. Others have suggested you study the bottom - if the water is deep and the area has life (it's not a barren part of the sea) then you will find life coming near the surface. You will end up trying a number of different locations before finding a few that are productive. One idea that hasn't been shared here is to talk to people studying marine science at your local university. If they have done research (or trawled) the local area they may be able to tell you what kind of life you can expect.

Float for Backscatter Atom Strobe Add 140 grams buoyancy! The Backscatter Atom strobe is great strobes for underwater photography. Small, light, and versatile. Its biggest drawback is how much it weighs in water. The Atom is 150 grams (5.3 oz) negative in water with batteries. This 3D printed float will add 140 grams of buoyancy leaving it just 10 grams negative. (0.35 oz) You don't want to have the strobe be positively buoyant. Slightly negative is easier to handle and balance the overall system. Balancing your rig is important. If you need to add additional buoyancy to your camera rig, I suggest using float arms or Stix jumbo floats on the arm segment closest to your housing. Leave the second arm connected to the Atom strobe without additional buoyancy. Attach Float to the Atom: The float has anchor points that will allow you to thread 1/8 inch (3 mm) bungee cord. Many divers keep 1/8 bungee on hand as it is so useful. It can be bought in bulk online or at any dive shop. Tie a simple overhand knot at each end of the bungee to keep it from slipping thru the anchor. It should be just slightly taught with plenty of elasticity to pull over the strobe and keep it snug. Note before printing: This is a technical and exacting print. It requires very specific and exact filament and printing parameters. If you ignore or change the defined print profile and settings it is very likely that your float will not work. [And YES - You can make watertight and pressure resistant 3D printed objects with no added sealants or post processing!]

Float for Backscatter HF-1 Strobe Add 220 grams buoyancy! https://makerworld.com/en/models/2877582-float-for-backscatter-hf-1-strobe-220g-buoyancy The Backscatter HF-1 is one of the best strobes for underwater photography, but its biggest drawback is how much it weighs in water. The HF-1 is 250 grams (8.8 oz) negative in water with batteries. This 3D printed float will add 220 grams of buoyancy leaving it just 30 grams negative. (1 oz) You don't want to have the strobe be positively buoyant. Slightly negative is easier to handle and balance the overall system. Balancing your rig is important. If you need to add additional buoyancy to your camera rig, I suggest using float arms or Stix jumbo floats on the arm segment closest to your housing. Leave the second arm connected to the HF-1 without additional buoyancy. Attach Float to the HF-1: The float has anchor points that will allow you to thread 1/8 inch (3 mm) bungee cord. Many divers keep 1/8 bungee on hand as it is so useful. It can be bought in bulk online or at any dive shop. Tie a simple overhand knot at each end of the bungee to keep it from slipping thru the anchor. It should be just slightly taught with plenty of elasticity to pull over the strobe and keep it snug. I have tested to depths of 130ft/40m, but it may survive greater depths. As these floats are completely external to the strobe and housing, there is no risk to your equipment should they fail. Note before printing: This is a technical and exacting print. It requires very specific and exact filament and printing parameters. If you ignore or change the defined print profile and settings it is very likely that your float will not work. [And YES - You can make watertight and pressure resistant 3D printed objects with no added sealants or post processing!]

Thank you for sharing. What fantastic, and creepy, creatures!

Sounds good - not sure how far you can go or how boat traffic is at night but the area between Ibiza and Formentera looks it forms a channel which could worth checking out. Let us know how it goes!

This is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing! Looking forward to meeting and hopefully working with Simon in July!

Fixed the link - thanks for letting me know!

Purchased M10 single ball mount from @Lauren Wang Fabulous and straightforward exchange! Mounting ball was exactly as pictured and described, shipping was fast, communication was excellent!

The LX100 has a crop factor of 1.34x when shooting 4K, so the 75mm become about 100mm. @Elvandar At 5 minutes 34 seconds in the video, that is the result of Shaun the sheep I can get with the LX100 with the CMC-1 stack together with the SMC-1: The CMC-1 + SMC-1 makes the working distance very very close, almost touch the leaves where the shaun the sheeps are resting, and the area of focus is very tiny. I spent the whole night dive just to shoot them., and it was 45 feet away from the beach on the sandy bottom so I can ankle myself with the tripod to get some usable shots. CMC-1 is not strong enough, so may be can consider the Weefin +15 diopter. As for LX100 vs L10 in the macro department, they will give you the same result. Here is the reason: LX100 4K video give you about 100m after crop factor. L10 5.6k video 75mm has no crop factor but during post processing, punch in the video to give you the 4k view, you should end up with something similar to the LX100 result. If someone make a stronger diopter like +20 to +25, it would be golden. But in reality, if you really want to get very close up like the face of shaun the sheep or pygmy seahorse, probably should wait for Olympus to release the TG-8...... if it ever get release.

Hi Mike, Please add a Jpeg file.

Let us know how it went. I'm curious to get some feedback on Mediterranean BWs Ciao

Time for a little coming out: I scratched my WWL twice, and both times it was diagnosed as fatal (keep that in mind for when I put it up for sale 😉). Huge shoutout to a very talented friend who completely rescued it, minus a tiny little speck that I can only see if I shoot straight into the sun. It was just too deep to get rid of completely. Anyway, Nauticam confirmed that the coating is entirely on the inside. So, breathe easy. P.S. I'd give Novus a shot before escalating to cerium oxide.

Lens coating can be used to prevent various things. If there is no problem with your other dome glass, then coatings are probably different between dome and WWL There is also a big difference between a port and a wet lens. For the port, you only have one layer of glass before your camera lens. For the WWL, there are several layers of optical elements. I suspect (it has to be confirmed) that the coating on the WWL has optical reason like reducing glares, internal reflection or other things that might affect optical quality.

I tested the "final" versions of the HF-1 and Atom strobe floats. They worked great and were easy to use without getting in the way. I have a couple of dive-tested pre-final HF-1 floats if anyone want them. Message me if you want them for the cost of shipping.

This assumption what 3d printed objects can't be watertight is disproven by the fact that I and others have made very successful watertight and pressure resistant objects. It is completely possible. No sealants or post processing is needed if you design and print the objects with the right recipe of material and parameters. Some of my macro port floats have been used for two years and over a hundred dives without failing. Often to depths beyond 30 meters. More recently I am also diving with 3D printed port extension rings on my Nauticam housing. An integral component of housing's pressure vessel. They are completely waterproof and incredibly strong. ABS, ASA, or PETG filament right off the printer with no additional sealants. Actually, sealants are a false solution as they DO fail, fade, and flake off. I experimented with epoxy resin before I learned how to print properly, and I did have leaks when the sealants cracked and failed.

Have you considered spraying these with a sealing spray or waterproof finish? I'll be very surprised if these don't leak over time as FDM printing isn't watertight, and the water pressure will find the pathways.

My Nauticam Glass dome port has no issue , I think it's about the external coating on the lens.

we have Zen SP-170 and Nauticam 180mm glass dome ports, and both have no external coating (confirmed by manufacturers). I used cerium oxyde to polish, and after that they were like new.

Thank you very much. I'm not worried about the current, i'm in Ibiza, so the currents here are very very light, but we will take care of it. My "pumpkin buoy" is a yellow rigid 40 cm wide buoy used to mark beaches, and we plan to add an strobe light on the top. What i didn't plan is to study the bottom, I guess looking for deep walls etc. My plan was simply go to a deep zone and put the lights, but it makes sense to study the spot. There are spots here "close" to the harbour where looking at navionics there are walls starting in 90 meters depth which quickly reaches 250 meters. I think that are the places where we will head to.

My WWL-1 has hundreds and hundreds of dives over six years, going on seven, and not a single spot. I keep the plastic cap on, I rinse both the dome glass and the rear lens element and pat or blot dry them with a microfiber cloth between dives if I cannot keep the rig wet in the rinse tank. Same with my housing port. I do have some damage on my housing port but not enough to affect images yet, probably from forgetting to rinse. I will replace it soon probably, sooner or later maybe. High calcium fresh water can spot also.

Welcome!

Here two things you can do to prevent this. 1. Don’t allow saltwater or freshwater where there is calcium present in the water to dry on the glass. If you can’t keep your housing in the rinse tank/bucket on the boat, wrap a wet towel around it. 2. After the dive(s) when it comes time to rinse/soak your gear in freshwater, be sure to dry off the glass with clean dry towel or cloth as soon as that done to prevent water spots from lingering. Even my face-mask gets this treatment I live in South Florida where our fresh water is loaded with calcium. If you allow them to dry in place they will leave micro deposits where they dry which are total bitch to remove afterward.