bghazzal

To wrap it up, I would argue that shooting in ambient light with (well designed, appropriate) filter still gives better results than in camera software WB/colour correction, despite amazing technological advances made. 

Even in 2025, this should be the go-to method for getting a good colour balance when shooting underwater in ambient light on action cams and/or cameras not capable of manually white-balancing at depth, when working within the following set of parameters: 1. you will work on the footage in post production to reset the white-balance point - working in post is a must for ambient light footage at scuba diving depths anyway. Beyond grading, the main “work” with action-cams will be resetting the white balance post in post-production, rather than at depth as you would do when working with a manual WB capable camera

. So yes, using filters on non-manual white-balance capable cameras is NOT a good way to get good results Straight Out Of Camera, since you will need to at minimum rebalance the footage in post. This is a major difference with using filters on cameras capable of manually white-balancing at depth, where the SOOC result will already be white-balanced and good as is. The action-cam workflow implies rebalancing in post. 2. you are shooting in “flat” or flatish profile - ie. limiting what the camera will try to do in-camera through software correction. This is essential for grading the footage afterwards, and avoiding odd hues generated by the cameras “underwater modes when setting the white-balance in post, which usually boost the red channels (degrading the image and rendering it difficult to grade when it comes to colour balance). Another issue being potential variations of colour balance/ treatment within a sequence, which you wouldn't have when locking the adjustments. Not a problem for stills, but definitely a problem for video. 3. you are shooting within the underwater ambient light “Goldilocks zone” – this varies depending on location and local conditions, but can be defined as a depth where ambient sunlight filtration becomes so strong that the camera will struggle with white-balance and colour, yet a depth which still offers enough light to get good results in post as seen in the examples posted above. 
 Typically, for strong sunlight locations like the tropics, this would be below 5m (above which water's filtration effect is so weak that the camera can handle the wb changes), and usually down to roughly 20m, stretching to 25-30m depth in very strongly lit clear water locations. 8m-15m is usually the depth range where ambient light works the best.
 Beyond depth, you also need enough workable ambient light. A filter will make the camera lose stops of light, typically 1 to 2.5 stops, which is a big tradeoff, but worth it when shooting at the right depth range / conditions.
 Usually around 20m+, things begin to breakdown both because of the lack of light (=noise, less contrast) and increased filtering effect of sea water (less colour info making it to the sensor)


 4. You are using a good filter, ie. one which is well designed to do the job properly – the job typically being – in blue water - cutting cyan/greens while letting deeper blues through, and warming up the image hitting the sensor, which will help the camera white balance correctly being mitigating sea water’s filtering effect on sunlight, either manually at depth or in post-production
. Shooting in green water, the filter should be different, typically more magenta, taking into account the difference in sea water’s filtering effect.
Typical well designed filters will have a fluorofilter like effect on the spectrum, examples being UR-Pro (no longer made), Keldan, Magic… Keep in mind that many "red" filters on the market do not seem to have been designed with a proper understanding of how it works and what the filter is supposed to do, beyond "warming"... it's just not a question of slapping a red piece of plastic on the lens and calling it a day... 5. You are shooting in full ambient light, or, in a mixed-lighting scenario, with filtered artificial light (ambient filters on the video lights, in order to emulate water’s filtration effect and even out spectrum difference between ambient and artificial light, see the Keldan system or other approaches along those lines). 
If shooting in an artificial light dominant scenario, just drop the filter. Same goes for the shallows, in the 0-5m depth range for instance.


 Just keep in mind that there are many ways to do this wrong, even with good material. Grading and colours are highly subjective of course, but as an example, this auto-white balance Ace360 + filtered artificial light clip is an interesting illustration of a failed approach to the problems are play. There are plenty of others out there, most stemming from auto-white balance and in-camera corrections... To make it clear, more than using a filter, the most important point of this ambient light action-cam workflow's is actually working in a flat profile and resetting the WB in post. This is the key. Adding a good filter will improve white-balance results, be it in post-production for action cams or at depth for manual white-balance capable cameras. And yet within this set of parameters, shooting flat ambient light footage with a filter will give you great workable results, often superior to unfiltered, in-camera adjusted ambient footage in terms of colour balance. This is especially true on action cams currently incapable of manually setting a white-balance point at depth. Let’s dig into the reasons why this is the case. 1. The problem with in-camera software white-balance correction underwater Ok, so we’re in a situation, in our day and age, where cameras have software corrections capable of doing a great many incredible things. So why - despite the marketing and consensus stating that filters-are-a-thing-of-the-past, are filtered footage results still generally better than in-camera software-corrected results in terms of colour balance? Why are filters still used by blue-chip professional production, but are seen as passé in the amateur / semi-pro world? 

Well, if you try to work on in-camera software corrected footage, and attempt to fine tune white balance or grade the footage, by setting the WB point in post on an easy white/grey target (sand, diver’s tank, bubbles, bleached coaral etc) you'll often end up with a weird red or magenta peak and a weird colour balance.
 I've done this a lot. Many times, I've tried editing unfiltered, non-flat GoPro footage from colleagues in locations where I was working. It’s bad, and just doesn't work. Rebalancing white balance makes colour balance fall apart, so you have to work with what you have, which limits possible adjustments. This happens mainly because the camera software boosts the red channels in an attempt to correct for the underwater blue cast on ambient light. This creates a dual problem for us: • The camera is artificially boosting the reds, which degrades image quality.
 • There's generally still a strong cast (often cyan/green/blue), and if there isn't (eg. "underwater mode"), the colour palette isn't very balanced or natural looking. When setting WB at depth or in post, you're saying "this area should be gray/white", which should lead to canceling out the blue/cyan cast. But if the reds in the footage are already over-boosted by in-camera softwae correction, the result is unnatura, with all sorts of strange magenta horrors, etc.

 2. Why shooting flat and/or using a filter generally works better in ambient light situations If the footage had been shot in a flat colour profile, the reds wouldn't have been boosted, allowing a cleaner WB correction, and colour balance, without magenta distortion issues. This is obvious when shooting stills in RAW mode for instance, which is standard for still photography.

 A flat (or flat-ish) colour profile will allow you to work on those reds, magentas manually in post, without having to deal with varying baked-in colour corrected footage. Even better, using a well designed physical warming filter on the camera (like UR-Pro or equivalent) acts on the ambient light before it hits the camera sensor: • The sensor records a warmer image, reducing the need for software correction.
 • With a good filter that still allows deep blues to pass through (eg. fluorofilter type profile), you end up, after resetting the WB point, with a warmer, more neutral, and more accurately balanced image than you would without a filter.
 Deep blues in the background are preserved, while the foreground gains accurate tone, making for a more natural looking, balanced image. This is especially important because setting underwater WB is really about how much “stretching” has to be done to deal with the filtering effects of sea water on ambient light.
 The more WB stretching is required, the more image degradation you'll have. A physical filter on the camera works by reducing the amount of stretching required to rebalance the image To summarise, filters mechanically "warm" the ambient light-lit image before it reaches the sensor. This: • Enables better manual WB capacities at depth or in post • Avoids needing baked-in software corrections from the camera, which are hard to work with in post in post.
 • Will give you more depth – the filter’s effect will extend to deeper in the image, meaning you lose background colour further away, and with less of a drastic drop than software correction
 The main dowside being, of course, the infamous loss of stops of light, which can certainly be a deal breaker in certain shooting conditions. In contrast, software-based in-camera colour correction: • Manipulates individual colour channels, with results that can be good or bad • Often leads to baked-in artefacts and hues, and uneven colour balance/palette • Degrades the footage
, making difficult to work with in post • Is not stable, and can vary within a sequence, which is problematic 3. Limits of filter use and manual white-balance setting (at depth or in post-production) As already mentioned above, even with a good filter: • In clear well lit waters (tropics for instance), the filter's effects typically break down beyond 20–30 metres depth in good conditions.
 • You can still set WB, but the colour cast becomes too strong, and image balance collapses. You would need a stronger filter, but then you would lose to much ambient light, which itself becomes rarer the deeper you go
... Catch-22... • So after a certain point, there’s less ambient light, and the filtering effect of seawater becomes too strong - setting WB in these conditons (at depth or in post) just stretches the channels too much, leading to distortion, like when working without a filter. In such stiuations, it's best to accept the colour cast or to work in artificial light.


 • When shooting in the shallows, say at snorkeling depths, the water’s filtering effect on sunlight is mild, and working on filtered footage at such depths will mean actually cancelling out the filter’s effects to set the white balance – it's possible, but really there’s no reason to shoot with a filter in the shallows, especially since required hue corrections will degrade the image. • Available ambient light to work with. In some sea conditions, there’s just not enough ambient light to work with a filter. In this case, as at depth, it’s best to accept the colour cast on the ambiet light footage and work with that, or use artificial light
 • Filter design vs. sea water qualities. Most filters are designed for blue/cyan water, which is ambient-light paradise, and thus not ideal for greener waters. Because cyan-filters cut off greens, if much green is cut, the water may end up looking unnaturally coloured, and the balance may be off compared to using a purpose-designed green water filter.
 UR-Pro did have a green water filter, as does Keldan if I recall correctly. These need to be experimented with, but since greener waters are usually darker ones, the light-related linitations mentioned above might also come into play. 


 To conclude, one could say that letting camera software handle underwater colour correction is like trying to shoot on land using coloured lighting and expecting the camera to fix everything digitally. On land, beyond setting the kelvins to best match your light source, if the light used has too much of a colour cast, you would probably add a lighting gel to adjust it or just simply change the light, rather than letting the camera try to get rid of the cast for you through some sort of software adjustement... Well, this is what a physicial filter on the camera is doing underwater in ambient light, with our own water-filtered light source (the sun). Sunlight at depth if a filtered light source, with a cast. Most modern camera can handle a light cast (say in the shallows), sure. But when dealing with strong blue/green/cyan cast (eg. 10m depth or so), it is still best - even in 2025 - to physically act on the cast itself than try to let the camera handle it, and will give you more workeable footage in post, and generally better results overall. Voilà, I hope others find this approach useful, even if it's seen as a outdated, and thing of the past. Just try it for yourself, but do it right. It works. Cheers! Ben

Yes, the Lee Dark Salmon is the best contender out there. As detailled in the UR-Pro filter thread, the UR-Pro cyan spectrum profile is basically that of a fluorofilter, a type of filter that were designed to "Convert U.S. Cool White or Daylight type fluorescent lamps to 3200K photographic tungsten and remove the excess green." to quote Rosco. The issue is that fluorescent lights have been phased out by LED lights, rendering fluorofilters obsolete in the lighting world. The Lee 08 Dark Salmon (LDS) is a good alternative. It was actually already tested in water and works fine, but with some caveats: As I wrote in the UR-Pro thread after the side by side comparison, it is stronger / darker (and a bit warmer) than the UR-Pro - meaning a little more loss of light / ev, and also a slightly deeper tint in the reds - this is visible when looking at the camera's ISO sensor data, with a higher ISO on the LDS. Yet what this also means is that, as expected, the Lee gel actually works somewhat better than the UR-Pro when going deeper, but this is a give and take, as it means a greater loss of light - which could be fine in the tropics, less so elsewhere. Handling of the blues is also a little different, as seen in compared curves: A fluorofilter profile like the 3310's is closer to the UR-Pro's original profile, in fact almost identical. There are probably other fluorofilter gels still available out there somewhere, the key is to find one with a curve the closest to that of UR-Pro cyan filter, detailled in the dedicated thread here https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1414-ur-pro-filters-info The logic is pretty straightforward, sea water filtrates sunlight and has a cooling effect, adding green / cyan. A fluorofilter is specifically designed to mitigate this. Yet as you can see on the graph above - and this is where a fluorofilter is different from a simple green-cutting filter, it still lets deeper blues through (= nice seawater blue). Just look at the flat SOOC flat GoPro video footage capture posted above: You can actually see the filter at work. Image has a warm cast, greens/cyans are cut (which is what usually sticks out on unbalanced ambient light footage shot without a filter...) BUT, very importantly, the deeper blues are still there. Rebalancing the image in post (by setting the white balance point, as you would normally do underwater, at depth using a slate with a manual WB capable camera) is made easy, and the results are more balanced. Rebalanced image after setting the WB point in post: Footage is then colour graded to taste: It's an efficient work around for getting good colours UW in ambient light out of action cams, because these cameras can't manually white-balance at depth (which is standard procedure for shooting underwater video) And beyond Canon-colour magic (where the camera's handling of manual wb / colour palette is somewhat like having a built-in filter), I'm still a big believer in the utility of filters to get more balanced, natural looking ambient light UW video footage at diving depths. The trade off is in stops of light of course, but for typical ambient light shooting depths, it's practical in most locations with enough sunlight to do so. However, the technical key points - and reason I opened this thread to begin with - to achieve this on an action cam are to use a well designed filter with the characteristics mentioned above (lets blues through, cuts greens/cyans, warms), to shoot in flat profile (to stop the action cam from trying to adjust things on its own, which it struggles to do at diving depth with filtered sunlight), and to set the white balance point in post-production. I've been experimenting with this technique since the GoPro4. No point waiting for the GoPro21, Ace 720 or DJI Action10, or the next miracle in action-cam colour handling at diving depth. This just works. cheers! ben

I haven't updated this thread in a while, but have been experimenting with UR-Pro filter replacements on my (indestructible) GoPro 7 black. It's now paired with an AOI UWL-03 wide lens (old model), and, after a bit of trial and error detailed in this thread, now filtered by a Rosco fluorofilter gel placed inside the housing. The current rig looks like this, minus the AOI lens (I use the AOI handle on a ball mount, which allows for better shooting positions and storage - most of the time I shoot as is, with the handle on left side, and my right hand directly on the housing, which works great). The filter gel is inside the GoPro Supersuit housing (but got a little wrinkled on install unfortunately, as you can see on the pic) This particular fluorofilter gel is very close to the lengendary UR-Pro Cyan, as explained in the thread linked above. It works really well in blue water in the optimal ambient light zone of 5 to 15m, and can be stretched a little above or below depending on light conditions. I haven't been diving with the GoPro that much, but after an initial first test a few months back in super shallow water - really too shallow for a filter - (clip here ) I finally did some proper dives with it yesterday, and the results are nice, and fine for grading in post, with the filter really coming to its own around 10-15m (there wasn't enough sunlight to shoot below 20m yesterday). These are captures from the GoPro7 video footage (4K, 60fps, wide), shot at around 10m on the GoPro7 with the AOI UWL-03 lens Blue water, average viz (15m) with particules in the water and quite overcast. This is at 10m, the blurry spot on center left comes from damage to the filter gel itself mentioned above. I the water in Okinawa is very blue, so I would probably actually desaturate the blues a little (hue vs sat) for a more moderate balance in the final clip, but this illustrates what I have to work with. The colour range of the coral is very natural, identical to what you'd see in the shallows (Indonesia this is not) As stated above, there wasn't enough sundlight to work in ambient below 20m in yesterday's overcast conditions (not enough light = too much noise below 20m), but this is a shot of a blotched fantail ray / ribbontail ray swimming under me at 25m (bottom is a 40m plus). While using filters seem like a thing of the past, I still find that for filtered ambient light footage, shot in a flat profile and rebalanced in post is the way to get the most out of action cameras. While shooting filterless works fine in the shallows, I've never been able to emulate these kind of results without a filter at diving depth, at least not with the same colour balance. Keep in mind water is a itself a filter on our ambient light source (the sun) and this causes action cam colour palette to be way off the deeper we go, whereas filtered footage helps regain a more pleasing, natural balance on these cameras incapable of manual white balance at depth. The key is to shoot in flat or as flat as possible with the filter, then reset the white balance in post before grading. It's quite magical. Here's a little walkthrough of the process on one of the video captures. Straight out of camera (SOOC) flat footage looks like this: (the balance is already not bad, but there is a warm colour cast. This warm colour cast is actually a desirable one, since it will help restore a more even/balanced colour palette when setting the white-balance point) I then set the white-balance point (rebalance the image) in post, which also corrects the colour cast: (this replicates, in post, what you would do at depth with a camera capable of manual white-balancing at depth. The filter has helped us obtain a more balanced image by mitigating the water's filtering effect on sunlight ) I then proceed to grade the footage to taste: (here's a less saturated alternative to the one I posted above) or if you want to pop the saturation a little, working from pre-balanced (filter) flat footage gives you latitude to do so, even on the ancient GoPro7... Imagine what it would be on 10bit footage! However, actual filter quality is essential, and filters are far from universal. My favourite filter on the Lumix LX10, the Keldan SF-1.5, doesn't work well on action cams, as it's too weak, and best reserved for cameras capable of manual white balance - same goes for Magic Filters. Unfortunately, many commercially available filters are really not designed by people having looked into filtering characteristics and are just very bad (Polar Pro etc), and also used by people not shooting in flat and rebalancing the footage in post, which tended to give filters a bad-name. A filter like the beloved, proven UR-Pro, or others with a similar fluorofilter profile, really works best for this kind of approach. *** So here we are... It works. This is not a "get the best footage SOOC approach. But I really think that when shooting in ambient light working on the footage in post is just an integral part of the process, and has to be taken into account. Artificial light (video lights, strobes...) dominant shooting is more forgiving and can be great SOOC, but for ambient light, you have to make some adjustements at some point to get a good colour balance. And this is even more important for cameras which can't manually white balance at depth, like our current action camera range. This is where the shoot in flat profile and manually set the white balance in post workflow really works well to get around this limitation. And adding a good filter to the mix will help when setting the white balance point, counterbalancing the filter on our light source (water on sunlight, of which you need plenty of for full ambient light shots), as seen above. This results in a more even aesthetically pleasing colour palette, without the odd hues or dayglo colours you often see on action cam footage shot in "auto" mode, where you let the camera try to adjust the colour at depth... I would really like to try this approach on more recent generations action cameras - especially with 10bit colour - so we can compare filtered and unfiltered end results, and see if filters are really a thing of the past for action cams at scuba diving depths... cheers ben

As a follow-up, I've had the opportunity to test the R3310 in proper diving conditions yesterday, one some Okinawa main island's west coast sites (Hôshu Kita / Toilet Bowl, Uguigama and Apogama/Mermaid's Grotto) Parameters were a depth up to 25m, blue water, average viz (15m) with particules in the water and overcast. Results are fine for grading, with the filter really coming to its own around 10-15m - there wasn't enough sunlight to shoot below 20m yesterday. These are captures from the GoPro video footage, shot at around 10m on the GoPro7 (yes, you read that correctly 🧟...), with the AOI UWL-03 (old model) lens (4K, 60fps, wide) The blurry spot on the left comes from damage to the filter gel itself (wrinkled when I inserted it into the supersuit housing) As stated above, there wasn't enough sundlight to work in ambient below 20m in yesterday's overcast conditions, but this is a shot of a blotched fantail ray / ribbontail ray swimming under me at 25m (bottom is a 40m plus) So yes, the gel for is very usueable for imaging purposes, even if it isn't "optical grade" cheers ben

Thanks for taking the time to do this and share this write up Jero! Grading is always very subjective, but yes, on the tests I really find the R5II end results the most pleasing as well. When working in ambient light, I’ve always been impressed by Canon colour science in general - my untested theory is that it while might not be the most accurate, Canon's handling of custom wb allows you to get a colour palette that is aesthetically very pleasing for UW work, something about the way it handles warm hues while preserving blues/cyans, if that makes sense... Actual colour accuracy would need to be tested in sterile conditions with a macbeth chart or similar, but results ("Canon colours") are really quite magical. Your conclusions on the RED Helium are very interesting as well. Brings to mind pics I've seen of rigs used by bluechip productions (BBC crew BTS footage for instance), where operators work mostly in ambient light or filtered mixed lighting to get as close to ambient light as possible. I think they still use a filter on the camera lens in quite a few ambient situations on cinema cameras. This seems a little anachronistic since you lose stops of light, and the colour science + grading possibilities are massive these days, but could also align with the struggles you mentioned on the RED. It would be really interesting to compare bare results with results obtained with manual wb + a good filter like the Keldan SF-2, see if this helps the camera adjust for manual WB or not really, especially at good ambient depth of 10m or so. Really interesting technical note on codec choices as well. I imagine broadcasters usually require ungraded footage to be worked on in-house, hence the need for a workable dynamic range and colour depth. This also reminds me that as amazing as the footage is on recent BBC underwater documentaries (Blue Planet etc), I’m really not a great fan of the super saturated, often exotic grading colourists seem to come up with these days (which I believe is linked to streaming and phones as primary display devices, attention grabbing all that…). It's sometimes a little strange to see footage shot in ambient light or aiming to recreate ambient light conditions with filtered Keldans be given this kind of treatment. But maybe I'm just old ˆˆ As a sidenote, I could watch the clips on vimeo without being logged in to my account for some reason, seems to work from Japan. And it’s great to see mantas are still around at La Reina! I was working in LaPaz in 2018 when the mantas came back and stayed, after what had been only very limited sightings for a long while… Only time in my life I got to see sealions and mantas swimming together, even with a juvenile whaleshark join in the fun once. Golden memories, and I’m happy they decided to stick around apparently! cheers ben

Welcome Jero, really happy to have you onboard. I’ve been following your work and Pelagic Life for a few years now, and it’s inspiring, including the impact you’ve made. Looking forward to sharing ideas and learning from your experience. Cheers! Ben

Thank you for sharing this and for your tireless commitment, John. Your work and passion are powerful. Documenting the local effects of the climate crisis and enabling this kind of testimony couldn’t be more important.

Thanks Chris, that totally makes sense and explains a lot! Just goes to show — don’t judge a book by its cover… or a compact by its long zoom lens! 😁

Yes, the RX100 VII looked very promising for macro but so far the best RX100 macro footage I've seen seems to be shot on the RX100Va for some reason... If this helps, I can reach macro on a 1" sensor compact, the LX10 (max 72mm zoom), with a powerful diopter like the CMC-1 (+15) or AOI UCL-09 (+12.5) or lens stacks (if I could budget it I would get the AOI +18) - this is for video, not stills. The V1 has a larger sensor, which will loses some of the smaller sensor benefits.

Wow. Thanks for this, but yes, no thanks... As much as I am (or was) a compact enthusiast, on the video front I’m still sticking with my now ten-year-old Lumix LX10. I got a compact because it was the most financially accessible manual video tool for my dive-pro budget — the Nauticam housing tray pack was around $1,200 USD at the time, to which I added wet optics and, eventually, lights for medium to macro work. It’s still the rig I dive with to this day — though a little souped-up like a hot rod these days, which somewhat contradicts the whole idea of a “compact form factor.” Anyway, such is life. Limitations of this 10 year old compact? Oh, plenty, of course. The main physical ones I run into are lenses (ah, to have a real macro lens instead of working with a zoom + strong diopter combo to reach macro…), battery packs to extend battery life (so crucial for video, but no room in a compact housing), and an option to rig an HDMI screen for my weary eyes. Software-wise, I miss the now-ubiquitous 4K 60fps (I’m not a slow-mo fan, but 50% speed is a useful tool), and then there’s... AF. AF for video isn’t crucial (I shoot in manual), but it does come into play for tracking small, fast-moving subjects — think blackwater or bonfire videos, for instance — where adjusting focus manually means losing a sequence. Despite the amazing demos in some videos — like the one above, where it seems you could track a subject’s nostril hair while skateboarding — the unmentioned fact is that video AF is a totally different beast, and there’s no way to know how it would actually work for moving pictures (which also means needing unicorn-like video-optimised lenses that can keep up...). This fast video AF, a specialist application, is still mostly a chimera. With the possible exception of the Sony lineup (to be confirmed… the internet remains suspiciously free of solid video AF tracking examples). Oh, and then there’s general image quality, of course, which is relative, all that. And all of that said, as others have frequently reminded us, smaller sensors are often an advantage for UW video. My upgrade (again, video only) when the stars do align would be an APS-C body like a Canon or Sony (a6700, or, giving up on AF dreams, the FX30). So, for now, for better or worse, the aging LX10 lives on. It's a workeable tool. And yes, I do love the idea of purchasing better water, or at least more time in it! cheers

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

Yes - I think there's two float arms under the tray, and the Inon arm mounted to the right side one. Also I'm not 100% sure but I think on of the video lights are on the bottom tray (and linked to the centrally mounted remote), but the strobes are on the two arms. Interesting to see he's got diffusers on the video lights as well, not super common!

Great find, thanks! The rig itself seems fairly standard for a mixed stills / video rig, but the tray section is intriguing. Looks like the Inon light is mounted at the bottom? Too bad it's not exactly the same one used in the clip. His Blackwater dive© setup, with multiple low intensity (1000 lumen) lights is very intriguing. He's doing this mostly on Kume island, but I've heard he's organised things on Okinawa main island, Cape Maeda specifically. Really fascinating work, and local as well for me - too bad these masterclass setups (like Horiguchi's Hori Nights) are way over my head budget-wise.

I think I'm going to have nightmares tonight... So is it a no-camera zone except on specific days, or do some die-hards manage to pull it off with a rig anyway?

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 😁

I've also started incorporating knee and leg workouts in the mornings after a couple of dry dives here. The strain these kinds of entries put on your joints is really something... And I started clipping the camera rig onto my torso D-rings to keep my hands free, which helps. Quite a learning curve...

Yes, quite tricky. Crawling out is not an option as it's mostly either coralline limestone or sharp volcanic / lava rock unfortunately, sandstone is very rare here. This is border edge at Toilet Bowl, took this a few weeks back when scouting it, manageable when dry with good soles: But more nasty areas are like this: Luckily, Japan being Japan, and thanks to past U.S. military activity (Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972), there’s a lot of concrete reinforcement along the coast, built for logistical purposes or typhoon protection. These structures often make shore entries easier than navigating natural rocky ledges

Emergency what? 😄😄😄 Yes, with you on that one. One thing to keep in mind is that the majority of the foreign diving crowd here is US military — mostly young dudes and dudettes in their 20s–30s, plus some ol’ US Marine Corps retirees (or is “veteran” the right term? Not sure). That does tend to up the ante in terms of sketchy shore entries. Operators generally don’t take the risk and just do such sites as boat dives. I’m not very adventurous — especially since I dive solo with a camera rig and a bailout — so I haven’t dived these two yet, but I did scout them on foot. I’d definitely want to go with someone who’s exited those sites successfully a few times (entries are one thing, but it’s really the exits that give me nightmares...) The other issue I have is figuring out how rewarding the sites actually are (aside from the feeling of accomplishment from not having hurt yourself...). Toilet Bowl has a gang of resident blacktip sharks (“oceanics,” not the reef kind) which is cool, but otherwise it's hard to tell overall, given the type of diving people are doing here. I did discover felt-sole boots here (really doesn't slip on mossy rocks, amazing) and self-reinforced a pair of standard booties with an extra rubber sole for those lava rocks...

Onna Toilet Bowl (west coast of Okinawa main island, Japan) would probably qualify - not that tough, but can be quite sketchy, especially exits: — other slightly sketchy local shore sites worth mentioning include Cape Zampa / Bolo Point : — Here's a clip showing the one of the Cape Zampa entries (the paint trail, seen next to the lighthouse on the map... ) 😅 cheers

Wow - very nice, thank you. Is it the AOI FC1 float collar for UWL-09PRO & UWL-09?

UWL100, as in Inon? is so, would you have a picture of your DIY job? thanks! Would it be possible to share some reliable sources of high density PVC foam somewhere on the forum? DIY section perhaps? I gave up looking for some in Indonesia, as it was just not practical, but now that I'm in consumer-paradise Japan I'm bumping into the same hurdles. Divinycell has one Japanese importer but they don't sell to the public / do samples. Same goes for boating supplies. Housing / construction is very exotic and wood-based here, and not really seen anything in local hardware stores /home centers. Specialised stuff like this with precise characteristics is surprisingly difficult to find in some places. I'm making do with commercially available high density foam, but would love to find large amounts of the stuff I could shape to my needs. It's not a language issue, more like import/purpose/retail reasons... As an example, we were looking for sorbothane to dampen the wife's electric piano vibration on the flooring, and finally ended up buying pads from the US, as Japanese retailers only had hard duro (70) stuff (mostly for medical soles), and didn't sell to the public. A local retailer did sell a few sorbothane pads, but at a 70% markup (common here as well, surfing the language barrier). Massive headache... Any foamy connects would be greatly appreciated! cheers

Thank you for sharing this. It's painful to watch the climate unravel step by step before our eyes, and no action being taken where it should be — at the political level, on a global scale, to implement real policies required to have minimal impact on this global crisis. Instead, we get heads in the sand, business as usual, feel-good micro-level solutions with no systemic impact, empty words and rhetoric, natalistic scapegoating and this vague, blind faith in some future technological miracle that will somehow save our planet, you know some kid with a startup, a billionaire with a sudden philantropic spasm of remorse (or for the loony fringe with a broken moral compass, to privately go colonise another planet after wrecking the one we have beyond repair...). All of this so that we, in Earth's most climate-impacting countries — or those most responsible through the impact they’ve had on other nations to sustain their own way of life — can continue living as we do now. Recent events show that even embracing an open slide into totalitarianism — one that pairs seamlessly with scapegoating, aggressive denial and self-serving nihilism — is now on the table if that’s what it takes to preserve our unsustainable, full-speed-ahead-into-the-wall way of life. Here in Okinawa, people blame coral bleaching (80% of the reefs impacted in 2024) and record-high sea temperatures on the "lack of typhoons" to cool things down — as if tropical storms were supposed to mitigate the multiple effects of the climate crisis in 2025. Maybe next they'll blame it on reef-safe sunscreen or blood sugar levels. Who knows.

Also, do you get a gap between the lens and the port on the Saga flip? I'm new to these so not sure how they work. I would have on Nauticam CMC1 (so with the protruding end bit, which should be fine), but also a flat AOI +6... Reason I'm asking is this thread: https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/767-67mm-flip-adapters-and-attached-accessories/ Thanks

Thanks a lot - I've tried emailing Saga, hope I'll get an answer - 10 - 2 o'clock could probably work. I'm a little worried about port size as well, since it's for a compact, so short port. For macro I have my lights really close to the port (and floats on the the arms) so it really depends on where the diopters end up 😅

Great, thanks - I've started looking into the Saga - can you confirm the dual flip can be positioned with a diopter on both sides (3 and 9 o'clock)? Also I've read somewhere that in some cases the diopters are not fully aligned with some ports with the Saga - what you make of that? I'd use it on a Nauticam M67 compact port thanks!