All Activity

I recently saw that Marelux has introduced their own double flip holder with a novel feature, for wet lenses. I am/was interested in this, and specifically, whether the Nauticam threaded spacer ring would be necessary to use Nauticam lenses like the MFO and SMC with the holder and if so, whether the standard spacer ring would work on the holder (it does not, for example, fit on an AOI or Saga holder; they require a different spacer). I contacted Marelux and half-expected them to say they had not tested Nauticam products on their flip holder, which would be understandable. Instead, they just responded to me with a link to the website product page and a note that I was "welcome to check." Perhaps mentioning I wanted to use Nauticam products on their holder was a mistake. I then spoke to a Nauticam dealer I deal with often, in case they had any info and of course, was told they had no idea about the Marelux product, which I pretty much expected. So I reached out to a Marelux dealer who also sells Nauticam, and asked about it. I was told the Marelux double flip holder only works with the Marelux brand wet lenses, which seemed odd, since all these products have a 67mm thread, but whatever. So I thought I would ask here in case anyone, perhaps Phil Rudin, could confirm what I was told or provide other info, mostly just out of curiosity at this point.

I love the mfo-3 on my 105 or on the olympus 60mm. Nauticam makes and overpriced "M82 Filter Holder for MFO-3" It allows the use of a lens cap and I use an 82 mm threaded lens hood on it at times. Of course, 3D printer experts like Dave Hicks could make something better.

I'm pretty sold on the Maxis - they are locked in on my spreadsheets!

Pretty much - avoid distortion, generally don't need a really wide rectlinier lens for archaeological work (unless you find an underwater city or something like that!). It looks like I can use the Nikkor 24-50 with a 180mm dome port or some quite short flat ports.

Some years back I read about and heard about BBF and how wonderful it was. All the cool kids did it, you know. So I set up my camera for it and did the back button thing for a long time. It was fine. It worked. I was able to coordinate my thumb and forefinger fine. But as time went by it seemed that although it was fine and worked, it did not do anything "better" for me and my style of underwater shooting. I began to wonder if it really made sense to use two fingers on two different buttons to accomplish what one finger on one button could do just fine. It also was not the most comfortable on some vertical shots. Maybe it depends on the camera or housing? I switched to using he shutter release button (well, the Nauticam lever) for both focus and shutter release. I am probably not allowed to have lunch at the cool kid's table anymore, but otherwise, I don't feel I am missing anything and I now have an additional, conveniently located button that I can program to do something else. Again, this is for me and for my style of underwater photography. I am not saying one way is wrong or right. Vive la différence.

I use back button focus for underwater photography, and decided to make the switch years ago during an Alex Mustard workshop. It takes a bit of getting used to it, but once you do, you will likely not go back to half shutter focus. For wildlife and landscape photography, I have re-programmed the nearby AE-Lock button (I shoot Canon) for spot focusing and eye tracking, and have found iit convenient to have the two focus options side by side, using my right thumb for both. As to the comments about human hand ergonomics, I can't dispute that. It's tricky navigating small buttons with one's thumb. Some underwater housings have made it a bit easier with larger levers on the back.

A little camera and a little housing just makes more room for what is really important, powerful strobes 🤣. The Maxi is smaller than the HF-1 with floats. And, since the Maxi is neutral, you may be able to use only a single float arm instead of dual float arms on each side. On another note, the Inon S220 strobes are essentially the same power as the older Z240. They are very close. And they are tiny, tiny.

OK, that is interesting. I assume that this means you need wide and not macro, and do not want fisheye-like distortion. If that is correct and size and weight matter, I would definitively look hard at micro four thirds because the small lenses permit smaller dome ports for rectilinear wide angle. There are a number of zoom lenses from Panasonic and Olympus that can be used as wide as 7-12mm range on the wide end (14-24mm in full frame speak) and all work in a 170-180mm dome, which large-ish but not unreasonable to travel with. You might even be able to use some in a 140mm dome if you can tolerate the loss of image quality. I never tried that combination. That same 170-180 port size could also work with some of the APS-C lenses form other camera brands. I am most familiar with Nikon and OM, so I don't have specific suggestions.

This is an aspect that people who unrestrainedly use and recommend BBF (like myself) overlook: everybodies hands as well as the construction of camera houses are different and do not fit together always... 👍 My personal situation concerned, when I take/took my Nauticam housings (EM5II/EM1II/A7R5) UW into my hands, the dumb is aready sitting rigth an the BBF lever and the index finger touches the shutter. It could not be easier and more relaxed... But what about left handed, different anatomy of hands or different housing manufacturer? Using AF together with shutter release requires a fine sense of touch in the index finger and also some practice: I am sure I would produce an enormous number of failures by pressing incidentially the shutter too soon...

Hi, does anyone use this with Nauticam housing? The port chart says to use N100-120 converter, extension ring 30, and 140mm dome. I have this exact set up for my other wide angle lens but when I put in 28mm F2 + fisheye converter combo I get vignetting on the outside. Taking out the extension ring 30, with just N100-120 converter and 140mm dome, I am able to get no vignetting. I'm curious if anyone else use this and can tell me if the port chart is just wrong, or if I'm missing something. -- For background, I took my gear to Mikomoto and Ito for the shark dives and did not realise I packed my Sony 90mm macro instead of my Canon 8-15+metabones+2x tele wide angle setup. In my defense they both had a black 3D printed zoom/focus ring on and somehow the 90 macro fits perfectly into the wide angle port urghhh. This 28mm F2 + fisheye combo was the only one that used the same ports and luckily I was able to pick up a used set in Tokyo for cheap. Curious to see how the quality compares - I would want the flexibility of the zoom setup for reef dives like Raja but I do hope the native lens combo has better auto focus for the shark dives... Took me until I was underwater in Ito shark scramble to realise... and even then I thought I messed up my zoom ring before I took it out and realised it was a macro lens... anyone else made such a silly mistake haha??

So M43 is still the most compact. A 12-35mm requires a 6"/150mm dome for stellar results. Even a 8-18mm requires a 180mm dome while in FF a 230mm is required for best results.

A not super-wide rectlinier lens is best - everything has been there for 2000 years so I can get as close as I want - I'm certainly not going to scare the subject away.

I used the Z-220 a long time ago (from 2008 to around 2010) and back then it was a good strobe for the price. However, what drove me to sell it after about three years was the fact that it was virtually impossible to snoot with the strobe because the focus light and flash tube weren't on the same optical axis. For me(!) that would always be one of the main reasons for buying a strobe – along with, of course, a few other features.

BBF is quite a disadvantage in awkward angle situations. With external monitor help my eye and hands can frame the shot. But human hand ergonomics just don't agree with housings BBF buttons. So as a rule I do not use it.

A tray with a slight ridge at the back A thin strip of rubber or silicone between camera and tray

thanks everyone I'm not underwater until September so i am using BBF on my camera at work and getting used to it I can see the advantages immediately but it is not second nature yet the recent shark dive with ultra wide angle produced very few out of focus shots but my attempts at macro in the past have been much worse - it seems like a definite for macro at least

Ah, scientific documentation is a major goal... Then it very well might be that the choice of lenses is further narrowed - e.g. I am not sure that 180° fisheye is the right lens for this purpose. The Subal PPO with an excellent 16-35mm WA lens MAY BE the king here (but I do know nothing about UW archeology and optimum lens types)... => Better ask these UW archeologists which lenses are useful...

Qantas has recently started flying to Samoa and the airfare prices are quite reasonable - just wondering if anyone has dived there as I have a friend who has just started diving who is looking for easy diving destinations.

The Retra's better buoyancy characteristics probably mean that they take up less space in luggage overall than HF-1's + floats

Yes there is that aspect I suppose!

Hi, the goal is to be compatible with all the softwares, so you can apply and you'll get some infos when it's available ! (here is the link : https://survey.zohopublic.eu/zs/U3CA15?Source=Forum&[email protected])

Hi, maybe Papua again, too. We dived Milne Bay with Mike Ball’s Liveaboard Paradise Sport back in the early 2000s. I completely agree—superb diving in papua. If you want to dive all good spots in the south pacific area and you have no home base there, it is quite difficult to plan the route without paying a hell of money for flights (f.e. excess luggage charge for our diving equipment & FF photo rig.... are pretty hefty these days). If we do this extended trip we want to take most of our equipment incl. some spare (2. body, spare flashes, 2,. dome....) with us. We are thinking about to find a base in one country were we can store some stuff. So we take only things with us we really need for each destination. Sounds good. Thought Australia is the best base for the trip. But if we get direct flight from Fiji to most destinations we will check this option.

OK that's interesting - likely housing choices will be Nauticam or the red one (whose name completely escapes me), but I will certainly be checking that it has the facilities for HDMI output to a monitor.

I've really got to get my head around wet optics - that and digital seems to be two massive changes that I need to get used to after 30 years on the sidelines - note I said Sidelines not the Sin Bin!

For the next few years the only place I am likely to be shooting wide angle in bright sunshine is the Red Sea, but that is going to be archaeological photography at 62 metres - should be OK. If everyone in the general region would kindly stop lobbing missiles at each other that would help enormously - I've given up on plans for the Red Sea this year - flying Melbourne-Singapore-London Heathrow-Cairo just to get to the Red Sea is too much for me.