bghazzal

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 😅)

Regarding the lenses, I found this 2021 underwater footage shot on a DJI Pocket2 with an anamorphic lens: the other two, Macro and Wide lenses have their uses, sure. The wide lens helps with corner distortions which plagues GoPros since the GoPro5 fov/lens upgrade and with closeups. And shooting UW macro on a GoPro - while certainly possible - is really not ideal (there's a reason GoPro macro video hasn't exploded since Backscatter launched their otherwise excellent macro diopter for action cameras, the MacroMate mini , some 7+ years ago...). But I'm not really convinced anamorphic lenses will revolutionize UW video shooting...

You can add Fiji / Beqa Lagoon to this list - feeding setup, guides with big poles to pushback the tigers. When it doesn't go well it looks like this (no tourists/guides were hurt in this impressive 3 angle capture of something which could have gone very bad... 😅) Word on the grapevine goes that when feeding operations were put on hold during Covid19 lockdowns the sharks moved in closer to shore/beaches, and "nibbles" happened, including bathing dogs IIRC... On the more anecdotal, non-reliable non-feeding side, a few places in French Polynesia have resident tiger sharks, mostly older females, that are spotted on a regular basis around the lagoons. Tikehau comes to mind for instance. And even more anecdotal but still pretty darn gnarly, here's a dead manta carcass turning standard dives into improvised feeding viewing sessions at Palau's German Channel - lasted a few hours - wow... Tiger sharks are spotted a few times a year, mostly at German, so probably same as in FP, resident females... I didn't have the honour when I was working there but there were a couple of sightings. Feeding is not allowed both in French Polynesia and Palau, so the sharks maintain their natural behaviour (and don't offer consistent image opportunities to visitors) cheers ben

Nauticam Shrine - one prayer there is said to protect from a thousand leaks 🙏📷🙏

Thanks Tim - Yes it's odd - I did the test yesterday with an LED lightbulb and there's a dot of light coming out of both ends of both cables. The remote sends an infrared signal, so I don't see anything on the remote itself. But the lights can be triggered directly by the remote with no cable, which seems to indicate that the remote is emitting correctly. I've managed to control both like this, but with the cables, no go. Really not sure what's going on here. I'll cut off the existing patchcables and try placing them in the bulkhead hole, see what happens. Thanks a lot Dave. I'm in a rural area at the moment so the closest 3D printer is probably in south-Bali somewhere, but I'll look into it, could be a great alternative cheers EDIT - chopped off the ends of the patchcord with a stanley knife / box cutter blade and tried the contraption, no luck. the remote works without the cables, so infrared signal is transmitted ok, but for some reason the IR signal doesn't make it through the cables. That said, contrary to the Kraken cables, I can't see light transmitted on the patch cables when placing one end next to a light bulb, so something might be wrong with them... I've tried cutting and recutting them several time, no light makes it through the patchcords, so I guess they're duds... Or fakes? A little odd that both cables don't work.... Otherwise the retailer (Divesea, great service) is sending me multicore cables to try as replacements today, so fingers crossed... The DIY solution is on standby for now...

As a follow-up my remote has finally arrived, along with two Kraken optical cables that I bought for it, but alas, these do not work. Not sure what is going on, I thought it was the remote but it turns out that without the cables the IR transmission from remote to light works, but not with either of the cables... I had also ordered two 2mm patchcords at roughly 0.5 euros each, 2mm Xumikura SC/UPC - LC/UPC - not sure if they're any good for such purposes. Alas, no plugs - two plugs for strobes would cost me around 20 euros for the cheapest I can find (Meikon generics). I can't recycle the Kraken plugs as the cables will most likely be going back to the retailer (who is sending me another cable for tests). I was wondering there any way to DIY plugs to try to connect the patchcords to the ports, so I can see if it works. thanks! This it what it looks like: The non-working new Kraken optical cable, with its Sea&Sea style plug This doesn't work.... Here's the Xumikura 2mm patchord: is there anything I can try to do with this? cheers! b

These are not video lights, but speaking of sturdy Chinese cheapies, as guides, my wife and I used ARCHON V10S U2 860LM dive lights since stumbling upon them in late 2019 - these are amazingly durable workhorses. Not guiding at the moment, but we're still using one each to the day (strapped on our BCs) on every dive. Dual o-ring, single 18650 battery, two power settings + strobe (useful in as beacon when guiding in low-viz or on ascent in night dives ...) Not the strongest (and not constant output, of course) but the first set we had passed the 1000-dive-test with flying colours. I don't exactly remember how they eventually died out at the time, probably the button as usual but they had way (or maybe the glass) over 1000 dives at the time, which is pretty impressive stuff given their price... These are the third batch I've used, probably around 600+ dives on them, and I actually still have 2 brand new spares in my spare kit for when these decide to give in... (the boyish blue and girlish pink was not deliberate, it was all they had left at the time - paint will be completely gone after while anyway) I think the wife's is about to rest-in-peace pretty soon, as there's something fishy with the light head, but for now it's still going strong for now. Yep, pretty bulletproof stuff I'd say, and these I can recommend... 😅 And.... they cost less than 25 euros a piece at the time, ordered from China.... wow While buy-cheap-buy-twice is certainly good rule to follow, every once in a while you find exceptions, especially when it comes to durability issues (Suunto Zoops anyone?). All that said and done, Inon dive lights - used by all my Japanese colleagues - are even more sturdy, and also serviceable (which the Archons were not) and offer a way better light quality, so more of a once-in-10-year investment... It's a choice... cheers ben

Yes, I was mentioning it because it was brought up - it's more in the upper mid-range, but still quite good value compared to Light & Motion or Keldans for instance. The main reason I didn't save a chunk of money by getting something like a Thrustfire was that if was getting something as heavy as a set of light, I would rather have something with a longer lifeline than the Chinese cheapies (most users rate them at 100 dives before having problems for the better ones - but YMMV, some are much more reliable) And also importantly with constant output (rare but important feature for video) and more trustable CRI / lumen ratings and battery packs. Weight underwater was also a deciding factor, as I like my kit to be close to neutral and the Chinese cheapies really are bricks. Price difference is massive, and I totally understand why you would go for something more disposable instead, but I feel that the extra money invested gives me something more stable to really work with on the long run. It would even be truer with a set of Keldan if you have the budget. Massive investment, but one that you can keep 10 years or so, and offering great light quality in a reliable, well designed products. But the prices now are really out of reach for a lot of users... A pair of Kraken was already painful enough 😝

I have just bought the Kraken Hydra 8000 WRGBU - it's a solid product other than the WRGBU button ergonomics which are a slightly ridiculous (3 presses on max power triggers a "select your colour" disco mode - guess what happens when you increase light power a too little quickly underwater.... 😄) Waiting on the remote which should solve the issue. Great otherwise, light quality, constant output (when it stops, it stops!)