ChrisH

Haha, you‘re welcome 😬 Just let me know if you need more „help“ with spending money on underwater photography equipment, you can always count on me! 🥳

Another vote for the external viewfinder from me 😉 Especially if you shoot a lot of macro, you might find it is one of the best tools you ever bought! I have seen a lot of people buy one, and none of them would give it away. The angled viewfinder takes some dives to get used to, but once you have been through the initial frustration in using it, you might find yourself wondering how/why you have been shooting without it before. I know they are expensive and seem at first not to add that much benefit, rather than being a "nice-to-have" piece. But they will outlast a lot of camera/housing upgrades in the future and it is a really essential piece of gear in my opinion. Even more so know with the EVFs and their ability to let you review the pictures in the EVF and see critical focus for the macro shots or the focus peaking feature. It upgrades the whole setup more than the cost of it (10%?).

Ah, I should have explained it a little bit more: The glue on my dome had been compromised from age or wrong storage (manufacturer or dealer). You could see water „soaking in“ a little bit on one single point from the outside, almost till under the glas. But there was no leak at that point, potentially because the o-ring in the dome blocked it. But if you take the dome underwater the pressure might be enough to let some drops of water inside the housing. The vacuum won‘t get it as there is no „leak“ at the surface. If you leave it in the bathtub for a longer period of time and inspect the dome, you might be able to spot such spots, where the water got almost inside the dome and could cause a leak when under pressure underwater. It is hard to explain what it looked like and unfortunatly I didn‘t take a picture. But I was able to see the spot that caused the leak, even if there was no leak at the surface!

Mine did not 😉 I usually kept my vacuum also over night. And it didn't get the leak in the dome. I suspect it was not a "constant" leak like a hair or grain on a o-ring. That is why I suggested to test it in the bathtub also overnight. Or maybe just do both 😉 Better safe than sorry...

I don't know about the 2x TC, but Seacam has a dedicated zoom gear for the 1.4x TC from Kenko with the fisheye lenses. That is what I use if I do need more flexibility. But the TC also introduces a hit in the image quality: it tends to work not as good when shooting against the sun and will introduce more flare. Other than that, I find the image quality to be fine for me.

Thank you, that is interesting! Never considered a Loupdeck, I only knew them for audio mixing! Will have to have a look at them!

Those are all good points! I just wanted to add that a better quality of light (wide even beam, color temperature) does not make a picture better per se. It just makes it easier to get good lighting in the pictures from my experience. My older strobes were much more prone to give hotspots, so I had to move them around more often, correcting the position a bit here, then again and again after that. The better the strobe, the more "forgiving" it is: You just have to spend less time with strobe positioning and post processing. Also for myself I found it hard to get the pictures on the same level with post processing, as just getting the shot right in cam and then process from there. So less correcting in post processing, more improving the image in post processing. Also it should be noted that as we get more into High-End stuff, the price to performance ratio decreases rapidly. You will end up paying 2 or 3 times a price for getting maybe 10% more. Which might be worth it for some, but not for others.

I found the iPad and Pencil very convenient for cleaning up backscatter. I just use Air Play from my Mac to share the screen with the iPad, open Photoshop and I can remove all particles very easy. It is much more efficient than using a mouse.

Thank you ver much! 🙏

Yes, exactly! The leak was also not showing up on all dives on that trip. That is why I think it would be beneficial to test it over a longer period of time (couple of hours) in the water (bathtub). you might miss it, if you just ditch it into the water like a quick check before a dive.

I too had a vacuum valve back then and it did not get it! That is why I would recommend doing a test in the bathtub before and leave it there for a couple of hours!

I had used a 3D printed version of a snoot... for about one trip. That kind of might be a hint of how much I liked it 😉 After that I purchased the Retra snoot, and have been set for all those years since then. It starts with the handling: the 3D printed solutions will most likely float. If you want to take it off, it will almost always go to places where you don't want it to be. It was a constant annoyance to me. With the optical snoots, you just clip them away. There is also no contest in aiming the snoot: the optical snoot will be so much easier to aim and that was what immediately sold me to it. Because aiming a snoot is always a challenge, especially while using one for the first couple of dives. If you have a strobe with a focus light in the middle of the strobe and use an optical snoot, it ist much much easier and will give you a lot less frustration. The next thing is flexibility. With the optical snoot you get different light options by just changing the distance of the snoot to the subject. The edge of the light will be very different. You can have it wider with soft edges or very sharp with a hard light fall off, just by altering the distance. Without optical elements in the snoot, I don't think that is possible.

I wouldn't go that far to say it is impossible to get an entire scene in focus, as these shots here are take at really close distances, making it kind of CFWA shots. Also I don't think Nauticam would come up with such an expensive product, if it would be optically flawed like that. Of course we will have to wait and see what other user experiences will be like... But, as I stated before, the shots and reviews so far all suggest in my opinion that unlike the rectilinear wet lenses, the FCP might not introduce optically superior solutions, but rather give you more flexibility. You might not gain any advantages on apertures that you can use, maybe you might be even forced to close aperture more than with a fisheye (we will see on that also with further user experience). But you will have more flexible setup during the dive, which might be worth it for some people.

I once had a problem with an older dome port, that might have been in the store some years before I bought it. I don't think the glass will crack or something like that. But the glue or sealing of the glass to port can get damaged over time. If that is the case, I don't think it will cause catastrophic flooding. I had just moisture and very small drops of water inside the dome. I would just test the housing and the port before the trip without the camera in it, by leaving it in the bathtub or something similar for a couple of hours.

They sell a "universal" fiber optic cable as compatible with the strobe, which does come with support for Inon, Nauticam & Sea & Sea Connectors, so it is not clear which one is for this strobe. Based on the Videos I would guess (!) it is the small Sea&Sea style.