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Had a little success with the Frogfish this year, all comments and critique welcomed Mike

A few years ago, I was a Medtronic tech fellow and we had a small ($15K) grant to do anything technical that wasn't about your day job. I decided to learn about batteries, specifically about rechargeable NiMH AA batteries. I talked to colleagues who design batteries for implantable devices as their day job and they helped me build a computer controlled battery tester. I bought every AA battery I could find, lots of cheap Chinese ones, eneloops (white and black) and a bunch of no-name ones from Ali Express. Name brand batteries that were tested at low discharge currents were in fact more is better i.e., if you put them on 0.05 A discharge rates the time to a specific voltage was proportional to the stated capacity. To test utility in a strobe, I took one of my Z240 strobes to the EE boys in the lab and they pulled out the charging circuit to emulate with my computer controller. Unfortunately they were unable to put it back together and keep it dry. In any case I tested all the batteries in pairs using the charging circuit and using a fast discharge and repeated til the battery reached the test voltage. What we found was that eneloop whites (2000 mAh) got the most flashes. Eneloop Pros were occasionally a bit more and occasionally a bit fewer flashes but were quite variable. Most of the Powerex 2700 batteries got 30% fewer flashes than the Eneloop 2000s. I was surprised but when I talked to my battery inventing colleagues they said "of course, we could have told you that" internal discharge is critical. I haven't run the tests lately (the instrument had a loud beep whenever a battery test completed and my wife got tired of 3AM beeps). Bill

How Ryo Minemizu captures the hidden wonders of the ocean at night Some great photos and information about his setup.

It's not you, Kristin. It's a broader trend, sometimes called enshittification. One of the downsides of our ultra-connected world is how human interaction has been stripped of its substance. This forum format we're exchanging on is a blast from the past — a time capsule for us online old-timers, boogieing like it's 2005 again. It's also an island of genuine content sharing and discussion, the kind that's becoming increasingly rare online

I think one needs to look at the whole system and not just parameters of separate components. I am just on my way back from Halhamera exploration liveaboard where I took my new WACP-C on a maiden voyage. I don't see many other options - travel friendly- , that would allow me to do pictures below on one dive. Even though size shouldn't matter it's hard to beat 50-60Mpix full frame sensor paired with good optics. Sony A1 28-60 WACP-C. The first image for demo of wide angle, second full frame of the third crop. No AI enhancements, just levels. Would you believe you could shoot pygmy horse - and get publishable results - with wide angle lens?

Thoughts and images from MFO-3

This is a real challenge for Compact Categories in contests. Compact Categories were started to enable those with lesser cameras to show what could be achieved without spending the big bucks. In recent years some Compact Category winners have been rightly criticised for using super expensive lenses, that take the system cost way above that of most SLRs or FF mirrorless. Now we have a compact that costs more than most of those cameras too...

You are absolutly right. On an other forum... I tried to make some interesting travel reports. Give a lot of (i hope) usefull information. Some guys didn't appreciate that... to many informations.. and for some they are a lot of jealousy. After near 10 years to give a lot and received a many thanks of some readers I have enough from this negativ people. That is a part of the reasons why i'm here now It is so difficult these days to find reliable information. Here I have the impression that there are friendly people who try to help and give good information Thanks to all

Does anything else matter?

Either the Panasonic or Olympus 8mm fisheye is very light and affordable and they work well in a 4"dome. Agree though the AF in the OM1 and EM5 is way better than the old series like EM-5II - mainly a benefit when using the 60mm macro lens which was relatively sluggish on the EM-5 II. I upgraded to the EM-1 mKII 8 years ago it was way better than the old EM-5 II. If you are concerned about expense a second hand EM-1 MII or III in an aluminium housing would be a great option. The OM-1 and OM-5 are better but not as much of a step up as the EM-5 II to EM-1 II.

@Stig Consider one of the bodies supporting PDAF autofocus, OM5 or OM1. I don't know if it is just a different camera generation, but going from an EM-5-II to an OM-1 is a huge improvement in autofocus performance. AOI makes fairly affordable housings for the OM5 and OM1 also. I'm a happy recent adoptee of their OM1 housing. I think @bvanant has the same housing, and he actually knows how to use his 😅.

Cardiac Hill in Palos Verdes is a long long climb down (not so bad) with a handrail at the top, but going up with tanks and weights is for when I had a much different body. Like much of PV it is either really good or really bad. It is the reason that God made boats. Bill

At the other end of this He Man spectrum...... Although admittedly not "local", I was diving from MV Harmoni in Raja a few weeks ago. Whilst the tropical sun beat down on the canvas awning which flapped languidly in the breeze, the crew put all my gear, except mask and camera, in the RIB. I sauntered down the steps and took a comfortable seat on the RIB tube. We drove to the dive site and the crew held gear on the RIB tube to allow arms to be slipped through whilst offering to do up the buckles. I said I could manage. A gentle backward roll led into the 29 degree water. The RIB was waiting for me on ascent. The crew pulled my gear out of the water, removed my fins and I climbed the 3-rung ladder. On returning to Harmoni, I wandered up the steps to the deck enjoying the sunshine whilst the crew took my gear, except mask and camera, rinsed it, filled the tank with Nitrox ... and handed me a glass of chilled juice and a fresh towel. No sweat was raised. No heart pounded. I made it all look easy. As the US Marines would say, OOO-rah. More mango juice, sir?

Will stick with my RX100IV.

I am sure that this camera is not for me. Besides this, this camera has a fixed 35mm lens. I am not sure whether wet lenses exist to make the camera useful for UW, 35mm alone is not really phantastic (if no wetlenses fit, I doubt that someone will ever make a housing)... A Sony A7cR e.g. has the same sensor, is much cheaper, has similar size&weight and, with the 28-60mm lens, goes very well with different wet lenses the way just as compact cameras are normally used (in addition, all other lens/domeport combinations would work as well as this is a real interchangeable lens camera)...

Raise! And you can change lens Or a fixed lens camera

5100 USD or 4900€ No, thanks 😊

Thankyou Sony A1 and 90mm in a nauticam housing Nauticam SMC-1 Two retra strobes, no snoots on these as I wanted a bit more background interest Mike

The courier, when delivering the batteries, asked if I was satisfied with my Retras 🤣

Thanks @RomiK I was a little bit frustrated with this topic. I "invest" a lot when I bought my R5, + housing + ports + lenses + strobes. And now some guys says I can have the same result (or better) with less money, less weight etc... I'm happy with my setup that's important.

Hey I'm Iz Currently living in Indonesia & have just completed my first ECCR course so no more bubbles getting in the way of my footage! Had always been a Canon shooter until last year. I had the R5 with Ikelite housing. Recently made the switch to Sony (FX3) to focus more on videography :)

As @Yorkie88 has noted, DRAM/SLC-Cache refers to the actual NVMe drive, not the enclosure. DRAM cache, to quote WD paper "(...) dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) was routinely included as a cache for SSDs and to improve drive performance. The DRAM served as cache for writing data to the drive, and for storing the mapping tables that keep record of the location of the data on the SSD to allow access to the data." Kind of a super fast memory that proves very helpful when reading/writing to the drive, especially when dealing with lots of smaller files (i.e. "random"), by often caching the frequently accessed data. Nowadays, there is also another tech emerging, often replacing DRAM, called HMB, which uses host computer RAM memory instead of a built-in one. Mechanical HDD's include similar caching too, but usually much smaller, say 64-512 MB. As for SLC cache - SSD/NVMe drives use NAND memory to actually store the data. There are currently 4 major types, as below: SLC being the fastest and having most endurance (i.e. how much data you can write to it before it starts to degrade), but also limited by capacity (i.e. requiring more cells for the same capacity of the drive), hence ending up being the most expensive. Some early SSDs used that, but its pretty non-existent in consumer space nowadays, with all companies moving first to MLC, and now to TLC - slower, reliable enough, and most importantly cheaper. SLC (or pseudo SLC) cache helps to mitigate the fact that drives use slower TLC based NAND memory, one that would not allow for example for writes at 5000 MB/s. In other words, when you are writing to an NVMe drive, you are actually writing to a very fast SLC cache (provided one exists), and that cache in turn then "distributes" it to a much slower TLC NAND that the NVMe drive is using to store data. Larger the cache, the better, as this means you can write much larger data sizes without losing performance due to writing directly to the TLC NAND. There is an interesting graph in TechPowerUp review of Samsung 990 Pro, which supposedly comes with 226GB of pseudo-SLC cache, that illustrates this: TechPowerUp - Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB Review Tester attempted to fill the drive completely (in one go, i.e. 2TB being written in one operation), note how around 190-200 GB, speeds dropped drastically from just under 5000 MB/s to "just" 1400 MB/s. Reason? The fast SLC cache was filled (and because the write was ongoing and more data coming, it could not "distribute" the data to TLC fast enough to make itself free/available again) and now the data is being written directly to the slower TLC NAND. Hence the bigger SLC cache the better, though of course one in here would be more than enough moving few tens of GB of pictures for example. Nowadays, price difference between DRAM/HMB/SLC-cache-less drives and those that have these is not that big, hence frankly I would not bother with those, unless really on the budget. Good choices are generally (a few major brands, there is of course way more): Samsung 990 Pro TeamGroup MP44 Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Seagate Firecuda 530R WD Black SN850X I would not bother with PCIe 5.0 drives, these are an overkill even for a desktop PCs, not to mention external storage, where you would not be even able to get PCIe 5.0 speeds due to USB/Thunderbolt limitations. PCIe 4.0 is more than enough. There is a very good database at TechPowerUp, with detailed specs, and often accompanying reviews, including performance in various workflows (photos included) SSD Specs Database - TechPowerUp As for enclosures - yeah, LOTS of garbage out there - plastic, crappy controllers, poor thermal pads, barely any contact area. I generally stick to the below: Sabrent SilverStone Icy Dock (also known as Raidsonic) Akasa Lindy Speaking of SilverStone, I had a further look at their latest 40Gbps USB4 offering, MS12-40, and it is actually enclosure with an active cooling aka fan. Seems they have added it. Quite pricey though, probably due to being USB4. Budget wise Sabrent has quite a good choice (EC-NVME), and to be honest 10Gbps is often more than enough - that will translate to theoretical 1250MB/s (around 1000MB/s in real life), and will do for a normal photo workflow. There are also 20Gbps enclosures out there (like the original MS12), if you need something faster but not yet USB4 speeds. Note that the "amazing" MacBooks will not support that - speed will drop to 10Gbps. These do only 10 or 40. If using a PC these are fine, provided your USB-C port is 3.2 Gen 2x2 or USB4. Now I will stop boring everybody and go dream about some nudis. Or a pile of burning Macbooks ;) And since I cannot resist (yes, yes, I am a horrible human being) :

I am now old and weak, so APS-c and m4/3 sounds great to me!

Indeed. The problem with Vimeo is mainly their search engine has been disabled in Europe. You can still access all the features if you have a VPN pointing to the US or it seems to work if you have a direct link to the video. The base link for the search engine outside Europe is vimeo.com/watch with all the things we used to have but in Europe you land at the root of your own page and that's all. To quote them about that change: Q: What specific features are impacted by these changes? A: Vimeo no longer organizes or promotes individual user-uploaded videos on Vimeo.com in the EU or UK. As a result, certain features available in our Free plans are no longer available on Vimeo.com in the EU and UK: Searching Vimeo is now limited to video content within your own Video Library. Channels, Groups, Categories, and other curated video collections, including Staff Picks, are no longer accessible. My Feed is no longer accessible. For Hire is no longer accessible. Although some features are no longer accessible in these regions, you continue to retain full ownership and control of your content. You can still share and embed videos on your websites and social networks. I must say that I could not care less about what the European Film Academy is offering on vimeo especially in regards to underwater video filmmaking. There is simply nothing.

It seems that it is out of stock again. Do'nt buy from the link you cite - this is a scam. The publisher (Seifert Verlag) says it will be available soon again (whatever time span this means... https://www.thalia.at/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1016387878?ProvID=11010473&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=18314731113&gclid=CjwKCAjw7MLDBhAuEiwAIeXGIRJkX749hu4b_qWX7l2nSAKZMgTjtuEKkIXfuR0atEDPaE4wYQcteRoCCW0QAvD_BwE). In the meantime one can buy it second hand, e.g. here: https://www.antiquari.at/shop/product_info.php?products_id=54867

@bghazzal Excellent question... I wasn't brave enough to take my camera rig on this dive for a number of years. I learned from a local photographer much more experienced than me that almost all the u/w phototographers exit on the south end of the beach (takes dive planning, etc.). On most days it's significantly easier (or on the rare occasion you'll see boat divers off the beach...) Howver the most interesting approach I've seen (but I can't get my wife to agree with this yet) is to have someone on "beach support" so that when you just start emerging from the surf your "support" runs into the water, grabs your camera, runs back out before the next wave breaks... I've seen this done a few times - the coordination and timing is pretty impressive (the "support" person is committing to getting pretty wet in cold water, usually without the thermal protection). I've seen camera rigs make it up to dry sand without any issues, meanwhile the diver usually gets pummeled in the surf zone.

Had a fantastic first time trip to God's Pocket in the way north reaches of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The assortment of life was amazing, and especially impressed with sheer number of jellys, to include one of healthiest Lions Mane jellys I've seen. I was generally using my A7C/NA-A7C with the kit 28-60/WWL-1B/ CNC1, but used the Canon 8-15 fisheye on occasion.

I have the Carl Zeiss designed Ivanoff, which I used extensively with a 20mm lens on Nikon SLR (my friend Peter Ladell converted the port fitting). I have not converted it for my Sony because the Nikonos 15mm has almost identical performance, but I am sure I will experiment with it again in the future. I used it to take quite a lot of photos, such as this well-known one: Wildlife Photographer of the YearRig diver | Wildlife Photographer of the Year | Natural...Diving beneath the oil rig, Alex had to anticipate when the cormorants would burst through the fish shoal. The birds hide behind the legs of the rig after they plunge into the dark waters, gaining...This is another: The Zeiss corrector has two lenses - the port and then a second corrector lens that goes on the front of the camera lens. I tested it with and without this internal corrector lens - and without it the Ivanoff was no better than a dome, but with it, it rivalled a water corrected lens like the Nikonos. At the time I tested one other Medium format Ivanoff corrector port (from a Mamiya 6x7 housing) and this was similarly "no better than a dome" - and it did not have an internal corrective lens. Lots of Ivanoff style ports were made for video cameras in the 90s. They weren't amazing optically, but worked well enough for the low-res video of the day. They were smaller and more robust than domes and I feel worked well with the physically small lenses on video cameras. A frustration with the Zeiss system was that the internal corrective lens was quite small in diameter (made for the Hasselblad SWC) and this limited the lenses I could use with the port to those that had a physically small front element. I tried a number of lenses, but none worked as well as a Nikon 20mm. I would put more effort into reviving my port - but for now the Nikonos 15mm is basically doing the same job for me. Yes, I don't have AF, but that is less of an issue than you might think. And it is smaller and lighter than the Ivanoff. I'll watch your tests with interest. Because I quite quickly lucked into a system that worked really well, I felt I never tasted variables that thoroughly. Once I had the right port extension and found that the internal lenses worked great with the 20mm, I just got out there and used it. When ever I varied things the results deteriorated quickly, which also put me off doing more tests. Alex

They expected you to climb the ladder 😅 life is so tough! But seriously boat dives in the tropics are something else - just fall off the boat - hopefully somewhat gracefully. Even here the boat dives are relatively luxurious, though we don't have gear slaves.

I try not to see it in heroic terms.

Well then you have a 50% chance of correct information in my experience. :P

Thanks @Alex_Mustard , certainly seems like it would be useful for the type of shots I take locally (and for a forthcoming trip to Lembeh!!) The question I have is will it work with micro43? The Olympus 60mm macro is a nice lens and works very well, but it's a bit too long at 120mm equivalent, unless you are on quite small subjects. Switching to a ~30mm macro when I come across a weedie or Eastern Blue devil fish or even a red indian fish and other similar sized subjects would be perfect. I can't think of a reason it wouldn't work except perhaps I'm mostly working at f8-10. Which flip adapter are you using? Is it the one for MWL-1? On the brighter image question I would say if adding a 1.4x TC loses one stop of exposure, then adding the inverse of that - about a 0.7x converter would gain you a stop of exposure. You probably need to add into the equation that the lens is focusing a little closer and this may lose some light. What you actually end up with probably depends on exactly how the optics were designed.

Something like this

I think we need a video of this!

Hi all, My name’s Geoff Ward, last time I took any real Underwater Pics was back in 2005 @ Tavueni in Fiji, looking at going to Raja Ampat in October this year and trying to decide whether to switch from slide (which nobody uses these days) to digital, which will require buying an entire new rig, and adapting to it before October. I used to use Velvia 50 ISO very comfortable with it and loved the results, also very comfortable with my Nikon F90 in a Subal Housing, SB25 in a Subal Housing. Also used Fuji Provia and Kodachrome 100/200 ISO. I can discuss more if interested. Kind Regards Geoff Ward.

Well I seem to be lucky as the Ivanoff style lens on my desk is humongous. It was given a lot of great glas, partially due to the fact that the cam it was designed for played in the broadcast league 20 years ago ( 2005 ). I have added more extension rings and moved the optics much more forward with promising results. I might be really lucky as the camera had a 3 CCD design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-CCD_camera If you look at the construction each sensor was very small but the prism (equivalent to what you would call sensor plane today or the film slide in Nikonos days) is much larger, as it was a physical construct splitting the light up into the 3 tiny CCDs. I think therefore the optical engineers had to give the optics more space. Even though the camera was recording in 16:9 format I do not seem to suffer from that. The IQ seems to scale-up nicely in the whole 3:2 field. The only constraint seems to be the very long sunshade (which cannot be removed) at the top and bottom. However I was able to use this as a reference point for the focal length it was rendered for. Just zoom in underwater until you cannot see the sunshade anymore ;-) With the Canon RF 15-30 IS STM: It seems to run fine, starting at 25mm focal length. However I suppose it was designed for 28mm or even 32mm. The broadcast HD camera it was designed for had a large filter thread of 72mm which might allow me to tweak it with lenses that have physically small front element, such as Canon's RF 16mm (31mm front glas). I might also give my Samyang RF AF 14mm f2.8 a try with it, which has a physically large front glas element of 72mm. I'll keep you posted on my progress and findings and would love to see more images taken with the Zeiss, Alex. By the way, this is the old initial patent file of A. Ivanoff Patent No 2730014 dated 1956: https://www.freepatentsonline.net/2730014.html (the direct download to the PDF goes via this link) An a very interesting old (1967) paper about designing uw lenses, citing Ivanoff: https://www.asprs.org/wp-content/uploads/pers/1967journal/aug/PERS(33)8-925.pdf

I started exercising the hips and knees more regularly for just such activity. I’m not too proud to admit that I am blowing hard on the trek upwards on exit, and fearful of a slip and fall. We are a bit lucky in getting by with 5 mil wetsuits max, and relatively stable 24-26 water temps.

Hi folks, thought I'd introduce myself. I'm a keen diver and UW photographer living in Sydney Australia. I've been diving and shooting for about 40 years and really looking to improve my photos. Happy to catch up when I can with anyone in Oz. Cheers Bruce

Unfortunately, the R5 has had this known issue since it arrived. One of the biggest upgrades to the R5II centered around improved video cooling. As @Davide DB outlined, using the most recent firmware (which you have, although there is now a 2.1.0 for battery compatibility and IBIS, but nothing around heating) and reducing the data transfer via codec selection are the best options you have to use it as is. Most divers I know who use the R5 for mostly video tend to end up with an external monitor/recorder. Moving the recording aspect to an external device removes the heat generating components from the sensor area. While this basically eliminates the common R5 video heat issue, it unfortunately is not a cheap solution.

See here for info on internal resistance of batteries: https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/batteryir.pdf Internal resistance is measured as the voltage drop under load and this drop is smaller with black Eneloops compared to the white ones (less voltage means slower charging up). So this is essentially the same coin, but the different sides are viewed from different perspectives...

Tropical breeze or not, If the crew didn't fan you efficiently on the dive deck, I think it could still qualify as a tough dive 😁

It could also be your strobes I guess if they are slow to charge up?

@humu9679 If I take my time it's not too bad, breathing hard at the top but seem to recover fairly quickly. it soon reminds you if you are a bit out of shape. The worst is spring with warm air but still very cold water, you get steamed on the way down. SO you try to minimise time between zipping up your suit and jumping in the water. It also tests out your leg strength and stability getting down as much as up. I had to do some weight training after I had a minor knee ligament problem and lost strength in that leg. Diving dry I'm carrying 40-45 kg in cylinders, lead, suit and camera.

I must say I'm liking the fact all our dive sites are sandstone based, much less likely to damage you, though they have their fair share of "if it's black you're on your back" areas. Carrying a camera certainly does up the ante in making sure the entry is not too rough. Standard procedure on exit here is to crawl out till you are beyond the reach of any swell coming in, wouldn't fancy doing that on lava even with kevlar knees in my suits.

I use the WWL-C and occasionally fisheye up there. I tend to shoot macro for the 3rd dive of the day when the light is fading. The visibility is what it is, sometimes excellent occasionally less so. You can control the particulate with careful lighting in an conditions.

find on this page Caution Do not disassemble. Do not dispose of in fire, put in backwards, mix different battery types, use with non-rechargeable batteries, or short circuit. Do not connect the (+) and (-) ends with metal objects. Do not use in water-proof flashlights or in any device with an airtight battery compartment. Doing so may result in explosions or leaks that may cause personal injury. Keep batteries out of reach of children. If swallowed, contact your doctor or local poison control center. ☹️ or 🤣 I don't know

The part about the sharp rocks is terrifying. I can't even imagine carrying gear on my back there. Is the emergency room close by?