bghazzal

As a belated update, it would be worth looking into Seafrog SF150 lights to confirm they are constant output, as they seem to be - if it is indeed the case, they're hard to beat budget wise: https://www.seafrogs.com/npublic/opdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fomo-oss-file110.thefastfile.com%2Fportal-saas%2Fpg2024061210334464153%2Fcms%2Ffile%2Fsf-150%20video%20light%20user%20manual.pdf

Nando, I feel we have already had this discussion. Quoting places I have worked at and attempting to use that to discredit what I write is not a counter-argument. It does not address the substance of the technical points being made. If you are diving in an environment with no ambient light, or shooting closeups or macro then shooting in ambient light is not really an option. That is self-evident. However, this does not invalidate what I have written on ambient-light shooting. It simply defines the limits of a specific environment and/or shooting style. And please note that there are specific approaches for shooting ambient in greener waters, including filters specifically designed for greener water (magenta filters), that you have not tried or meaningfully experimented with. On that basis, dismissing filters, or generalising from your own specific shooting conditions to everyone else, is simply not justified. Closer to your home base, I have dived and filmed in ambient light in the Mediterranean. While I do not currently have access to that action-cam footage, which is archived on my hard disks in France, shooting in ambient light with filters is entirely feasible there - I did so in 2016 last, on a GoPro4 at the time - and yes, I used a filter. I cannot show you the footage, so you'll have to take my word for it, but I was primarily diving Port-Cros, including sites such as La Gabinière, which should be familiar to a European diver like yourself. I was shooting mérous (groupers) bécunes (local barracudas) and topography mostly. Far from the tropics, but certainly possible. Filter or no filter, people also shoot successfully in ambient light or mixed-lighting in Spain (Costa Brava) and in Atlantic locations such as the Azores and Tenerife. Conversely, to return to my home turf, if you are diving a 51 m wreck like the Donator, or training in quarries such as Bécon-les-Granits, to site locations I have also dived or trained at, then artificial lighting is clearly the correct approach. The same applies to diving in Brittany, night dives, or... your locale apparently. This is not disputed and never has been. The issue is not whether lights are sometimes required. The issue is that diving in conditions where ambient light is not viable does not justify dismissing other valid approaches to ambient light shooting. When you make statements such as “I would not go the filters route… dive lights + GoPro Labs gives you much better results” conflate your personal constraints with general principles. An accurate framing is actually straightforward: in your diving conditions, shooting in ambient light is not an option, and you therefore prefer close-up shooting with lights. That is exactly what you are doing, and well, good for you, but don't use this to discredit something you do not do or have experience with. Regarding your comment that you do not see people using filters, I think this also reflects a widespread lack of understanding of how filters are used correctly, for best ambient light results. That knowledge gap is precisely what we are trying to address here, for people interested in approaching this effectively and experimenting further with it, and one of the reasons I wrote the article, for people interested in experimenting with this approach before drawing conclusions. And again, if BBC camera operators use filters in specific ambient light shoots (and/or mixed lighting) on cine cameras shooting in actual RAW - and no, not only in tropical blue water locations, well, it is not because they are behind current technology, but because there way to do this effectively, and, more importantly, an actual reason to do so. It is also incorrect to treat lights and filters as mutually exclusive. Using ambient filters on lights, combined with a lens filter to achieve a proper ambient-light white balance with supplementary artificial lighting, is an established and actively researched approach. Keldan’s approach is a clear reference point. Again, there is a way, and a reason, to do so. All and all, I think it is important to situate one’s experience accurately. Limited exposure or understanding of a technique simply does not confer authority to dismiss it like you do, and you should be mindful of this when giving advice. As an example, just recently, you were dismissing Log shooting because you were unaware that it must be converted to be graded properly, a point that had to be explained to you in this forum. This is similar. Furthermore, consuming large amounts of YouTube or similar content does not substitute for a practical, experience-based perspective. I strongly believe that technical claims such as the ones you make should be supported by your own demonstrated results, rather than being backed primarily by references to influencers or online content, which you often post as justification, including in the replies above. In this, I would join the suggestion which has already been made to you to on the forum to stop posting loads of videos of variable quality to justify the points you are trying to make. Instead, it would be much more interesting to show us how you, Nando Diver, are incorporating what you are learning here and there and how it helps your underwater videography, what results you are satisfied with, and why. Especially if you are going to make affirmative claims and offer authoritative advice, as you quite often do, then please show us the goods so that we have something concrete to discuss, rather than indulging in pleasing but ultimately disconnected speculation, which is often what purely theoretical technical content amounts to. Anchor your advice in your actual experience and use your own footage to support it. Based on what you have shared so far here and on your channel, your footage is predominantly close-up work under artificial lighting. That is entirely valid. As a side-note-, while I write a lot on shooting in ambient light on action cams, as this is what I was primarily doing the past 10 years, I primarily shoot with artificial light myself, as illustrated by what I post here or on my channel. However, this specific background does not qualify you to make authoritative or dismissive statements about ambient-light shooting on action cams, particularly on approaches you have not even attempted to experiment with. Beyond your local conditions, which are unusually restrictive and do not necessarily apply to the original poster, there has been little meaningful experimentation with alternative approaches, including ambient-light shooting during trips such as your Red Sea dive trip, which offer excellent conditions for ambient-light work for instance. This is not intended as a personal attack. If anything, it is a call for greater precision, humility, and personal investment when discussing technical methods on the forum, so that we can offer something more constructive than the volume of average or outright misleading information found online, especially on YouTube. All this to say I stand by everything I have written, including regarding GoPro Labs. The tweaks you are experimenting with do not replace a true manual white balance performed at depth, or the effects of a well-designed spectrum filter. It just does not function this way. Shooting in RAW or Log, or applying GoPro Labs parameters might certainly be useful tools, they do not magically suspend physics. Let's leave it open for the OP to gather information, experiment and decide what works best for him, before locking him into a ready-made solution. And lastly, while “good enough” may indeed be good enough for some, it is not a reason to settle for it simply because it is easier. Let’s leave that to the talking heads who produce more talking-head videos than actual underwater content worth engaging with. There is already more than enough of that around, and it would be good if this forum could remain a place that offers a constructive alternative. cheers ben (ps - sorry to the OP for the off-topic slide, forums can be as slippery as a well-oiled eel...)

bottoms up! 👽 🍻

Look into Kraken (Hydras) or Weefine lights - also, importantly, they're constant output

Since we are being authoritative, for underwater landscapes and true wide angle subjects, and for shallow dives, I would actually forget lights. I would also recommend going down the filter route for actual wide angle work on action cams at diving depths. Reason is that the field of view on action cams is extremely wide, and your lights will be largely ineffective for anything more than about 2 m from the camera. And sunlight will overpower your lights in the shallows. So I would save those lights for medium and close-up shots, deep and night dives, but forget about lights for wide-angle. The key is to shoot in a flat profile (log), and to set your white balance point in post. This approach is a tried and tested way which will give you much better results than any in-camera tweaking, including GoPro Labs customisations. And yes, using a good filter does make sense for ambient light WA at diving depths, as it helps mitigate colour casts and achieve a more even colour balance in post in these shooting situations. That is what filters are actually for, not for “bringing back the reds”, contrary to what many people seem to believe. Using a filter gives better results than not using one when shooting ambient-light wide angle footage in a flat profile, as it helps manage the colour cast created by water’s filtration at diving depths when resetting white balance in post. It avoids pushing WB to extremes when dealing with the colour cast (which distorts overall colour balance), preserves cleaner chroma information, and it also helps maintain consistency across shots/depth. As a small reminder to the nay-sayers, filters are still commonly used on cine cameras such as REDs by professional, blue-chip camera operators shooting in specific wide angle situations. Do you really think the capabilities of a cinecam shooting in REDCODE RAW are inferior to those of an action cam? It's time to stop believing in miracles, shooting in RAW or in LOG does not suspend physics... Neither do GoPro Labs hacks for that matter. Back to actual action cams, check out this workflow for inspiration and more info on the subject: https://waterpixels.net/articles/articles_technique/afterhours-magic-ambient-light-video-workflow-for-action-cameras-r161/ Regarding filters themselves, there are gel alternatives you can try (see above thread for links). They are inexpensive and will fit inside the newer GoPro dive housings, between the camera lens and housing port, allowing them to be used with any wide lens. They will likely give better results than Polarpro filters, which were not really designed with an understanding of the effect filters should have on the ambient light spectrum, unlike more researched filters like the UR-Pro Cyan or Keldan Spectrum filters. On white balancing in post, I will throw in a YouTube video of my own, since this seems to be a growing trend in action cam discussions. I am very much on the same page as what Mark is doing here with his GP12 log footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRmzwaO7YU No, he doesn't use filters but the logic is the same. And yes, I still believe a filter would still help for wide angle situations for the reasons mentioned above, even when shooting in log and using multiple gopro labs hacks, since log is just a flat profile, and not a miracle. At the end of the day, a camera can only do so much underwater, and no, it's not just about boosting that red channel because reds are absorbed by water... It's not as simple as that, unfortunately. cheers ben

I remove the oring of my Nauticam LX10 clamshell housing after every diving day, clean the groove (which has water dropplets) with a pair makeup applier spongy thingies, check, clean the o-ring and micro-lubricate it with Nauticam grease - it's mostly to help as I run it around the fingers a few times to feel for any grit. I'm also more of feeler for this. If there is any I remove it and replace the o-ring after it feels smooth and double check there is nothing visible on the o-ring or housing groove. Lights I do every once in a while, when the oring is unclean, feels a little dry or if the lights where in direct contact with sand. I used to lubricate the outside of the o-ring only but am now happier removing them as it's a good way to check the groove as well, as I've had suprises. I shore dive every second day, 3 days a week on average.

Ok, as a follow-up, things have gone a little haywire.... I wasn't getting a response from AOI to my enquiry to clarify service conditions posted above, so I emailed them again and got the following message yesterday: Thank you for your follow-up email. While we were exploring potential solutions internally, our team also reached out to Fantasea. We have just received a reply from their representative, who confirmed that Fantasea will contact you directly to proceed with the next steps. We have therefore handed over your case to them, and we kindly ask that you watch for upcoming emails from Fantasea regarding further handling. Thank you for your understanding and patience. So unfortunately, it looks like AOI retracted the service offer they had made me and which I'd posted above, which is a little unexpected and, well,... I asked AOI for confirmation that this was the case and have not yet received an answer. **** Later on, a Fantasea rep did get in touch (so they're still operating even if the website is down) and offered for me to ship it to the USA under the following conditions: You can send it to our office to be checked. If internal cleaning is needed, we can do so for $120, including shipping the lens back to you. If replacing optical elements is required, then servicing and shipping will cost more than that. When I replied that this wasn't economically viable for this lens, given my location (Japan) and the price of a new AOI UCL-05N (which is the slightly upgraded version of my lens), and asked about changing o-rings, I was told by Fantasea: Please note that we do not offer parts for sale to replace within the lens (self service). In addition, if it helps, we can extend this price of 180 Euros (USD 212) for a new lens if you wish to order one. This offer is valid until the end of the month. So basically, I can buy a new lens, or pay roughly the price of a new lens to have it serviced. The lens is letting moisture in, so cleaning and servicing plus replacement of elements (o-rings?) would be required.

Thanks Davide, I'm really happy with this one. That treasure-chest of music you introduced me to is quite inspiring! Thanks a bunch Maria - he's an absolute cartoon cutie Thanks Craig - Yes, I think it works well - [boomer mode ] just too bad 80% of content is watched without sound these days 😅 [/boomer mode]

Hi JapanDiver, Welcome to the forum and rainy greetings from Okinawa main island. I just did my last two dives of the year this morning and the weather is breaking down, I hope you have better conditions in Shimoda! Cheers! Ben

Thanks Bill - I have more time than money but unfortunately I'm also quite clumsy when it comes to this kind of stuff, so might need to reconsider. It sounds like a disaster in the making. AOI hasn't got back to me about conditions since my last email. cheers

Hello everyone, Here’s a short clip I shot recently on Okinawa Main Island, a cute little jawfish hard at work on his burrow (🎧 sound on please 👷) Shot on the good ol'Panasonic LX10 compact in 4K 30 fps (with some upgraded 1080p 60 fps footage used for slow motion during the rock-spitting sequences) Lighting was two Kraken Hydra 8000-lumen lights and one Backscatter MW4300, as well as a remotely mounted Kraken Hydra 1500. I used a Nauticam CMC-1 for most shots (so yes, I was very close), and an AOI / Fantasea UCL-05 +6 on others. Cheers, and keep on diggin’ Ben

There is no miracle, and the solutions have been given. And yes, it also really depend on what you're planning to do with it. Canon V1 is a very capable modern compact, but like most compacts if video is the focus it will need to be souped up with floats, hence killing the compact form. Compacts are bricks in the water. For photos or the odd short video clip, yes, you can use it as is, if you're ok with a very negative rig. Just to give an idea an LX10 in a Nauticam housing is over 1 kg negative in water by itself (before adding lenses, lights, clamps, coffee maker....) Phones rigs I've seen tend to be quite big given how unpractical ergonomics are for dedicated use... Your best bet is a TG series camera. It's light, already waterproof like an action cam (meaning you can use a light polycarbonate housing, and it's neutral), it does great macro stills and video with an integrated flash (just add a small light or get creative with a dive light, it's macro after all). It also does very average WA (for which you'll need a lens). Footprint is slightly bigger than an action cam.

That boat sounds like a nightmare - if even KSA/Manta Queen is scared of them, must be something 😅 The mantas are transient - they're mobula birostris, aka giant "oceanic" mantas, and usually seen at the cleaning stations on Koh Bon and Koh Tachai - they tend to stay a week or so then move on, possibly to Myanmar. Very rare in the Similans, the occasional fly-by, but Bon and Tachai is where it's at. This playlist is footage I shot when I was working there, you can see footage of quite a few mantas and whalesharks over the years. Whalesharks are more consistent, usually in February March - a whaleshark at Richelieu with a crowd of trevallies in tow is quite something 🤩 cheers Ben

Ouch, yes, unfortunately a rather poor choice. It was something of everyone’s nemesis, to be honest. At one point they even ran an IDC program, so freshly certified, newly arrived instructors could get a kind of work experience on the boat after passing their exams. If there is a next time, look into operators like Junk/Phinisi, Deep Andaman Queen, Smiling Seahorse (mostly for Myanmar) Sea Bees, or Big Blue. I have been away for a few years so things may have changed, but these operators were generally regarded as well organised and professionally run. Looking at the itinerary, that Surin site would have been Ao Packard i guess. Interesting to see elephant head pinnacle in there, as it's less common. Finishing on Hideaway Bay is a bit of a downer though. We would usually finish on Koh Bon (especially if mantas had been spotted), or the murky depths of the Boonsung wreck for macro - I think the Diverace is lying on the bottom close to it after it sunk. Makes me nostalgic - my favourites were Richelieu, Koh Tachai (dome, pinnacles...) Koh Bon (bay, west/north ridge, pinnacle...) and Three Trees and, to a certain point, Elephant's Head Rock. For amazing regional flashbacks of days gone by, do check out the great Nick Hope's Reef Life of the Andaman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ncUVddkK3Q cheers

Yes, the major problem is that there is only one Richelieu Rock, and all the liveaboards include it on their itinerary. The worst I have seen was 14 liveaboards moored around the site, all planning three to four dives there. That meant 200+ divers in the water on a very small site. I learned to guide specifically to avoid people there. Liveaboard planning is extremely tight. Days are short in the tropics, and once you factor in meals and surface intervals, you only have about 20 minutes of leeway in the dive schedule. Meals and snacks have to be offered, tanks filled, dishes washed, cooking done, housekeeping handled, etc. All of this has to fit around the diving before nightfall. Which means everybody goes at roughly the same time. There is no way around it. The only way to manage this would be a booking system, like the one implemented at Batu Bolong in Komodo. I was working there at the time. It was not the greatest idea (carrying capacity restrictions), but it did reduce congestion. Unfortunately, Richelieu Rock is in the Surin area and handled by a different authority than the Similan Marine Park, and when I was there it was extraordinarily inefficient at enforcing even the few rules that existed. You had liveaboards mooring directly on the site, which is not allowed, in full view of rangers who were there to collect tickets. What you describe, basically a DSD situation, is also not allowed in the marine parks. Introductory and training dives are prohibited. Of course, this is not followed by all operators. There are many shady operations, but also some very good ones doing what they can. That base you mention has been around for a while. The platform boat was moored at Koh Bon when I was there, and they ran a hop-on hop-off service from Khao Lak or Phuket. I worked for Big Blue in Khao Lak, which had a speedboat going there four days a week. The other company running daytrips was Wetzone, also from Khao Lak, or more precisely Ban Nam Khen. We would alternate days. The good thing about the speedboat was that we would often hit the rock during the liveaboard lunch break, and sometimes had the site all to ourselves, which happened a few times a year. When the park ticketing system changed, with advance booking required, things became more complicated. Our go-to site on days when it was too rough for Richelieu was Koh Tachai, which is in the Similan National Park. That meant we could not reroute there with Surin NP tickets. So we started exploring the Surin more. Ao Tao, for example. Nice coral, but generally less life. The last season I worked there was 2020, the pandemic year. I have worked in quite a few great places, but some Richelieu dives, especially sunset dives, are still burned into my mind. It is good to hear that sharks are being spotted more often. I worked quite a few seasons there, and apart from whale sharks, reef sharks were very rare. You might see white tips on early morning dives, maybe the odd blacktip cruising by, and very, very rarely a grey reef at Tachai. That was about it. Carpet sharks such as shovelnose rays or guitar sharks, and leopard (zebra) sharks, were relatively common. The Surin did have a bit more shark activity. Juvenile tiger sharks were spotted a couple of times, but we were not doing night dives there at the time. Hopefully the shark population has had some kind of rebound.