JustinO

One on my wrist, one on the strobe arm next to the housing, mounted on a Stix float. Both come with me every dive, end of story. That way it doesn't matter which one I glance at. I also have a muscle memory to check my NDL and air before engaging with a subject. If I am down to 6 mins or less, I look for a shallower subject.

Olympus: EM 1 Mk II My EM1 Mk II body is configured as follows; but this body is highly customisable: Fn1 - Focus Peaking. Shows the areas that are in focus in red (colour customisable in the main menu). Fn2 - Preset focus (PreMF)/Manual Focus - switches between Manual focus and Preset focus. This works really well to change the focus straight to the minimum focus distance for a lens. It's particularly useful with the 8mm fisheye for CFWA, and for the 60mm to get 1:1 magnification. AEL/AFL- back button focus (BBF). Separates focus from the shutter button to allow reframing without changing focus when the shutter is pressed. Note the following: When in Manual focus, Continuous, or PreMF modes ( all accessed from the Autofocus/metering button) focus will only change when BBF button is pressed. When in Servo AF mode, focus remains on the shutter button, and the AEL button defaults to AEL. Fn Lever - Tv/Av on position 1, ISO/WB on position 2. Enables using the front dials to control either Exposure time and Aperture value, or ISO and White balance. Front Preview button (Pv on a Nauticam housing) - Magnify. Enlarges the image in the viewfinder or display panel up to 14x. Front WB button - not usable in a Nauticam housing. Left Keypad button - Autofocus point selection. To move the focus point around the display. Bottom Keypad button - Manual focus. Switches between MF and whatever other focus mode I have selected (e.g. S-AF and MF, or C-AF and MF - the modes can be changed by pressing the AF /metering button). I usually have it set to S-AF/MF. In MF, you can either use the focus ring (if you have a focus gear on your port) or focus from back button focus. Top and Right Keypad buttons not customisable. Some notes on setting PreMF: I have my preMF set to 0.001m in the menu. This works really well to change the focus straight to the minimum focus distance for a lens. It's particularly useful with the 8mm fisheye for CFWA, and for the 60mm to get 1:1 magnification. When using the 60mm, I have also found that I need to have the focus limiter on the lens set on the 0.19 - infinity range. If I have it set on 0.19-0.4m, then for reasons I have yet to fathom, I can't get the preset to set to 1-1 at all. There's a quick way to adjust prefocus distance without going deep into the menus. Useful if you don't know how far away you are from the subject, or if you want to move back from 1:1 to get more of the subject in the frame: Press AF/metering button on top of the power button. When the focus/metering menu pops up, select the PreMF on the right of the display Press the info button. Your PreMF setting will then be shown. Half press the shutter button to adjust the focus distance (if you have the focus ring you can also tweak it that way). Press set to accept the new PreMF setting - it will also show you what it's set to. If you mirror my button customisation set up and adjust PreMF this way, make sure that at some point you repeat step 1- and select your "normal" focus mode - otherwise you will have Fn2 and the bottom keypad button doing the same thing. Focus Peaking does work with PreMF Mode - just as long as you don't have the shutter button half-pressed- that seems to temporarily turn it off. Custom Modes: The EM1 MK II has three programmable modes that can be uploaded for quick "go to" settings, or for grabbing that quick shot when something unexpected turns up. Note these are just starting points, but default back to these every time the mode is selected: C1: "Basic Blackbackground Macro": 1/250, f18, ISO 200. PreMF mode. Single shot. AWB. Rear curtain Synch. C2: "The smash 'n' grab": 1/125, f7.1, ISO 200. S-AF. "Cross" focus arrangement (to ensure at least one point of focus is on the subject), roughly on a third. Multiple shot. AWB. Useful for those unprepared shots that turn up from time to time. Rear curtain synch. C3: "Basic Wideangle" 1/250, f9, ISO 400. AWB. Single Point Focus. Set up to give me my preferred shade of blue, with sufficient depth of field. Rear curtain synch. I shoot full manual strobes, so need to tweak power settings. I also use the Nauticam flash trigger, so I can get synchronisation with flash above 1/250.

Given the huge number of cameras out there, and the ever-increasing ability we have to programme buttons to do what we want, perhaps a discussion on how people have programmed theirs could be of use particularly when the "time for an upgrade" bug bites... So go on - how have you programmed yours?

Coral Reef Guide, Red Sea. Lieske and Myers, 2004. A bit dated, but has some good descriptions of organisms, and covers mammals, fish, and invertebrates. Red Sea Marine Life. Andrey Ryanskiy, 2022. Names and pictures only, but contains some unusual and newly identified species. Digital copies also available from https://reefidbooks.com/

Thanks for sharing - some interesting scenes in there - love the two fighting octos.

Do I detect a refresh of the car stereo system parable, Tim? We'll all be on your side... apparently an EMWL only costs $200, doesn't it? 😝

Wet Wide Lens is right, Davide. Suggest we could also add the following, some of which regularly come up in reviews/ debates: IQ: Image Quality SMC: Supermacro Converter CMC: Compact Macro Converter and in the alternatives: FFO: Fish F***ed Off - a common saying in our household when one of us exhales at just the wrong moment!

I seem to have a thing for Scorpionfish... I am sure it arose from obliging the kids with a picture every time they saw one! Many shots later, I've still not got "the one" as their camouflage makes them buggers to separate from the background. This pic is my favourite not because it's technically brilliant, but because it reminded me about "being there", and setting up the shot to get some depth. On the day in question, conditions had made diving impossible until late afternoon, and the viz wasn't great. The fish was initially lying on the coral in the background, and I couldn't get a good angle on it. After a few shots, I moved on - then my partner pointed, and I turned to see the fish repositioning in a much more suitable place into a position that let me flatter it much more effectively. Just wish the sulphur damsel near it had swum back into shot for a bit of extra drama and colour.

I am going to put my head above the parapet as a Sea & Sea YS D3 user - and say I'm happy, both with the units and the service I got from S&S. That said, I'm only in the water 3-5 weeks a year, and I am very particular about keeping my gear in order. Sort the gear then the beer, is my mantra! I shoot M 4/3, and find that the dome diffusers with the 8mm fisheye gives a nice spread of light across the scene. The flat diffusers that come with them I use for every other lens. I also have the snoot - cheap for what it is, and the prism in it ensures the focus light on the strobe can be used - which is harder to do if one makes one's own. I could see myself getting very frustrated without the light to help know where it's pointing. The out the box snoot is good for WA snooting; for macro it's a bit wide, but there are some easy mods that slot into the snoot and can give a really nice focussed beam. I made my own, and was also given a pair of printed ones to test - am planning to post my findings up one day, with some pics. I know others have had issues with performance, and with customer service. I posted about an issue I had with my strobe on another forum. That issue had a happy outcome, in which my unit was replaced free even though it was outside of warranty.

HI Tim, Thinking about making a crack at this.- an idea to throw out there that might help build the community and engage new members before I bring stuff over. Wonder if under one of the forum areas we could start a "Getting the best out of your gear" series, that focusses on tips from the community on using specific and popular bits of kit, under their own thread. Some of the old threads inevitably got into the weeds of other things, like IQ/ merits and demerits of one lens over another etc. So am wondering if by drawing community experience under one area might help overcome the issue of not being able to pull archived data over, thus rebuilding some of the wealth of advice and experience, but bringing it together more coherently. For example: Subject: "Getting the best out of your gear" Thread: "Oly 60mm" (but with other threads for other kit) could include: - How folks have programmed their rigs - How to best use zoom gears or whether folks recommend them or not - Using the CMC / other wet lenses - etc. etc... Not sure how practical that might be to set up the hierarchy, eg. "Tutorials, How tos, DIY" > "Getting the best out of your gear" > "(thread per lens /etc.)"

Beautiul footage, and really sensitively lit. The sequence on what I think is a sponge is a really nice introduction - the contrast of the animal on the substrate is pleasing to the eye, as is the way you've captured a slightly different foraging approach there as it probes the pores. Well done, and thanks for sharing - makes me realise I spend a little too much time on stills, and less on the video side.

Well done all you super-experts who got this up and running! Am moving over, but keeping my same username. Have also got records of some of my other posts in case the old threads can't be resurrected but the content might still be useful. Shoot WA and Macro on Oly M4/3.