Nikolausz

Since I had only 3 black-water dives as a newbie the whole thing was a big experiment for me. First I used 2 "naked" lamps with 90 degree wide light spread (modifying a bit the position, front and side lighting). Second dive I used both lamps with optical collectors (relatively narrow beams), which was good for searching, then I used them for side lighting. It looks a bit too harsh in some footage and easy to overexpose the subject with a direct hit. I had the 90mm macro with me but I excluded it, since the difficulty to use it for videos without a tripod (my buddies used it for photos and it worked great). So the only option for me was the 30mm macro, which is an underrated lens in my opinion. I also tried it in manual focus mode (locked after pre-focusing) and trying to follow the subjects. This is not a bad strategy with slow-moving subjects. The AF is a bit unreliable, it easily distracted by other things and also not super fast. There was swarming around the lights used on a rope for reference points and to attract bigger fish on the swarming zooplankton. Sometimes a bit of swarming was around my lamps but I just swam away to switch to some other targets. Altogether, it was a fantastic experience but I don't think that I cracked a tiny bit the perfect technique, so I will still follow this thread and hopefully I will be better prepared for the next black-water dives.

Thanks, but I went mainly for easy targets.

This is a short video of the blackwater material I shoot in a recent trip in Bali, Tulamben (3 BW dives). On the one hand, it was extremely amazing experience, on the other hand, it was really difficult to record usable footage. I think I still haven't solved the proper technique. I used a Sony A6400, 30mm macro lens with 2 Weefine smart focus 7000 lamps (with or without optical collector).

Originally I planned to add a monitor to my housing (cheap version of housed smartphone via wired wifi connections) but I realized during my recent Bali trip that an upgrade of my housing would make more sense to have a better ergonomics and avoid many small annoyances with my current seafrogs case.

I also observed with GoPro+AOI that the infinity and even subjects 3m away are out focus, which is actually not that bad.

In my opinion, you need tripod for macro videos with any camera

I haven't seen this BTS video yet. Thanks for sharing it.

It's my long time favourite movie. I've watched it many times.

Tamron 60mm would be fine

With wide angle lens with bigger fish (Pike, catfish) it works quite well. I will test macro (30mm and 90mm) in December in Bali.

The Sony 11mm F1.8 SEL11F18 is actually a rectilinear lens, but I can also recommend the SEL1118 F4 optically stabilised zoom, which is good when you have enough light and it gives you additional flexibility. There is a new version (E PZ 10-20 mm F4 G) but I don't have any experience with it. I think A6700 is an excellent choice. I use A6400 but I would prefer A6700 if I would start from scratch. For macro I use the 90mm lens but I think it's not the best choice for blackwater video. I also have the 30 mm macro, which could be an interesting choice for close-up but not good for extreme macro. A really good macro lens around 50mm is a bit lacking. Optical quality is there but according to my research AF is not that fast and accurate.

As I remember, it was a good strategy to have another diver approaching from the other direction and keep them in a "cross-fire" to avoid them to turn.

Amazing footage. Zeus faber is my favourite fish from the Mediterranean. I took some nice photos of them in Croatia, quite long tome ago. I remember they always just turned away a bit to ruin the shot.

I've just seen this video on Ikelite YT page. There are some interesting inside about the techniques used and some really great footage.

probably that's the easiest way