Mike Saunders

does it mater if you use rectilinear or fisheye underwater? I vaguely remember reading that fisheye is better I have a viltrox 9mm f2.8 e mount which is rectilinear and quite impressive, sharp, bright and with very good close focus- I am thinking of trying it in the red sea - am I likely to encounter any problems?

are these from Alex mustard's course? (which I have just finished and was excellent!)

Colorado - kind of halfway between California kelp forests and Florida / Caribbean reefs could be worse....

thats awful sitting in Labaun Bajo this year in good weather, looking out at the flottilla of dive boats I remember thinking some of them didnt look terribly suitable for rough seas

lightroom - subscription PS on rare occasions when I want to remove a thing or paint over it but that is obviously cheating I am very much a weekend warrior sort of lightroom user - I do the basics but when I open up the menus and see all the possibilities I get overwhelmed

would it be reasonable to assume that the AF would be better on this than my Sony 90mm macro? Using alpha 6300 so not cutting edge body but better than a6000

do you think scuba diving is net good or net bad for the undersea world? on the down side - damage to reefs, animals, Carbon footprint of people like me flying UK to Indonesia to dive, changing the behaviour of wildlife on the plus side - making divers appreciate the oceans and hoping that they try to live and act greener, encouraging reef conservation, encouraging greener practices in others on another note - every time I go diving I think that we should stop commercial fishing of the oceans completely. It is not ours to take and we are not farming it with new animal stock like we do chicken and cattle- we are just taking it away. It may sound a bit sensational but I honestly think that the oceans cannot sustain the human race any more.

interested to hear about this - it might make packing easier without the strobes, I'm planning on Galapagos in 2-3 years

I suspect that I am being dim but how exactly do I get a photo of a nudibrnach with a black backround like some of the stunning images on here? I can think of three options: snoot - I can't imagine that this would get ris of ALL of the surrounding scenery create a mask in lightroom and get rid fo the background actually manipulate the nudibranch - either picking it up and putting it on a black surface or fenging it into mid water and shooting it like a clay pigeon shoot before it hits the deck (this suggestion not entirely serious btw) I imagine the third option would give you the best results but is it actually OK to touch wildlife? I realise that it is a slug not a turtle but still. Option 2 feels a bit like cheating. Mike

I'm very interested to hear how people get on with the zeiss 50mm I have recently gone to an N85 housing and already have the 30mm sony and port but am looking for a bit longer as well - I suspect the 90mm sony macro I have will be too much of a handful for practical use, particularly diving in groups with non photographers the sony requires an 85-120 adapter and new port where the zeiss just requires a 30mm extension ring on the port I already own this is probably more than the cost difference between the zeiss and the sony so that the Zeiss option would be cheaper and more space efficient for travel any updates on your experience very welcome

a fantastic post and a great photo that tells its own story Given the standard of professional underwater photography in 2026 and on this website - I realise that it is unlikely that I will ever sell any of my underwater photos, or win any prizes but that really isn't the point. I see things that I love and just as above the water, I want to photograph them. It brings joy to me and pleasure to others and as you suggested, helps to educate and inform. I also just love the tech and the messing about with stuff. I love the underwater world. Leave only bubbles and take only photographs - It's a great motto

I’ve found a used nauticam housing for sony alpha 6xxx looking forward to the red sea trip

Hi there I am very much a novice but my experience to date for what it is worth I'm using A6000s - initially because I was concerned about flooding and loosing an expensive camera and the A6000 is available cheaply second hand. I'm considering getting a 6400 because the autofocus is much better but it still fits the same housing I bought a cheap salted line housing which is OK but not great. Some of the controls don't work at depth. I am also considering upgrading to a nicer housing (eg Isotta) at some stage, especially if I am going to go to the galapagos in the future I launched a thread about full frame vs apsc or 4/3 last month and I think most agree that there is little advantage to ff. A great thing about APCS is that the housing and domes are smaller for travel purposes. I'm getting the feeling that the favourite small set up on here is the Olympus one. I'm going to stick with Sony as I have lots of lenses etc but if I was going to wipe the slate clean I would probably go Olympus and a decent housing.

yep - three night dives are planned so I will take a short macro lens and port anyway which shouldn't upset the other half too much... definitely planning a hoody and tracky bottoms for the evenings

very helpful thank you

my next trip is a liveaboard in the Red Sea in late November from Hurghada visiting all the well known sites , thistelgorm, brothers, ras mohammed and others I haven't been to the Red Sea since 1999 so my memory of the dive sites is a bit hazy I am presuming this is mostly proper wide angle territory rather than macro? My wife got a bit 'bemused' by the amount of kit that came to Indonesia, so rationalising it a bit would be good

we were first week of september I thought the vis was ok but not stellar lot of backscatter in photos- but possibly poor technique as well

what day did you do the manta dive? I think we were there on 3rd september mike

and thank goodness for raw files hopelessly underlit image of a black frog fish hiding in a hole. wrestling with 90mm macro focus and strobe arms but play around on lightroom and there’s an image there

Gili Air was a great place to stay less spectacular but my first experience of muck diving in two dives and less current and easier to find a spot to stop and take images first frogfish!

just coming to the end of a wonderful trip to komodo and gili air. came with quite a lot of gear that I hadn’t really used much before - but after doing Alex Mustards excellent reboot course and then fannying about underwater for a fortnight several things are apparent taking good photos on a group dive is impossible- you need time and ‘normal’ dive groups don’t give it to you. ‘drive by’ snapping are very hit and miss you get what you pay for. The salted line alpha 6xxx housing is usually waterproof and cheap but don’t expect to be able to change the settings at 30m- at one point it was randomly scrolling though the iso settings for no reason - another times the shutter wouldn’t work the sony macro 90mm 2.8 is a stunning lens- when you can get it to focus! next time i even think about it i’ll put it on manual and set the focus before the dive - use a snoot and just take pictures of things that way. Should be great I’m definitely coming back to Indonesia

as a footnote, years ago I used to dive with a Nikon 35mm film body with a 60mm macro lens I now keep the lens at work in the drawer in clinic with an old d700 body to take pictures of patients - it still takes beautiful pictures every time I get it out I am staggered how heavy it is and equally staggered that I used to take it underwater in an Ikelite housing