bghazzal

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!

Hello all, I’ve started looking into 67mm dual flip options for my rig (Nauticam compact housing) and have two questions for those who use dual flip mounts: How does the Nauticam Dual Flip compare to the AOI M67 Dual Flip and the Marelux Dual Flip? Are there any specific reasons to choose one over the others? Does the Nauticam Dual Flip, or others allow you to choose the mounting directions to mount lenses at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock? I have very limited space on my rig, and the best workable setup would be having the lenses mounted at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock. I’ve seen a lot of 12/3 o’clock configurations, but I have an arm at 12 o’clock, so I’d need to avoid that if possible. I think the AOI allows flexible mounting directions, but what about the other two? Do flip adapters increase vignetting, compared to screwing a diopter directly onto the port? Thanks in advance! Ben

The CMC-1 is generally accepted to be a +15 diopter, whereas the CMC-2 is around +10 - not precise, but confirmed by empirical tests. In terms of high optical quality, the AOI UCL Pro line of diopters is also excellent (+12.5, +18.5, +23.5), maybe surpassing the Nauticam range in some aspects: https://www.aoi-uw.com/products/wet-lenses/aoi-ucl-prs-01.html

Cheers Craig, appreciate it 🙏

It’s on the east coast (Pacific side) and one of the best muck/macro shore sites here, I think, the other being Tengan Pier. I don’t know the seawall sites well yet (there seems to be a lot of good stuff in Sunabe, especially on night dives), but the diversity of habitats there is quite special. Not sure how many operators dive it — the main east-coast one is Crystal Blue, I believe — since it's a bit off the beaten track for most, being on the east side and also a macro-focused shore dive with often iffy to low visibility. We can always dive it together next time you’re around. It’s pretty easy to get tanks for shore dives here — rental’s about 550 JPY on average for a 10L aluminium or steel tank. The rest just comes down to car and weather logistics.

Thanks Chris! Yep, it definitely took a bit of patience — the movement and focus distance were tricky, but the action and interaction going on made it a fun challenge. That explanation makes a lot of sense. Yes, the shrimps were constantly picking at particles drifting by or on the nudibranch’s body, and it looked like they were competing for the spot near the feeding mouth. Really interesting behaviour to watch unfold — seems like a pretty efficient little system.

Thanks Ludo, and cheers for the ID and mantle details — great info. I’ve edited it; should have asked sooner! 😊

Thanks! Glad it landed well.

Thanks, really appreciate it! This one was fun to shoot and put together.

Thanks a lot, Davide! I'm happy to have found a new playground after the move over here. From what I understand, the shrimps mainly feed on detritus and mucus from the nudibranch as it feeds, as well as any bycatch it dredges up from the sand.

Here’s a little clip I shot this week on Okinawa Main Island’s Pacific coast (Kin Red Beach) — a classic but colourful commensal / symbiotic combo: Emperor shrimps (Zenopontonia rex) riding their lofty nudibranch palace (?Ceratosoma trilobatum?). Edited to “Raindrop” by Tomotsugu Nakamura (sound on if possible) This was shot on my old Lumix LX10 compact in 4K/30fps, using either the Nauticam CMC-1 alone or stacked with a UCL-165 close-up lens. Lighting was from two Kraken Hydra 8000 V2 lights and one Backscatter MW4300. There was a bit of water movement and suspended silt, so I'll need to be more careful with light placement next time using the triple-light setup... Cheers and happy bubbles, Ben

Wow, that looks very nice! I'm really curious as to how it will handle, especially with the photo-style flexitray handles close to port. Do you mind linking to the material you've used, and the weight system that plan on using for trim? cheers

It's a little better in youtube, at least the vertical format fits... Yes, not super sharp indeed... otherwise on YT I get a garbled image up to 0:19 seconds or so - thought it was my connection but it seems to be in the clip compression / player / cache, as it's systematically on the same point. this is what is looks like: and it clears up here 0:19 I think strange beast, these youtube shorts... cheers

as a sidenote this YouTube Short format you posted in is unreadable on my laptop (Firefox) - I get this massive long display which takes ages to load and can't display properly even zooming out. This is what it looks like zoomed out fully: Wonder if other non-phonies are in the same boat? Can't therefore comment on the vid/camera results, though I would have liked to see what it looked like! cheers

IIRC you're allowed one personal camera, so you would most likely be taxed on the lens and lights... Maybe keep the lights in your jacket pockets?

I'm a little lost - is the discussion mostly centered on macro/supermacro stills or video? Video tracking AF and photo AF are quite different animals, and for very few lenses support the super fast advanced AF offered by Sonys when shooting video (mostly G-Master series lenses, like the Sony 90mm). As a rule, lenses need to be somewhat optimised for video use to be fast enough to AF track efficiently when shooting video - especially at higher framerates. In general, macro video is mostly shot in manual, unless dealing with a fast moving small critter, where shallow DOF and fast movement mean it becomes very difficult to follow (small critters in blackwater or worse, predatory action fueled bonfire dives for instance). The critter swings in an out of the shallow focal plane, which is more of a problem when shooting a sequence than when freezing an image. This is where fast video tracking AF could really come into play. Videos of fast moving tiny critters are very rare though, and most out there is super slowed down high-frame rate (120fps) footage, to extend the short moment when the animal or an aesthetically acceptable section of the animal was in focus.

I saw it over here in Japan - one of the really interesting features is that it has 4K 60 fps, but with 1.4x crop. This would be really useful for underwater imaging on a compact.