bghazzal

It's back again here as well now, real strange since it was unaccessible on 2 computers and phone, different browsers and with or without vpn. Anyway, sorry for the false alarm folks!

Great thanks - not sure how easy it is to change the settings UW, but if you could film a short clip, like 20 seconds of a good colour reference at depth in a flat profile (before it was ProTune on, white balance native, gopro colour, not sure on the 11) it would be great. if your editing software can't white balance I can try to do it for you on FCPX - really interested in what the GP11 is capable of in flat. I've also just bought the wide angle lens (an AOI UWL-03), should be arriving in a few days.

GoPro7 + UR Pro Coming from the GoPro4, corner distortion is ugly (this is all in linear, argh), but there's colour data more to work with at depth - hope the new accessory wide angle lenses + wide will help! I was shooting in linear 2.7K as it's a hassle for my aging laptop to handle GoPro's HEVC265 4K codec (the joys of nomadism...) - GP7 Komodo - 10-20m depth - GP7 Komodo - various depths, mostly shallow 10m - GP7 Japan (quite blue water, 10m depth) - GP7 Japan 10m, greenish water, - GP7 Maldives - Kudara Thila roughly 10-20m, early in the season so greenish/bad viz that year... - GP7 - Palau / Blue Corner, roughly 15m - GP7 - Palau 18m - average viz, but the white sand acted as a reflector - Finally, here is yesterday morning's test of the GoPro 7 with an original Magic Filer GoPro7 4K60fps wide (yes, not 2.7K this time), flat profile, with an Original Magic Filter gel inside the housing. First clip is at 18m and second clip at 9m, shot in tropical (east Bali) mid-morning ambient light only in the usual slightly murky, particle-rich water. You can see how strongly the Magic filter is kicking in when I film the depth on backlit dive computer. cheers

GoPro 6 + UR Pro I hated the clunky 6 and only used it a few times - let down coming from the 4, even though the newly introduced stabilisation was nice and waterproofing offered peace of mind. GP6 Andaman sea, 12m-15m depth

Some examples, in different locales/conditions/depths, of GoPro 4 to 7 footage shot exclusively in ambient light only with UR-Pro filter, flat profile white-balanced in post. GoPro4 ambient light + UR Pro (no stabilisation, not waterproof, colours were not great, but loved the sharpness and corners of medium fov, and miss it to this day...) - GP4 Raja Ampat - 15m This is one of the first clips I shot to test the GoPro4 + UrPro combo in 2016 or 2017 - not sure what I graded it on... not interesting but illustrates GoPro4 + UrPro filter colours. - GP4 Andaman Sea, 10-20m depth - GP4 LaPaz Mexico (greener water) 18m depth (it's on the sand next to a wreck) - GP4 LaPaz 15-20m (the mantas returning after 20 years were big news in 2018) - average viz not much colour there, shows the limits of the GP4_filter at depth. - GP4 LaPaz 10m depth GoPro 4 to 7 + UR Pro Andaman Sea, various depths

Nope, no go on the phone as well - tried on two computers and mobile - maybe it's an Indonesian internet thing, but normally a VPN takes care of that. Odd!

Hello all – I find myself bringing the subject up in various threads (notably here, here here) so instead of further derailing innocent threads with my ramblings, I figured I'd try to regroup the discussion here. I’d love to discuss and share experience reports on a specific shooting technique now often seen as antiquated and unneccessary due to technological advances made by recent action cameras: shooting with “red” filters in ambient light, in a flat profile, and manually white-balancing the footage in postproduction What you’ll mostly read/ hear everywhere nowadays is basically that recent camera white-balancing capacities have improved to the point that the "balancing" effect of filters on a camera lens are no longer necessary underwater, or even detrimental to the overall quality of the footage. While there is definitely a very good case for this in the shallows / snorkeling zone, where spectrum alteration is not as marked, I’m actually less convinced by the results what I am seeing at depth when it comes to ambient light shooting. Of course, speaking of colours, grading etc, is entering into slightly dangerous, highly subjective territory – but let's say it - to my tastes, I find that in most cases, if the ambient-light underwater action cam footage I see is certainly usable, sometimes even quite ok with recent models, fine in the shallows, I’m much less convinced by the overall balance of colours at common diving depths, especially in the 10m to 20m zone (as a disclaimer, I do have a fondness for the soft "ambient light" look in wide-angle, ambient light-dominant scenarios) Personally, I’ve been shooting in flat with filters since the GoPro4, following this up on the GoPro 6, and 7 models. But the change in housing design with the upgrade to the GoPro8 has made it more difficult to use filters on the GP8 and up, a reality bolstered by the widespread idea that recent model’s auto white balance capacities underwater rendered filter use obsolete. I actually held back from upgrading the cam primarily for this reason, and also because I was not fully convinced by the improvements brought about by each yearly update - but now, generations later, there is probably a reason to do so - but what of the filters? the filter + flat profile combo Now when I say I shoot with filters, what I really mean is that I shoot ambient light with filters in a flat profile. This is important, as it's quite a different approach to simply slapping on a filter and letting the camera figure things out for itself underwater. By that I mean that I’ve been using the ProTune settings since they were implemented to basically stop the camera from trying to make white-balance and colour adjustments. Human control (freakism...) - the opposite of AI if you wish 😁 In GoPro's ProTune mode you can set the cam to a relatively flat profile (on mine, which is a GP7, it's called "native" for WB, and colour profile to "flat"), which works great for grading in post, and most other action cam models have similar "flat" settings (log, etc) As always with flat profiles designed for grading, this gives a rather dull-looking result out-of-the box (read not great for near instantaneous uploads to your socials of choice...) However - and this is where it gets interesting in my opinion - the recorded colour data is there, just waiting for you to work on it in post. This allows you more flexibility to set the white balance (sand, bubble, tank, white little rock or even WB slate if you have one) in post-production instead of at depth, and also work with the colour and overall colour balance. Clearly, this is more dedicated approach - it does mean more work in post, and also means having access to editing software which gives you the option to work on the footage (Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas, iMovie all work, but there might be others). So yes, more work, but since I always work on the footage anyway, I find that this approach generally gives a much more balanced ambient light colour cast, and actually in the end not that different from having performed a manual white-balance at depth... Which is why I would argue, to the risk of sound vintage retro and old-fashioned, that lens filters, especially combined with flat-profile shooting, still have a role to play underwater video, especially on action-cams, since they allows us to make-up for these camera's lack of manual-white balancing functions at depth. Yes, action cams cannot manually white-balance at depth – but shooting in a flat profile with a filter actually gives you a rather similar flexibility, by allowing you to set/adjust the white balancing point and colour balance in post. However, having tried to work on footage shot in non-flat profiles, it just doesn't work as well in post if it's not been shot flat - adjustement options are very limited, since you are pretty much locked-in to adjustments made in camera by the camera software. Shooting in flat is something of a radical choice, but if you intend to work on the footage in post, I would recommend shooting in flat whenever possible, for maximum flexibility and more balanced results. And in this shooting scenario, the physical "red" filter in itself plays an important role - as it does for ambient light with manual-balancing cameras - by, very schematically, "evening out" the balance of the data recorded in the flat profile. Using a filter at depth means that there is not as much of an adjustment/stretch to be made to rebalance the wb point and colours of the footage - the logic when rebalancing flat-filtered footage in post is basically the same as when manually white-balancing at depth, and end results actually somewhat comparable. Of course camera capacities / IQ come into play, which is why I would be very eager to see footage shot in flat profile with a good filter on more recent, advanced action cam models! Again, this is very subjective territory - as are most colour / grading considerations - and what follows is a very subjective statement, but for shooting at depth in full-ambient light or ambient light dominant scenario, I would argue that a (good) filter really helps, and that shooting in a flat-profile, will allow you to get better balanced end results (with the “ambient light look” ) than using no filter. It's worth losing some stops of light and/or definition for this And I would argue that this is also the case for quite a few cameras capable of manually white balancing at depth as well... "good" filters I’ve mentioned “good” filters a few time – what I mean by this is that I also believe that filter quality matters, an aspect which is often overlooked. Sure, any “red” filter will help to some extent, but if we are talking about obtaining a well-balanced end result, then filter design, and its action on the spectrum, is also important. This is also a little controversial, but I’m not very convinced by the results obtained on commonly referenced filters like the PolarPro or even Flip system (which seemed, awhile back to give slightly dayglo results...) – this is also true for other cameras. As example, on my Lumix compact (which I manually white-balance at depth, the difference in results between a generic “red filter” (the Howshot filter I first used with my Inon UWL-100) and well-designed filters like the Magic Filter or Keldan are massive, for instance (eg Hotshot generic vs. Magic vs Keldan ) You need to find something that works in your conditions, and gives you a good base to work with post. For more on this, I would recommend reading up on the fantastic tests and experimentations done by Interceptor121 in his blog and by Dreifish in this fantastic Wetpixel thread (read it while you still can!) All this to say that actual filter design does matter underwater, it's not just a question of sticking any red piece of glass or plastic on your lens - this is true for any camera, and this statement applies to action cams as well. Furthermore, I think the true value of using filters at depth come to light when combined with a flat profile, for white-balancing in post - this crucial aspect is very often overlooked in the discussion on filters. If planning to work on / grade the footage, flat profiles are the way forward for shooting ambient light at depth, especially in the zone where you still have a lot of ambient light and colour info making it to the sensor, but the spectrum is quite alterated (typically 10-20m in strong ambient light areas - ymmv...) back to the future - using filters in an unfiltered world Personally I’ve been using the UR-Pro cyan filter since the GoPro4 – it’s a proven, solid filter, that works very well for this purpose (shooting in flat, white-balancing in post) I have 55mm SRP-UR-Pro acrylic filters, and also a glass UR-Pro filter. I'll post some ambient light examples, shot in different locales/conditions, below. Alas, UR-Pro doesn’t exist anymore, and it’s also very difficult to find 55mm / 52mm filter mounting options for recent cameras. And this is also complicated by the new wide-angle lens accessory options, which are seemingly finally improving quality and reducing wobbly corner / angle distortion which have plagued GoPros since stabilisation was introduced and the field of views changed (GoPro4 > GoPro5, corners, argh...) Also shooting ambient light with a compact camera I had, however, also experimented with filter gels, which are the way to go with fixed-lenses (taped to the lens, not super sexy but hey...), notably the Keldan Spectrum filter (SF -1.5 gel) and the original Magic Filter gels. I tested the Keldan gel on the GoPro when I was working in Palau and also using the UR-Pro daily. Well, while the Keldan's high quality filter turned out to be my favorite filter for ambient light on my Lumix compact, it was actually a let down on the GoPro... However, after a long hiatus, I finally got the motivation to try something I hadn't done yet, which is use an original Magic Filter in the GoPro7 housing. I tested this yesterday morning, and results were quite good, making it a good option for use with newer camera models and accessory lenses, no mounts required. This is something I would be pursuing in the future if I finally upgrade my veteran GoPro7 to either a newer model or a DJI or Insta360... More testing would be needed, but seems like a good solution for using filters on recent action cams. Sure, you would lose the option to shoot with the camera (in the housing) topside and on the surface, but it's always a compromise, and there's always the solution to remove use it out of the housing. ambient - and beyond? Of course, all this applies primarily to ambient light / dominant ambient light shooting. If artificial light is your dominant light source, auto WB or a kelvin setting is the way to go - unless.... you use ambient light filters on the lights, ie a mixed lighting scenario. While this has been mostly researched on cameras capable of manually white balancing at depth, this his would be something interesting to play with with action cams shooting in flat profiles - a good base to start would be the ambient filter tests done by Interceptor121 and Dreifish previously linked above, matched to good quality, well-designed camera filters (the usual suspects being the late UR-Pro, Magic Filter and Keldan Spectrum filters). If the filtered artificial light spectrum is very close to matching the ambient light spectrum, given the results given by white-balancing flat profile in post, there's no real reason it shouldn't work like it does on manual white balance capable cameras.... To conclude, and go beyond filter use, I'd love to see examples of ambient-light footage shot in flat and rebalanced in post ( especially with a good filters) on recent action cams, and seeing how these results compare to in-camera adjustements, and recent AI-enabled depth-correction bells and whistles. cheers ben

Ok thanks - must be something else then. Still can't connect here - firefox, chrome, private windows, VPNs... odd!

Hello all - this might be just some random downtime, or could it be that wetpixel.com is finally gone? I managed to look up a thread earlier today, but a few hours later I'm getting error messages on different browsers / VPN connections. Does it work for anyone? Could this be much discussed final over-and-out? cheers ben

Thanks. Frankly, I've never really seen results that I find encouraging with Polapro or even the Flipfilters - filter design really matters for these purposes. I've been using the UR-Pro Cyan filter since the GoPro4, and it's a solid - but these are no longer made - however tests with quality filters like the Keldan Spectrum SF-1.5 gel were inconclusive. Magic Filters seem to work well as well - these are gels, meaning you can use them with any lens accessory (but you will lose the option to shoot topside or on the surface). I find the most important aspect when shooting with a filters is to shoot in a flat profile - which the most commonly overlooked aspect - by shooting flat, you dont let the camera handle while balance / colour adjustments. Since it's not possible to do a manual white balance at depth on a Gopro or other action cams shooting in native (flat) WB, lets the camera record without trying to / or making only minimal make adjustments. Footage will be dull and flat out-of-the-box. However, this leaves you the possibility to do a general white balance in postproduction, and I find that this gives a much more balanced colour cast to ambient light clips. But this only works if the footage has been shot in a flat profile. If shooting in artificial light, yes, you can't use lights with filters, and if artificial light is your dominant light source, auto or a kelvin setting is the way to go - unless.... you use ambient light filters on the lights, ie a mixed lighting scenario. This would be something interesting to play with - a good base are the ambient filter tests done by Interceptor121 and Dreifish, matched to good quality, well designed camera filters (the usual suspects being the late UR-Pro, Magic Filter and Keldan Spectrums). Then, if the filtered light spectrum is very close to matching the ambient light spectrum, there's no reason it should work like it does on manual white balance capable cameras. But I think it's time to open a new thread on filter use for action cameras so we don't derail this one too much 😄 EDIT - here is the thread

It's difficult to know precisely, but just keep in mind the inner volume of the NA-LX10 is tiny. I do about the same - one good pull after it's green - you really feel the resistance increasing. 3 hard pulls once it's green would probably be over-doing it on such a small housing. Yes, I didn't know either, and it's not really explicit in the housing's service manual - it was only when I was in touch with Nauticam suppot after the leak they mentionned over-vaccuming (I copy-pasted the exchange / advice given here on WeP, as this could be problematic in some case, but as Chris also pointed out back then you don't really want to under-pull the vaccum either! 🙂

Ouch - Sorry to hear this - very good advice in the thread already, but I'll add to be extra careful with the NALX10 housing - check out this report as well: https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1243-catastrophic-housing-flood-this-week/#comment-6644 A few years back, I had a leak on what was the third dive with my NALX10, 45 minutes into a shallow-water macro dive in Thailand, half a teaspoon of water in, toasted camera, and it turned out electronics (they seemed to work after service, but started behaving erratically, and had to be changed). So full service, then a second round to change the electronics by Nauticam's Japanese dealer. The scariest thing is that I never knew what happened - the fact that it happened in a shallow dive with very little pressure change is concerning, especually since the housing had been vaccum-pulled and on green for 3 hours before the dive, never knew what had happened... Don't want to jinx it, but it's been good since. What has become my routine since is to inspect the o-ring and housing groove when opening the housing of course, but also systematically grease the o-ring after each diving day Iwith the minimal amount of Nauticam grease - just to make sure everything is smooth, clean and help the o-rign slide into the groove easily. O-ring maintenance seems to be much more important / less forgiving on small-sized, single o-rign clam-shell designs like the NALX10. I also pull the vaccum much longer in advance, like the day before, but this won't be practical on a liveaboard... And yes, stay away from rinse tanks... Otherwise it's quite easy to get water on the o-ring when opening if it's not super dry - wiping the housing down with a couple of sports towels (one for very wet state, one for when it's drier), and then blowing a bit compressed air works - if you don't have access to compressed air you can, for the future, buy a nozzle for your LPI hose, turning the remaining 50 bar in your tank into a compressed air device, they work great and you can adjust the pressure of the air you're blowing. Be extra carefful under the tray, hinges and also under the latch, where water always accumulates and is hard to remove with some air pressure. Also make sure to dry the area around the vaccum valve, as it could suck in water as you press it to release the vaccum. Lastly, but careful to overpull the vaccum on such a small volume compact camera housing - Chris has more info on this, but there is a goldilocks zone to be found, as you want to avoid both over/under-vaccuming.

As a follow up, here are two samples shot this morning on the ol' GoPro7 with an original Magic Filter gel inside the housing. I think the Magic Filter perfoms quite well in this context, so is a good practical alternative to the now-defunct UR-Pro cyan filter ( as mentioned the Keldan Spectrum -1.5 gel didn't perform well on the GoPro). Since the Magic filter is a simple gel which can slide into any housing, I think it would be really interesting to try this shooting approach (= flat profile with Magic Filter, white-balanced in post) on both newer some GoPro models, DJI Action 4 and the the New King of Action Cameras the Insta 360 Ace, to reap the benefits from improved IQ and all the rest. Back to the test itself, these dull test clips were shot in ambient light only on the GoPro7 4K60fps wide, flat profile, with an Original Magic Filter gel inside the housing. First clip is at 18m and second clip at 9m, shot in tropical (east Bali) mid-morning ambient light only in the usual slightly murky, particle-rich water. The clips and white balanced in post, and crudely graded. You can see how strongly the filter is kicking in when I film the depth on backlit dive computer. Given the flexibility the Magic filter-gel offers, I might now upgrade to either one of the more recent action-cam model discussed here at some point in the future. But my first investment is actually a wide-angle conversion to try to correct the GoPro's wobbly horrific corners that I've hated so much since stabilisation was introduced and field of views changed on the GoPro5. Now assured that I can use a respectable filter that works for my purposes, I actually ordered an AOI UWL-03 lens today. To return to the original thread subject, if anyone could test the newer GoPros / DJI Action 4 / Insta 360 Ace shooting at depth in flat profile with a (good) filter white-balanced in post, it would be great to see what results can now be achieved with these new beasts. cheers! ben

Good to know thanks - we'll see - I might update in the near future if I can find a way to use a (good) filter at depth. I've been using the UR-Pro cyan in a flat profile and white-balancing in post since the GoPro 4, it just works for ambient light wide-angle. Unfortunately, since the 8 upgrade it's been difficult to mount filters (I have a 55mm mm mount for the supersuit, and both 55mm acrylic and 52mm glass UR-Pros) - not really interested in the Backscatter flip/insert solutions as I don't think the filter colour balance is as good as the results I'm getting. It's actually one of the reasons I never upgraded the 7. I've tried with the Keldan Spectrum SF -1.5 I use on my compact (it's a gel, so slides in the GP housing), and unfortunately the results were not good at all compared to the UR-Pro. I'll try some test shots with a Magic Filter gel tomorrow, see how it performs. Ideally, I'd like to use a good filter like the UR-Pro combined with the new AOI wide lenses, but it's a bit of a headache. If the Magic Filter works it would be great...

Nice comparison, but surprisingly - on such a clip anyway - not that much of an upgrade from even prehistoric GoPro models like the 7 I still have... Have action cams have hit their limits, and the new Emperor-King of action cams really wears no clothes? the specs are ot of this world, but the results - as far as I can see - are, well, much more down to earth...

Yep, unfortunately a few inches are missing (or rather, the Nauticam M10 mount is a little too long, and I couldn't find a smaller M10 ball mount) and also there are no extra-long open triple clamps, which is what I would need in this case. If not using triple clamps, maybe single extra-long clamps wound work. Another option would be to have extra long ball mounts on the handles themselves, but Nauticam doesn't make these either. It's possible to mount the float directly with the M10 mount on, but then this means the jumbo float is off-set behind the M10 ball mount, which moves to the rear of the housing (whereas with wet lenses negative buoyancy tilts to the front). The other issue is that you can't access the vaccum valve (meaning that you need to pull vaccum before setting up the floats - no biggie, but still...). Solution I found is to add 2 small arms - this also allows to move the position of the jumbo float (up and down, but also forwards/backawards), should it be required, but in practice I don't need to. But if you were using single clamps, then the Nauticam or similar extended clamps could give you the needed reach.

The tray piece looks good, let us know how it goes. I can't help with this my own experiments with transfering some of the buoyancy under the housing were not conclusive. When i was playing with this, having a compensating force pushing up on such a small housing felt much less stable and more "intrusive" than what a main horizontal bar close to the top the housing gives - I love it like this for wide and, it turns out, macro. But i also didn't have a flat tray float-piece like what Davide suggested, which might have a totally different feel. It's tricky - compact housings are bricks, much more so than bigger camera housings, and for video you really want to find something that works and feels good for you. As a counter-example when I added more vertical buoyancy when trying out the "wolf" set up mentioned above, I went from a "neutral" feeling (you don't feel the buoyancy compensation, the rig feels like one single mass) to feeling a pull up (even if the rig itself was negative) when manoeuvering the camera. - this is difficult to describe, It's like a "delay" or lag, a push or pull, depending on float placement, which makes you aware of the buoyancy compensation. What I really like now is that my rig with a main jumbo float a few inches on top feels like one single, near neutral block, and this is a base from which i can tweak things - but maybe a +400g flat piece on the bottom can work in the same way and not feel like it's pushing up, since it would fuse with the housing. Also, I'm also not going for fast elaborate camera movements, rather slow and steady - I think for that kind of camerawork you would want the rig to be a neutral as possible and maybe a pivotable Stix arm with nothing on it (like ze underwater steadycam already mentioned). Maybe you could put this arm on the NALX10's M10 mount? (this central screw in mount is what I use for my single MW4300 btw, not the cold shoe)) which would give you the possiblity of locking in a camera angle to better match the movement/angle of your shots. But if your rig is truly neutral you might find that you won't need an adjustable float and will actually be looking for more stability instead. cheers b

the SUPE / scubalamp.com website is still up, no mention of rebranding that I can see there anyway: https://scubalamp.com/pages/about-us-1

Looks good, but not sure the Stix floats provide enough buoyancy in this case. My primary horizontal float is a +900g carbon float, for instance. And yes, for the adjustable float I think the squarish shape of the Stix is the problem here as the floats can't roll on one another, like with smooth round carbon fiber float. My "moveable float" (good title for a novel?) just rolls around this main float. For the lights, it's really nice that you have two MW4300 - i would definitely stick with this as it will give a lot of shooting options, but maybe what you could try is invest one large carbon fiber float to mount horizontally across the housing like you already do (you can/could get some pretty cheap ones on ebay or similar, look into the Puluz brand for instance). Looking into my purchase history, I'd bought my main 900g float when I was in Thailand, and it's this model here: https://www.puluz.com/p/PU3026/PULUZ-10.8-inch-27.5cm-Length-80mm-Diameter-Dual-Balls-Carbon-Fiber-Floating-Arm-Ball-Diameter-25mm-Buoyancy-900g.htm This, or and equivalent would give you a good working base, as it would cancel out most of the housing's negative buoyancy, and you could figure out if you need more floats than what you have already. For the lights you could get two 60mm diameter carbon float, maybe around 10cm length, and use these as a base for the lights on each sides - compare the buoyancy with the Sitx, but I think the carbon arms would probably give more and get the rig more comfortable. Size would depend on buoyancy needed, but the MW4300 are quite negative as well -250g per light in water, so that's an extra -500g or so to compensate. But maybe with a good +900g on top the Stix foam inserts would be enough. For the extension I don't think I got one with my original NALX10 kit, not sure. Apparently it's the Nauticam Universal Right Handle Bracket ,and intended for housing / tray systems that don't have holes for attaching the required brackets of Nauticam Shutter Release Extension: If you have an older Nauticam mirrorless or compact housing that does not have threaded holes for attaching the required brackets for the Nauticam Shutter Release Extension, you can use the Nauticam Universal Right Handle Bracket. We suggest using a double ball arm w/ clamps between both handles on your Flexitray or Easitray to provide additional support for the Nauticam Universal Right Handle Bracket. https://reefphoto.com/blogs/how-to/nauticam-shutter-release-extension cheers b

oh this is interesting - situation is a little different, but I carry my 3 closeup lenses in neoprene pouches on the dive - the neoprene pouches themselves are clipped inside a large Apeks cargo pouch clipped onto my BC pocket. It's shore diving, so bike to the site, hop in out, hop out bike home and rinse. Lenses and pouches are still wet when I get home, I soak them with the camera in tap water for an hour then rinse the lenses in drinking water (Balinese tap water isn't clean and leaves residues) and then dry thoroughly. Neoprene lens pouches are rinsed turned inside out to dry. It's been all good so far but on the last two dives I started wondering if I could not leave the lens caps at home. What i was doing was carrying the lenses with caps on in the neoprene pouches, removing the caps when I got to the dive site, placing the lenses back in the pouches, storing the 6 lens caps. After the dive, I would then replace the lens caps on the lenses before returning the lenses back to their wet neoprene pouches. The lens cap transfer is quite time consuming under a baking sun, and implies shuffling the lenses in and out of the lens pouches in a parking lot, so more risk of dropping them etc. I left the lens caps home on the last dive, just going the site with the lenses in the neoprene pouches, and it was much quicker/smoother. But reading all this, and the stories of sand ( the sand here is very fine volcanic substrate), if neoprene pouches risk scratching the glass, I might go back to lens caps inside the neoprene pouches...

Wow - that's exciting news (and might mean a few more GH5s housings on the market, for the vintage inclined crowd 😎). Wonder if Nauticam's housing will finally switch to video-centric ergonomics or keep the same still-based vertical shape as the GH6's

The 2x 21700 Lithium Ion Batteries are the same as the one used in Backscatter MW4300 video light, which is a well designed product. Side questiom - will this product mean the end of the Backscatter MW4300 videolight, or will both product lines be maintained (which would be great for those of us on the moving-picture fringe who don't need the strobe function) Also, any info on the CRI of the included 5000 lumen video light? For comparison, the MW4300 light was 6000 K (calibrated) for an output of 4300 lumen, 85° beam angle and a CRI of 71.1, whereas its tighter Macro/Spot mode was 5000 K ( non calibrated) for an output of 1400 lumen and a CRI 0f 70.3 It would be interesting to know if this product's slightly more powerful video light included in the hybrid flash features a jazzed-up led module. thanks!

Haven't used the SUPE, but do use the Backscatter MW-4300. The MW4300 is s a much weaker light, with a spot mode and a wide mode, but really flexible for shooting macro video. - Wide mode is 6000 K (calibrated) for an output of 4300 lumen, 85° beam angle - the tighter Macro/Spot mode is 5000 K (so warmer, and non calibrated) for an output of 1400 lumen As such, it's a really useful tool for shooting macro video, as it has 5 power levels in macro mode (vs. 3 in wide mode) which is really practical, and the light can also take the OS-10 snoot, which is nice. On the downside, I find that the light is quite warm, even in the cooler 6000K calibrated wide mode which I sometimes also use for macro shots. The MW4300's CRI is also nothing to write home about, at CRI of 71.1 in wide mode and 70.3 in spot/macro mode, according to Backscatter. I really wish the light had been designed with a better CRI led, as this does affect colour spectrum rendition, and would be nice to have for working in post. In theory you can use two MW4300 for wide angle shots (which is why the lights are calibrated to 6000K in wide mode, to match a pair), This is something I would love to do, if I had the budget for another light, for shooting medium size mobile subjects (mimic otopuses for instance), as this would comfortably widen the covered area (this clip was shot with a single MW4300 in wide mode as the primary light source, gives an idea of the field of view with a single light). But even with two MW4300, tt would still only be around 8000 lumen in total, so not really in the same category as the SUPE, 5600K at 8000 lm for a CRI of 96 (if these values are accurate) hope this helps b

Yep - I like the fact that it could act as an integrated support for the cam. Even with holes, it would be difficult to access controls in the box though, so maybe just keeping the frame and mounting connecting points directy to top of the structure. With a quadripod mount's two ball ends on each side of the tray, it should be relatively easy to rig something up for a 4-point connection to front and back arches, which would also allow angle/immersion adjustments. It would just be a question of driling into the pipes to attach 4 ball mounts on the inside, then connecting to the housing with arms and clamps. That said, I really like the hammocraft - fascinating concept, and I can't help wondering what happens if one of the side hammock ladies decides to go for a swim? 😁

wow - no idea and hadn't really though of that. Must be nice to get shots of the man o' war jelly with the float on the surface and the tentacles dangling below. Amazing rig, but looks like it would be a nightmare to use outside pool conditions where the #$%#@$#sea line won't stand still! Or maybe the floats actually do manage to cancel the water movement by following the Y axis while keeping the dome immersed at the same level? Not sure how this craddled beast of would react in practice. I found these otherwise: https://www.filmequipmenthire.com/product/dpv-powered-surface-float-camera-system-for-rent-at-film-equipment-hire/ I'll start on the whacky DIY then... For a quick-and-dirty approach on smaller cameras, maybe some kind of foam box, like the ones used for fish, could work as a base? Or a cooler for a more durable option. Maybe combined with some kind of pool-seat like floater apparatus thing? Would be difficult to get a precise, adjustable dome immersion point as you would get with rig above though.... Maybe modifying some kind of floating hammock rig, like the hammocraft?