bghazzal

I used the Backscatter MacroMate Mini (+15) for a bit, it works quite well, when you get the working disance dialed in. I just sold mine to a local dive shop owner who's shooting primarily with a GoPro and getting good footage with it: Here's a closeup example he shot with the MacroMate cheers

As an update, the replacement MS-10 finally arrived today, January 5th 2024! 😀 SUPE came through and helped coordinate things between two Indonesian distributors!

Hello all, I've been shooting mostly macro video over the past few months and increasingly interested in juvenile / larval forms, and find "black-water" subjects quite fascinating. I personally haven't had the chance to try actual pelagic black-water diving yet, but have encountered interesting juvenile/larval critters in the water column on a standard shallow night dive, and fumbled to get shots -- While this is not true black-water diving, night-time critter migrations can be quite interesting in some locales, if the topography is right. I thought I'd open up a thread on the subject for people to share technical tips and ressources on how to get good video footage in a black-water shooting scenario, One aspect I'm particularly interested is video light positioning. A lot of the info for black-water still-shooting and strobe/light position can be transfered to video, but I'm sure there are also some specificities for video and constant-light shooting. There's an interesting article on the subject published by Mike Johnson in (now Waterpixels sponsor) X-Ray mag here: https://xray-mag.com/content/shooting-video-black-water-diving It has the following recommendations for video light positioning: "Regardless of how many lights you choose to shoot with, they should be angled from the side, top or bottom and set to fill the area where your macro lens is focusing on. I used two Light & Motion Sola 2000 Video lights, with one positioned at 9 o’clock and the second at roughly 1 o’clock. The light at 9 o’clock I set at 1000 lumen output, and the light at 1 o’clock I set at 500 lumen output. This did a really nice job of illuminating any translucent bodies, yet was still not too bright to overpower most of the bioluminescence." Rig buoyancy must be quite tricky as well - even though we are dealing with macro subjects, since most of the action takes place in the water column, the rig would need to be as neutral as possible to allow for short stable sequences, which is a world away from usually very tripod-dependent macro video... The difficulty of getting stable hand-held video footage of small critters moving freely in the water column would probably mean having to slow down footage at some point, not so much for actual slow-motion/stabilisation but rather to extend the length of a useable, in-focus sequence - meaning 60fps is probably required. I'm guessing this really depends on the critters, but I was wondering if using some kind of fixed highly directional light beam (thinking of a snoot beam, pointed up) might be an option to get planktonic critters closer to the rig, and other critters interested in these, functioning as a kind of critter-aggregating-device... This is just an idea, which would not be possible in a typical black-water with other photographers and divers hanging on a line - but I'm not sure how the constant-light requirements of black-water video shooting would combine with black-water still-shooting anyway. Looking forward to reading about your black-water video shooting experiments! cheers ben

Yep, I'd never tried for Japanese but it's not bad. Giving the conclusion (section begining 20.03 minutes in) a quick listen, to summarize he recommends the Inon, as it allows you to shoot in super view mode and switch to wide mode if you feel there is too much corner distortion while keeping roughly the same image quality as the AOI, whereas the AOI would vignette - since a fisheye lens is designed to shoot wider, he feels that Inon gives you more options in this sense. Note - Not having watched the whole thing, I'm not 100% sure what he means for the corners on the AOI - he uses a slightly technical expression ( 四隅けられる ) which usually refers to vignetting

Yep, it's one of the downsides. Considering it's easy to get a screen in most places, I'm starting to think Mac Minis might be an option for a semi-nomadic lifestyle. I actually left the macbook pro in Europe in 2017 - the macbook air has been surprisingly reliable, but I'll be happy to move back to something more punchy in the future. Great thanks

You're all making me drool - I edit 4K video in Final Cut Pro on a 2017 1.8 GHz Macbook Air with 8Gb of ram at the moment. I run FCPX directly from a Samsung T7 SSD instead of the macbook's hdd, which helps a lot. Not having a home to settle down in at the moment led to such minimalism, but a laptop with M1 processor would be fantastic, and the first thing I would get. I used macbook pros in the past (editing, and also visual mapping in Modul8), and also a souped up MacMini, but this was a while ago. Final Cut works running from the SSD works fine enough (I don't even use to use proxies to edit) but I can't run DaVinci Resolve for instance - well i can but can't get fluid playback, even with proxies...

Great stuff there! AOI products are really starting to get an edge these days, it seems. On the naming, i agree, I agree... Even ChatGPT could do a better job... It's one of the things that seems to live in a parallel dimension of its own - that said I confess to feeling a somewhat similar confusion regarding names of Sony Alpha cameras and Samsung Galaxy phones, so easily disoriented and probably not much of a reference 😄

Welcome Pete. I was working in Khao Lak for a few seasons and ended up staying over a year in Phuket during the pandemic (moving down there after the tambon lockdown was ancient memory...). We did some shote diving there, and have great memories of the Kata Beach mimic octopus colony! Really interesting macro in the area as well, a bit more difficult to find than further south, but great! cheers ben

I'm starting to think I have a doppelganger in the area, too concerned about style to go for the DIY option - I'm sure he probably shoots stills only too 😆

Yes, a Gravière du Fort article would be great - it's a pretty famous site in French diving! I've also often heard about Bécon-Les-Granits.

Aaaaaand look what just showed up on the interwebs: https://www.see-deep.com/ Somebody should have been quicker on the patent trigger 🤣🤣🤣

No need - you can even take it snorkeling, it's fine. Waterproofing was introduced with the GoPro5 and it works great. The dive housing is good protection, and my GoPro7 doesn't have integrated mounts like the newer models, so I just use the housing (otherwise I need a frame to mount it). Newer models have some kind of mounting option on the bare cam itself I think, so you can use that to mount to stick or something else. Not sure how it is for current models, but for older models you needed to remove the lens cover to get it to fit in the dive housing ("super suit"), but even without the lens cover the camera remains waterproof to 10m.

It will work great for that, no worries - stabilisation is amazing since the 7 and up, and with ProTune you can set the cam to a relatively flat profile (on mine, which is a 7, it's called "native" for WB, and colour profile to "flat"), which works great for grading. What I do in post is just start by reseting the white balance first, and then proceed to fine-tune and adjust to increase DR, contrast, saturation. Really nice. Not as much to work with compared to a bigger camera, but still good, especially topside. A pole mount works fine, especially with the new stabilisation capacities, but otherwise even a two handed hold directly onto the sides of the GoPro will (if not in a housing, make sure your fingers are far from the lens, so they're not in the field of view). The great thing about a pole is that you can also dunk the camera in the water from the side of the boat, and get good footage of marine mammals and the like, and if it's long enough get good shots from above, which can be great on a dive boat. It's funny that you should mention boat scenes, my in-laws+nieces just visited us in east Bali and I did a lot of boat-based shooting for a fishing trip on a jukung, snorkeling and also Balinese ceremonies in the evening.. For this I just had a freediving-style landyard on my wrist, then a diving coil landyard connected directly to the GoPro housing through a ring. Compact and discreet, stable, can't lose it or flood it, just worked great. Another slighty cheaper option you could look into for this the DJI Osmo Action Cam 4 cheers b

Wow - this sounds really bad - I remember reading up on this a while back. How is it in La Paz now? Same predatory customs-officers? If it's a little cooler, it could be worth flying to LaPaz airport, then driving down to Cabo San Lucas, maybe with a stop at Cabo Pulmo along the way? I worked in LaPaz in 2018, but didn't have any issues at the time, flying in/out from Mexico City. No custom checks that i can remember, despite our dive gear bags - we did have work-visas, but can't remember if this was checked/known by customs.

Great info - to add to Davide's clear and comprehensive summary of lighting options / requirements, on the subject of ambient light + ambient light filter Keldan, the company spearheading the "mixed lighting" approach (= shooting in ambient light with a red/spectrum filter while boosting closeup items with artificial light filtered to match the ambient light white balance) has recently issued lights with "pre-filtered" LED modules, intended to avoid having to use ambient filters on the lights and the loss of lighting power they incur. But this approach is still very fresh, seems a little bit fiddly and does limit the scenarios you can use your pre-filtered lights in... For wide-angle shallow-water tropical light style shooting scenarios, there is also the option to simpy go for ambient light only, preferably with a good filter on the lens to help the camera white-balance. Colours won't pop as much, and you won't get the foreground-background contrast that you get in stills, but it's also a rather pleasing and balanced palette, that some have called the "ambient light" look. The mixed-lighting approach - when it works - is the best of both worlds as get that smooth ambient light look but more details and, if required, vivid colours in the foreground. One thing to remember when shooting wide-angle in such tropical / shallows strong-ambient light scenarios is that quite a lot of colour info does actually make it onto the sensor, so if you're shooting in a rather flat profile there's actually a lot to work with when grading in post. Canon (and to some extent Panasonic cameras) are really your best options for ambient light video due to their white-balancing capabilities. The Fly&Dive channel has some really fantastic examples of what you can do with strong ambient light + grading only, and here are some graded ambient light tests I shot at different depth (shooting info in the subs), to check WB possibilities on a Panasonic compact. cheers ben

I use this for a compact rig - bought it in Thailand a while back - unfortunately the quadripod legs / clamps have ripped holes in the inner lining: https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Large-Insulated-Cooler-Cool-Shoulder-Bag-Outdoor-Camping-Picnic-Lunch-Handbag/1DBDGXEYL609

You guys also forgot the banner for the kidney bank sponsoring Waterpixels.

Welcome Ludo! Happy to see you've hopped on over and joined the happening-est UW-imaging forum in town. Not many Indonesian flags around, and you've been here so many times you should get honourary flag-ship at the very least 😉 cheers! ben

Same here on the Lumix LX10 for video - it's working within clear limitations, but acceptable ones, and there are some perks to the system as well. For video uses, what I miss the most on a compact would be: 1. the option to fit an extended battery in the housing - turning off the camera between every clips to save battery life 2. 4K 60fps instead of 30fps - I don't use slowmotion a lot, but it's nice to have the option to extend some clips in some cases (I can do 1080p 60fps but...) - no compact does this at the moment, and given that it's a dying species, not much hope. 3. HDMI screen option, for shooting comfort Then there's the subject of magnification / depth of field for macro, where you can't beat a proper macro lens, especially for super macro, but in most cases, when you're focused on catching behaviour rather than working the artistic palette options, it's enough. Image quality would surely be better with a M4/3 sensor (which is what I would get when stepping up to an ILC), and it would open up a lot of possibilities/creative options, but in most cases you can already do quite a lot if you understand the limitations you're working with. As a side note, a friend shooting the RX100vii hit me up a couple of days ago as he's actually considering switching to Panasonic or Canon for better white-balancing capabilities... b

Ouch... Sad but not surprising, unfortunately. I see that Inon is now a Waterpixel sponsor - fingers crossed for a little more reactivity and feedback? An Inon rep in the industry forum maybe? ---- To sidestep and sidetrack the thread a little, I ended up drifting on RGBLue Japan's website after reading your post, and found a interesting video, possibly the most saturated UW piece I've ever seen, by Sachi Murai & RGBLue, called Super Natural Color: https://rgblue.jp/blogs/story/写真家-むらいさち-さんによる-スーパーナチュラルカラー撮影動画を公開しまし, Nick Hope did little piece called "Saturation" a while back, but this is next level sat really taken to 11.... A little wobbly (hand-held, I'm guessing) and also you can see colour flickering that seems to comes with wide apertures (I think it's coming from variations in ambient light in the background), but colourfully abstract and well, something else! Anyway maybe I should share / discuss this somewhere more appropriate.... 😆 --- Returning to the subject at hands, another SUPE rep has now stepped in and is coordonating things with the distributor to make sure the replacement will be delivered quickly. Might be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel (bad pun intended) b

Thanks Tim, yes, this is still a major issue. And since the pandemic the government has pushed even more protectionist measutes, which really makes life trickier than it already was. Last few months have seen a new regulation forbidding the import of articles under $100 US for instance... For smaller goods, it's now often easier/cheaper to fly to Singapore to buy goods and return with them than trying to import...

Yes, I'm not surprised - despite Japan's reputation for quality (well, since the 1980s, let's remember that before that Japanese products were viewed as cheap junk) and great customer service - especially domestically - when it comes to warranty issues and the like you're not in Kansas anymore... My dealings with the main Japanese Nauticam dealer when I was living in Japan where not the most pleasant and very time-consuming same goes for Panasonic Japan in Japan (and this was all done in Japanese...) One thing to keep in mind for Japan in particular, is that niche Japanese brands have little to fear from bad reps outside Japan - a post or rant in English will have very little impact on their domestic image, and even in Japanese the culture doesn't really favour confrontational actions like posting a experience report on a brand company on social media or similar, which is rather rare. It does happen, but then usually it's on a bigger scale, with media also involved, etc. The language/cultural barrier is still quite strong, and generally there's not much investment in overcoming this (read, they don't really care), which is why you'll rarely see Inon reps joining the discussion somewhere... It's like "decorative English", no one seems to really care, actually. This is the case elsewhere, but it also depends on who you are, what your relationship to the brand/retailer is. If there is a personal relation in there somewhere, it generally goes much smoother. My Japanese boss in Thailand had a "connect" with Inon, and that was really something else, same goes for getting help from Nauticam Japan ambassadors to smoothen out the process... This has been something a constant - service is good, efficient, but when something goes wrong, or for anything outside standard operating procedures, not so much... By experience, when it comes after-sales customer service, this seems to be quite common in many places, especially in Asia, where the notion of "consumer protection" as found in Europe (or elsewhere) generally spreads much thinner, and after-sale service is much more limited. That said, the difference in treatment I've had between Scubapro Europe and Scubapro USA was also quite striking, and I've also had pretty dreadful experiences in Europe in the past (France-based postal services losing parcels, anyone?) cheers b Some parting wisdom by SAS Corporation:

Interesting, thanks - I actually speak/read/write japanese so language is not an issue, and my wife is also Japanese (and a dive instructor like myself) but overall we haven’t had much success finding cheap uw equipment in Japan, I must say. My brother-in-law actually used to work at Yodobashi camera but that ship sailed years ago, unfortunately… 😅 Bargaining (or rather asking for a discount) is actually quite common in Osaka - different culture from Tokyo though. Maybe it's different for photo gear, but I used to do it a lot for electronics when I was buying computer stuff a few years back- now that was a good deal!- in DenDen Town they'd usually whipout the calculator and tell you what can be done, no issues there. I would still try and not worry about it too much - worse that can happen when asking for a waribiki is that they'll say no-can-do, right? Interesting that you'd mention Mic21 - I’ve visited Mic21 a few times (the Osaka one, not Tokyo) but found gear to be generally more expensive that what I could get outside Japan (I was a resident so no tax rebate, unfortunately) especially prices for regs or computers which were really high compared to European prices, otherwise more locally Singapore was usually cheaper. Back to Japan, just to give a current example, the Aqualung Legend Elite retails for ￥192,500 on the Mic21 website, so roughly 1,230 euros, where as the same model retails for 699 euros at Vieux Campeur in Paris... Sure, Aqualung is still something of a French brand, but this also applied to other brands like Scubapro etc - we were actually buying quite a lot of dive gear in Europe for Japanese friends at some point, as it would save them quite a lot! Japanese dive gear brands were usually cheaper in Japan of course, but other than wetsuits and gyosan I’m not a great fan of Bism, Reyson, Gull and the like. Aqualung Japan actually has a product line aimed exclusively at the Japanese market, but same, not a great fan, and the prices, ouch.... You check out the prices at Divesea Singapore (given in Sg dollars) for reference here Returning to imaging equipment, Fisheye is the main Japanese Nauticam importer, and their prices are pretty much are pretty much the same as what you would find elsewhere ( which I believe is a Nauticam policy), the CMC-1 lens I’m interested in sells for $415 US in Japan, which is fairly standard (but if you get the tax rebate, that would knock of a little) On Mercari however, this second-hand CMC1 sold for $286 US, which is indeed a good deal if you can get it - but such specialised equipment isn't the most available. which is why I'm really interested in specialised UW gear shops offering 2nd hand goods I’ve ritually checked prices on new camera bodies over the years, in places like Bic or Yodobashi to see if there were good deals to be had on Japanese brands, but like Troporobo mentioned pricing was on the same lines as what I could get elsewhere, or actually more expensive, so I kind of gave up. The glorious 1980s when new Japanese-maker cameras were almost half the price are long gone… But second hand, yes, and quality can be high. I’ve bought a lot of things on Mercari over the years which is way better than Rakuten for that btw. I’ll keep the tips in mind for second-hand standard photo gear. Now the yen is quite low which is good (for visitors...), and I revoked residency so could get the tax rebate next time I visit as a tourist. On the tax rebate, please note that they migh be changing the system so that the refund is upon exiting the country like in many other places, see here Sorry for the total off-topic spin out!

Little side track but I'm curious - where do you shop for second-hand camera gear in Japan? Sofmap? Bic Camera? or do you have any specialist stores to recommend? Most of the second-hand stuff i bought in Japan was on Mercari, but I'd love to have a set of good addresses for 2nd hand, especially if it's a good deal - new gear is often overpriced in Japan these days, especially when you can't make use of the tax refund because you have residency... cheers b

Good to know, thanks. In Indonesia buying electronics directly abroad (from China, I presume?) would incur a minimum 40% import duty markup (and recent legislation changes have complicated things) so it's not really a viable option anymore. SUPE has now informed me that they communicated with the distributor to try tp deliver the goods "as soon as possible", including a copy of the email. The distributor has, on their side, said that in this case SUPE is in charge of the waranty and the ultimate decision maker, and apologised, saying it was not the first time they had aftersale issues with the company... 🤫