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Nikolausz

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Posts posted by Nikolausz

    When macro is your main focus and video is also important I tend to agree that FF is not the way to go despite the "infinity budget". The best underwater macro videos in the recent years are produced, in my opinion (which is shared by many juries of international competitions), by Alfred Schaschl. You can see his work here:

    https://www.youtube.com/@alfredsch.5440

    Fredi uses Panasonic GH5 II camera, so a 4/3 crop sensor. I found APS-C is a good compromise for both macro and wide angle, and I'm locked into the Sony system, so if I would have a big budget I would probably upgrade my A6400 to FX30 and not FX3. Unfortunately the 50-60 mm macro range is not well covered with modern macro lenses in Sony environment, but for video, I think the available lenses are OK. Fast AF for macro video is not really needed. You will film on a tripod anyway (macro), and when my subject is in focus I usually switch to MF, just to avoid the the AF is distracted by something else in the background.

    • Like 3

    7 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

    This is difficult, the batteries used are the type of product that appears for a few months and fade away and are replaced by higher capacity ones or slightly different.  Also some of them go to sleep and don't wake until until you unplug/replug them.  This thread talks about the battery for the A6500  hopefully its the same as the A6400 and has sone dead links, it's on the old wetpixel forum:

     

    https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/59443-nauticam-battery-pack-problem-a6500/

     

    If you search, start off looking for 2000- 2500 mAhr models.  Finding the required short cable with correct plugs may also be a challenge?

     

    to start you off this link is to the pack described, not in stock but click on find similar to browse, unfortunately dimensions are not provided, might be a  challenge getting one to Europe though?

     

    https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ultra-Slim-Ultra-Portable-Ultra-Safe-2500mAh-Wallet-Pocket-Power-Card-Bank-ONE-for-All-External-Mini-Battery-Most-Smart-Phone-Digital-Devices-White-L/217372674

    Great information, many thanks

    Posted

    I've recently bought a used Nauticam housing for my Sony A6400. However, it was sold without the battery extension (it was not possible to send oversee or was sold separately).

    So now I'm looking for a replacement battery. Can somebody send me the dimensions and specifications of this battery and share a photo of it.

    Maybe I can find some similar product online

    Many thanks in advance

    Marcell

    I haven't expected a big splash in the water with my post, but I can see why this housing has not generated any comment.

    Most of us are happy with the plastic housing for GoPro and if we need a more professional solution we usually choose a a higher end camera with bigger sensor and better lens. So in my opinion it's a niche product but maybe I'm wrong and they sell loads of them.

    What do you think?

    • Like 1

    Posted

    I discovered today that Weefine has a new advanced action camera housing for GoPro 12/13 and DJI Osmo Action 4/5.

    https://weefine.com/CameraHousing/240.html

     

    It is a solid aluminium housing (depth rating to 100m), includes a built-in lithium battery and two M16 port for connecting an external monitor and/or vacuum valve or HDMI external cable.

    It's not compatible to our favourite AOI lenses but you can attache Weefine's own wide angle conversion lens (WFL14):

    https://www.weefine.com/WideAngleLens/241.html

    it's not terrible expensive and it seems to me a good buy if you need a premium housing for your GoPro or Osmo Action. I'm OK with the plastic housing and coax-cable remote controlling, so I probably won't buy it.

     

    • Like 4

    4 hours ago, Fabian said:

    Hi all,

    My challenge are the shy fish in rivers nearby, so I thought why not place the camera on a tripod, pull a USB cable to my laptop (or phone), control it from there. Additionally, I would not need to worry about battery levels in camera.

    Now surprisingly, I couldn't find a bulkhead (M24 or M16) to run that cable, all I found are remote controls for the shutter, which seems a bit too much 2010, not 2025.

     

    Did anyone build something like this from of the shelf parts?

    If so, which parts, and how long can the cable be without issues in signal transmission? Longest I found is 5m (4.9mm diameter), that could be a bit short, I was hoping for 10m (there are boosted extension cables, but not waterproof, but that should work).

    Thanks!

    I do this kind of photography with a GoPro. I found out that the fish don't tolerate bigger cameras, they even avoid an insta360 OneX2 in the Bubble housing. I use coax cables to transfer the wifi signal from housing to smartphone. It should work with other, bigger camera systems.

    G0225377_r.jpg

    • Like 7

    ·

    Edited by Nikolausz

    My major problem with the smartphone photography/videography is that my phone on a trip is more valuable tool to risk a flooding. I use it for entertainment, check news, contact family, check-in flight, store documents etc. So finally it means, I would need a separated dedicated phone as underwater camera. In such situation, there are better small cameras. How much does a iPhone 15 Pro Max cost? In Germany it's 1100 euro. My Sony A6400 is currently 670 euro (30mm macro is 220 euro), which is a way better camera system. When smaller cameras considered, in my opinion, a Sony RX100 camera would be still a better more versatile choice than the best current smartphone.

    I haven't seen any decent macro videos from smartphone, while many fantastic footage Sony RX100 cameras. Lack of flash support is another issue with smartphones.

    • Like 3

    17 hours ago, bghazzal said:


    wow - the 90mm shots are really impressive, given how skittish these guys are!
    Behavioural sequences are great - I'd never actually spent much time with garden eels (despite passing by them daily...), and this is pretty fascinating. I guess with the burrows being so close they must have some kind of competing / symbiotic relation.
    Slipping down the slippery off-topic slope, there - to regain footing, a 3 minute-ish cut would highlight the material better I think, looking forward to it!
    cheers

    I've just posted a 3-mins version. I can imagine a shorter version would even work better

     

    Cheers

    Marcell

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 2

    8 hours ago, bghazzal said:


    I like it a lot - really nice angles and intriguing effect with the 360° shot in the begining, lovely closeups (are these cropped in?) and but also really great to watch the eels interacting which each other like they do 3 minutes in, which is something I've never paid attention to - but I agree it's too long, with repetitive shots - I would restructure and trim it down to tight 3:30 and avoid the music change altogether.

    Kudos on the patience to shoot these guys - now that I've seen them interacting like this makes me want to get some footage as well!
    cheers
     

    Thanks. The closeups are taken with the 90mm macro lens, in some clips I further cropped. This was the most difficult, because the eels always moved out of the frame or the focus plane. So I have only few short close-up clips.

    After I uploaded this film I immediately started to cut a shorter version (3 mins). Probably, I will replace this video with it. 

    I was really happy to see those behaviours in the film materials.

    • Thanks 1

    12 minutes ago, RomiK said:

     

    Very nice shots, how long it took eels to pop up after you sat camera down? I found myself unable to wait too long passing eel gardens on a group dives.

     

    Back to subject I think that this eel movie would benefit from narration or even subtitles explaining the life of eels which would become a story and the video would become an underlying part of that. Without the story I think it's just too long.

    Thanks, I dedicated two dives just for the eel garden and used several cameras (Insta360 X2, GoPro 12+AOI wide lens, A6400+30mm macro (first dive), 90mm macro (second dive). With the smaller cameras, they were out after 1-2 mins.

    • Like 1

    One of my role models in underwater videography is Howard Hall. He has many underwater films without any narration, just long sequences of pure fantastic underwater scenarios with some neutral background music. Many people find them boring but I frequently rewatch them. There are few on Amazon Prime (Coral kingdoms, Bejeweled Fishes etc.) but he also uploaded many full movies into his Vimeo page: https://www.howardhall.com/short-videos/

    I have recently filmed an eel garden in Bali and uploaded a long 7-mins video with some slow background music, which is, I hope, still interesting and I relaxing to watch.

    Later I'm planning to edit a shorter version of it to include in a narrated movie about the underwater life of Bali. There are still lot to explain for non-divers about the behaviour of garden eels. I also use very short clips edited for phone users.

    But personally I still prefer long natural history movies with some interesting good narration (there are bad examples as well).

     

    • Like 2

    On 1/7/2025 at 12:54 PM, Naughticam said:

    Hi everyone,

    I'm looking to push my action cam setup to its full potential, and my next step is exploring macro/close-up photography.

     

    I’ve come across two close-up lenses that seem to be well-regarded:

    • AOI UCL-03: 3 elements in 3 groups, 90° field of view
    • INON G-165 II: 2 elements in 2 groups, 110° field of view

     

    Since they’re priced similarly, I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve used or compared these two lenses.

    Which one would you recommend, and what’s your reasoning?

     

    Thanks in advance for your advice!

    If I were you, I would go for the AOI UCL-03 when your aim is close-up (real macro is hard with action cam) due to the narrower field of view.

    You can also improve your action cam picture quality by using the AOI UWL-03, so you can focus closer and can achieve close focus wide angle pictures.

    • Thanks 3

    10 hours ago, bghazzal said:


    Great stuff - currently drying out in cold Japan, I miss these guys 😍 Seems pretty consistent with what I saw on bonfires in neighbouring Amed before conditions broke down the last month or so.

    I see you're getting different handling of backscatter across shots, which I imagine must be from trying out different light placements. I found it was actually quite tricky to make out what works best on the spot, with sometimes surprising results in post - what worked out best for you in general? did you get any swarming on the lights or is it not much of an issue over deep water?

    Also, how was the AF with Sony 30mm?

    cheers

    cheers

    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 3

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