bghazzal

It just says "digital cameras / video cameras" in the article. The main snippet here: The rate of decline in the global digital camera market share has slowed compared to before, and demand for high-performance mirrorless cameras is increasing, with our magazine describing it as “high-performance mirrorless cameras are strong and the market is recovering.” The ranking of sales volume share remains the same as in 2022 , with Canon in first place, and if you add Sony’s share in second place, the two companies will exceed 70% of the sales volume share. Canon and Sony still seem to be overwhelmingly strong. I would like to see the share based on value as well. is accurately translated. Not going to buy it, but I'll take a look at the Nikkei report when I'm in Japan, see if they give any more details on actual camera ranges per maker. I found another related April 2024 article here, giving a lot of details for the Japanese digital camera market (based on a survey of roughly 10,000 outlets throughout Japan) https://www.gfk.com/ja/insights/mi20240418 The article highlights that 2023 was the is the first time in 13 years that the digital camera market experienced positive growth, with a 7% sales increase compared to the previous year. Importantly, interchangeable lens sales experienced a 4% growth compared to 2023, whereas interchangeable lens cameras 9% - Here is a graphic of camera sales in Japan per camera type and per year. From left to right: - digital cameras as a whole (blue) - compact cameras (green) - interchangeable lens cameras (yellow) - interchangeable lens (red) And this graphic here shows user preferences influencing Japanese camera purchases, from October 2022 to January 2023 and October 2023 (light blue) to January 2024 (dark blue) Top to bottom: - autofocus speed - maker / brand - pixel count - autofocus accuracy - camera size / weight - autofocus range and number of focus areas - in-camera stabilization - continuous shooting speed - available lens range - eye-tracking AF cheers ben

I tried the small light to spot last time - I had the SUPE MS-10 snoot video light centrally mounted, and used the Bacscatter MW4300 as a lure. But the beam of the MS-10 turned out to be too thin for these purposes. After 20/30 minutes waiting for the swarm to develop around the lure only to have it reform on the lights, I gave up and mounted the 4000 lumen lure centrally on the kit instead, which is nice. Macro mode beam is narrow enough, but not too narrow to be unuseable, and also it seems to help with the focusing / lighting from what I could see. As for using the two lights on low, this was indeed the plan - I thought I would have them on low all the time - but based on what I could try in situation, what worked best to avoid backscatter (or rather critter saturation, as they're actually alive) was actually having the lights at 6000 lumen and using the side of the light cone instead of have them more central which illuminates a too large zone. So I moved from the lightbox to a more open config, but this also requires more power to work. Maybe this need more testing - if I remember the previous posts, some people (Nanette?) got nice results with 3000 lumen lights, but I assume this was in a true blackwater setup with a ton of lure lights... After giving up on the single lure light, I tried just using the MW4300's beam to spot/attract critters, but the problem remained, everytime I had something and turned on the two lights, a swarm formed around them, drowning out the suject I was trying to isolate..

One question that really intrigues me, in current circumstances, is the relationship between the constant light output of video lights used for filming and video lights as lures. For photography it seems pretty straightforward: a narrow beam focus light to spot, staying around the lures, and milliseconds of strobe lighting to shoot the critters. But for video, shooting means turning on the constant output video lights... Question is, in blackwater/bonfire type setups, how does this work when working with lure lights ? Won't the camera video lights become lure themselves? Is the secret to always have more power on the lure lights than on the videast's rig? This interrogation is directly linked to my current situation, where I'm in a very interesting place to try things of the bonfire kind, great opportunity to work on things, but I'm also alone in the endeavour, with no access to a set of lure lights. I'm basically trying to shoot some of the larval planktonic critters which show up on night dives, to work on things, and there are plenty of subjects arounds (most common at the moment are larval mantis shrimps for instance, present even on a bad day). So I tried using one of my 3 lights as a lure, but it's only 4000 lumen - so when I turn on the other two, the swarm of planktonic critters instantly reforms around my camera's lights, and it's very difficult to isolate subjects as it's heptic with life coming in super close. Really not sure how to approach this and make it work. It's been easier to shoot planktonic critters in blue water during the day,because the sunlight means I don't have to deal with attraction to the lights... I just shoot them as I would to create black-background shots, which works fine (especially now that I have a set of 2x 8000lm lights) but daytime plankton is much less consistent. I've asked around and no one has powerful lights unfortunately (too many photographers 😁), so not sure what I could do. It feels a little sad to give up on the idea, but maybe local waters are just too rich to roam in the water column at night.... i guess I could use one of the 8000lm lights as a lure (leaving me with one 8000lm and one 4000lm, but wondering if this would make that much of a difference since the rig's lights would still overpower the lure... any thoughts? cheers ben

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I found this definition: Blackwater Diving vs Bonfire Diving So as not to confuse the terms and to establish a clear difference, there is “Blackwater diving” and “Bonfire diving”. Blackwater diving is done in the open ocean; it is NOT an ordinary night dive with a subject photographed in the dark. Blackwater diving is done where there is no bottom, over very deep water, using a downline and lights to attract larval and pelagic subjects. Bonfire diving is done over a shallow area by using torches planted in the sand or hanging them in the water (or both) facing deeper water. During a Bonfire dive, one can expect to see subjects that are still larval but closer to the settling stages of their lifecycle. Bonfire style dives are also a great way to learn the dive skills, hunting skills and photo skills needed for blackwater diving but without the stress. Both styles of diving are equally important to gain a better understanding of the marine world. Both will expose divers to a variety of jellyfish, salp, comb jellies, pterapods. shrimps, octopus, squids, the list is endless… Source: https://www.uwphotographyguide.com/art-of-blackwater-photography

oh yes definitely - I drooled over the AOI Pro closeup diopters, especially their +18.5 and +23.5, which are really nice, but had to gave up because of the price tag, and still holding on to my non-pro AOI UCL-09 (catchy name) +12.5, which is now discontinued...

I wholeheartedly agree - but practically, using focus peaking for macro on a screen as small as the gopro's might be an issue underwater, don't you think? I say this because my LX10 compact has a bigger screen and I use an RGB screen magnifier along with my +3 underwater readers to make up for the lack of external screen options when shooting macro with focus peaking, and that's already something... 😁 But maybe I'm just old and need new eyes, and the tiny dots of colour will be enough of an indication to judge if one if actually in focus. Better than nothing for sure!

Wow - already better late than never I guess! Action cams have really taken programmed obsolescence to another level. Same same - just tried it once for tests - had I known, I would have held back as I plan to use it in the shallows in a few months... Ah well, I'll have to make do with my AOI lens which can scratch easily and reflects in the shallows or shooting into the sun then... 😅

Following up on this, I decided to try another, more hands-on approach and simply selected all the Lee filters I had at my disposal which were visually close in tint to the UR-Pro Cyan, and ran some basic tests on the best results in the Lee range. . The winner (closest to the UR-Pro Cyan) visually was the Lee 008 Dark Salmon filter. This similarity was then confirmed by shooting a whibal grey card, and running the results in lightroom. Results where as follows: UR PRO CYAN Temp value -51, MAGENTA -26 LEE DARK SALMON T -60, MAGENTA -28 The temp scale used here (-100 - +100) is what LR uses for non raw files instead of kelvins, but this is very similar to the previous tests with raw files and kelving values. (please not that the UR-Pro filter used in these tests was half-dry and not the cleanest... 😅) UR PRO CYAN AS SHOT: LEE DARK SALMON AS SHOT: UR PRO CYAN white-balanced: LEE DARK SALMON white-balanced: Other Lee filters tested ranked as follows: PALE RED -68, MAGENTA -43 GOLD AMBER -70, MAGENTA -20 MILLENIUM GOLD -77, MAGENTA -25 **** Available Lee filter data for the 008 Dark Salmon is as follows: Colour Temperature 6774K (daylight) Transmission Y: 35.4 This warming value is coherent with the UR Pro Cyan's roughly +3000K warming effect, and a transmission value of 35 is also roughly in the -1.5 / -1.6 exposure range. The Lee Dark Salmon is interesting contender, which would need to be tested in water. As an important side note to the UR-Pro info posted above, UR-Pro also released, a few years after the original UR-Pro Cyan, a lighter filter called the UR-Pro Cyan SW (shallow water). I do not know if the UR-Pro cyans I have are standard or SW, but I suspect they might be the latter, which would explain differences with the original curve. ***** Finally, I also tried to select Lee filter gels equivalent for the Keldan Spectrum SF-1.5, but didn't find anything as conclusive - the Keldan gel's dark pink hue is really quite particular (true custom design?), and there was no direct equivalent in the filters I have at my disposal... cheers! ben

As a follow-up, a very kind soul sent me a bunch of Lee filters samples for further testing. First test was with the Lee Pale Red 166 combined with the Lee 266 UV, combo presented above. Physically, this dual setup was tricky to setup on my GoPro 7- the filters are held in place by an o-ring, which vignettes on the image and cuts some light, and they were not in the best shape after setting them up . And unfortunately, due to human error ISO and lowlight settings were not identical on the two GoPros, but it was enough to see that the filter combo was a little too strong compared to the UR Pro. The Lee Pale Red combo had a strong pink/red cast in the shallows, but performed really well at depth (10m+), actually better than the UR-PRO cyan... However, loss of light (and settings?) meant higher ISO, and more noise on the gels (results are blurred by the settings issue and also gel damage while inserting in the housing, which could also explain the loss of sharpness). Here's and ungraded side-by-side capture from a clip shot at 10m depth: (one can see that the gel combo actual cuts more greens than the UR-Pro, and lets more blues through, but with a slight magenta hue, meaning it's a little too strong for the depth). Quickly graded results are similar, and the filter works. And here is a deeper ungraded shot, at 15+m - here again, the Pale Red combo generally outperforms the UR-Pro, and the magenta hue is less present due to red absorption: So overall an interesting combo, definitely less versatile than the UR-Pro in the shallows but pushing the blues over greens, which is interesting, and probably works nice in the 15-20m depth range. The drop in image quality, due either to ev / absorption, ISO settings I had on the 2nd test cam, gel damage or the fact that the gels are not optical quality (?), would need to be addressed... An interesting option, but a slightly different beast from the UR-Pro Cyan 😃

The screen incorporate in the AOI housing has focus peaking (handled by the screen), so it's possible to have focus peaking with an UW macro lens like the AOI if one has the AOI housing with incorporated screen, so this is a work around. Otherwise on the GoPro itself, it's autodetect dependent, and overides all presets (including protune) GoPro has indicated that their macro lens, while waterproof is not for use underwater It would be great if it could be enabled without the Go Pro macro lens on to use with other 3rd party links People already brought this up in 2022... https://community.gopro.com/s/question/0D53b00008XudbLCAR/focus-peaking?language=en_US

Yes, there's no real difference, other than that for traditional black water are usually done over deep water, so as to attract deep-dwelling critters during their theoretical nightly migration from the depths. Bonfire dives, whether on a line (mooring line, or shallow suspensions) or on the bottom (lights placed on the sand, creating a light "bonfire") are generally stationary night dives with a lure light, done in the shallows, often on shore dives. In this sense it is indeed similar to the light-pooling night dives like the mantas (Hawaii) /whale sharks (Maldives)/mobulas (sea of Cortez) etc, with the major exception that the focus here is not to try to drag in large planctonic feeders but, as in traditional deep black water diving, to recreate the food chain (micro-plankton eating zooplankton coming to feed, etc) The main difference is depth - you are not diving offshore around a suspended line), as this is done in shallow water. Your also not drifting in the current, the light source is stationary. You do not need a boat, logistics are much simpler, cheaper (poor man's blackwater? 😉). As for the difference in critters showing up, it's really location (topography, current, upwellings, moon cycles and general fauna) dependent - with the clear caveat that some true deepwater (Nautilus for instance) critters will almost certainly not be around, and that there will probably be more swarmies. In a sense, "bonfire", light-pooling, light-trap night dives are all shorthand for shallow, usually stationary "blackwater" ( planktonic and larval focused) diving. cheers

From what I read/understood the camera has a sensor detecting which lens, which overides any settings (incuding protune) and sets lens-compatible settings. If this is mechanical (say a a sort of gasket), there might be a way to trick the camera into thinking the lens is on, but there's no way of knowing if gopro dedicated macro lens settings will work with a 3rd party macro lens designed for UW use like the AOI lenses.

Wow - Focus peaking on a GoPro, now that's actually something very useful for UW macro! Main issue is that you won't be able to manually adjust focus (unless something has been designed for UW, this is usually touch-screen territory), but havinf a visual reference of the focus point on the screen is already great, since based on my experience with the macromate mini it's difficult to guestimate focus on these tiny cameras. Then you would probably need a bigger screen like the AOI housing for it to be useable, but good stuff there for once! For the AOI focus peaking, I'm not sure it uses the media mod for that - I had understood that it was the screen itself which had focus peaking, RGB histogram, waveform, vector scope and monochrome. The one thing I wonder about the gopro macro lens is how it will work with underwater housings? Also if it can't be used in a housing, will it be possible to use the gopro macro mode (with peaking) with another macro lens designed for UW use, such as the AOI ?

Yes, definitely agree with this. You're probably well aware of this, but photos and and guiding can be tricky. It also depends on the dive organisation, if it's an US-style indirect supervision of independent buddy teams, probably easier to handle - wide-angle shots or memory snaps of your divers are more manageable... Macro is more problematic, and the attention needed on the camera is generally incompatible with guiding... unless you're actually a macro spotter and your guests spend 10+ minutes on a subject you've spotted, and you already have a next one in line for them - plenty of time to take a few snaps this is something you see in macro-focused areas (Indonesia, Phillipines...), where some guides will have a TG and a torch for instance and grab some shots on the side... For the anectode, I worked in a place where a guide - very experienced instructor - would rush along before his guests to take pics of his beloved nudibranchs on his Canon compact - he was also cruise director and attributed himself groups of more advanced divers, but that didn't go too well in the end... Similarly, when I was working in Palau, I heard stories of another cruise director and keen photographer who also had issues / complaints because of his photo-shooting focus, and eventually lost the job because of that (he's a photo pro now, so all's well that ends well...) Just be careful, and check with your guests/employer that everyone's happy with the way you handle guiding/shooting balance. As Chip mentioned, short video clips on a gopro are also easy to grab and even less intrusive. This is something I did for years, 10/15 second clips when looking ahead or stationary (when your guests themselves are shooting for instance), depending on conditions, it works fine as long as you're not with beginner divers or in more tricky conditions (current for instance) where you really need to keep an eye on things. For this, like Chip I would recommend just clipping the GoPro to your BC, you can shoot by holding directly onto the housing, and close to your body and it's perfectly stable. But this might no be what you're after. TGs are great for macro but wideangle is a little less happy, even with wetwide or airlenses, but ok for general shots. Otherwise, if you do get a compact, do keep in mind that compacts in aluminum housings are bricks - my Lumix LX10 in its NA-LX10 housing is over -1,200g negative, so maybe get a good polycarbonate housing instead, as compensating the rig's negative buoyancy will add bulk. You're focused on Canons, but something like an Sony RX100 series in a Fantasea housing could be nice and light, and go well with wet-lens options.

No clue as I only have an older model, but I'm quite curious as to what this will change on such a camera (log is a little tricky to use on bigger cams as well from what I gathered). While the results might expand grading options, I doubt it will be a "filter-killer" however The gold-standard for manual UW white-balance is the Canon algo, which gives lovely results, but is most likely lovely because it shifts certain hues (greens to yellows) which gives a pleasing end result, rather than going for a truly accurate WB, and in this it is akin to using a filter. Canon also does this on certain camera models, such as this currently viral old G7something model (the name of which escapes me) it seems to be something of a constant, generating aesthetically pleasing results ("Canon colours") In the shallows, no problem, but below a certain depth (usually 10m but this is heavily conditions/location dependent) ambient light underwater image making is diving with a strong colour filter on the light source, and there's only so much camera manual balance can adapt to and compensate for before being thrown off-balance. Water filtration of sunlight, the effect on the colour spectrum, is more complex than a simple cooling of light temperature. That said, anything that can record more flat data will help work on the footage colour balance in post, so I'd be curious to see the results of flat log footage shot on a GoPro!

Thanks for sharing this Davide - this is a really informative and thought-provoking introduction to yet another aspect of the climate crisis, as seen through the eyes of an active and passionate observant. Fantastic footage as well, and while I'm not a fan of overheads in diving, watching it actually makes me want to gain the tools to observe this deeper environment while we still can... In the meantime I'm really happy to discover the depths of your backyard by proxy - even if you have been pushed into documenting them by less happy environmental circumstances... I think this resonates in me even more in that my first underwater memory - after someone taught me how to equalize my ears in a pool and my deeply unconscious/unaware parents (bless them! 😁) let their 8-year-old kid freedive with a one-kilo weight on a belt all day long to the point of almost blacking out - were actually fields of posedonia swaying in the shallows waters of the Balearic islands in the early 1980s... This is the environment which made me love being underwater, and it is deeply branded into my brain, but I unfortunately also saw the same fields of posedonia become patches then die out over the years, replaced by brown algae, and surrounding marine life become more discreet, and almost inexistant... A rapid evolution probably linked to the direct impact of the tourism/contruction/charter flights boom which happened around 1985 on the islands, but also probably to deeper, more insidious causes affecting the Mediterranean as a whole... It's tricky... As plane-hopping traveling divers and image-makers feeding the tourism-based development beast, we are also part of the problem. But then, for those who have access to it, there's also local diving, which has a much smaller footprints, and as is made clear in your piece, we also need people capable of documenting/sharing and basically shedding a bright (constant-output) light on the less visible underwater environment, the evolution/degradation of which will affect us all, somewhat paradoxically, on a much greater scale than land-based changes... I also think it's great to see this kind of testimony come from locals, deeply involved in the area, rather than visiting media personalities shining their spotlight on a given area's issues through single high-exposure projects before moving on to the next... cheers ben

This is also something I'm considering for my upcoming heavily-loaded move from Indonesia to Japan... I've never done it, but the NALX10 is compact enough and would save a few cabin-luggage kilos. Especially with all the stuff we can fit in two pockets-vests... Back to luggage itself, thecabin luggage I use is a super lightweight Japanese two-wheel roller that I've has since 2012 or so, combined with a thinktank backpack as a personal item. The roller usually gets weighed on check-in. This is the roller along with our 3 Decathlon 120/100L dive / life treckking bags mentioned earlier, having traveled from Japan for a season in Maldives, and about to hop from Europe to Japan and then Palau for work 2x Cabin luggage + 2x "personal items" leaving Palau in 2023...

This one is also quite nice: Anilao and Lembeh seem pretty consistant, lovely stills as well

As a parallel line of discussion, would anyone here have experience with the cousin of "blackwater" diving, shallow bonfire dives (light-trap dives ) as regularly organised in macro-friendly locations such as Anilao or Lembeh, for instance? I'd imagine the actual shooting parameters are similar, with the major difference that this is done in shallow-water, with a set of lure light placed on the sand, mooring line or float, to create the "bonfire" and attract critters by recreating the planktonic food chain. There's a nice interview of NAD Lembeh's Simon Buxton, covering mostly bonfire-type dive organized there: and there's also lots of footage coming from various locations on Youtube. Not requiring a boat and reaching deep-water, this type of planktonic night diving is logistically much easier to organise. While it will most likely not bring out as many pelagic/deep water migratory critters as diving off-shore over deepwater (and also lacks the thrill of the unknown 😄) I'm curious about the bonfire setups people have encountered, and their experience compared to actual deep-water blackwater dives. While this clearly depends on location, underwater topography and current flow (rich macro locations and locations with deep water access being particularly suitable), based on footage it can be quite interesting - and in certain areas it's actually common to encounter quite a few of the marvelous larval/post larval (deep) "blackwater highlights" in the shallows, such as the amazing wunderpus post-larval stage (Mars Attacks!), which can be spotted in as shallow as 7m of water, along with other larval cephalopods, etc... Easier logistics (often a simple shore dive) would also make it a good way to practice shooting small critters in the water column on a more regular basis. Something to look into! I've also seen this type of diving refered as "light trap" diving, mostly in Japan, where I've seen some very nice pictures/footage coming from these types of dives, from Okinawa and also locations with deep water access like Toyama or Osezaki. When I was working on Hachijo island in Japan (fairly remote, 300km from the mainland and bathed by the powerful Kuroshio) we would get things like larval dolphinfish / mahimahi in the harbour bays on night dives... cheers ben

If you ever change wetsuits, a regular (but sturdy) cargo-short with buttoned pockets, worn over what ever wetsuit you're using work fine (neoprene cargo shorts with pockets designed for diving also exists, but if it's pockets you're after, a good cargo short does the trick just fine for a fraction of the price - a lot of guides in warm-water locations use these rather than boardshort type swimtrunks as they last longer). The only thing to look out for is metal - buttons / bungees instead of metal fasteners like zippers, as they will break down quickly in salt water) You can also get generic neoprene pouches the size of your lens to protect it better, which gives you the option to tie them to something. cheers

I think it's out already: this one is for the DJI https://www.aoi-uw.com/products/wet-lenses/aoi-qrs-02-mb3-blk.html and this one's for the AcePro: https://www.aoi-uw.com/aoi-qrs-02-mb4-blk.html I would go with DJI for underwater video, Ace, while tempting for sensor low light performance, has some serious WB issues, as well as focusing issue due to the sensor IIRC - and DJI seems to be going more interesting directions as a company in general, with the cinecam range etc.

Easier to judge with captures this... If I trust my subjectivity: Winner: GoPro12 Winner: Insta360Ace Pro Winner: DJI Action 4 Winner: Insta360 Ace Pro Winner: DJI Action4 Insta360 Ace Pro or GoPro12 Hmmm tough one - Action4 probably has the nicest balance Winner: Insta360 AcePro hmmm.... fovs are weird, and why is the GoPro 13 so shakey-blurry? I guess my subjective conclusion would be that all 4 action cam models perform well in some low-light conditions but suck in others? "click like and subscribe, and leave your impressions in the comments" 😂

Hi Andreas, you might also want to read this related thread on the subject: cheers ben

Good move - while international Garuda flights are usually fine, it was really taking a big risk with luggage etc. Singapore is a lovely - if a little pricey - place to spend a night, great food as well, I'm sure you'll get good suggestions here (I'm more of a gritty KL person 😅)