ChrisH

I had good success with hot and then cold water in rapid succession. Had to do it a couple of times but then I could get the wetlens off.

The 4:3 vs 3:2 ist just a personal preference for me and might be of no interest for others, but I have often seen people that were not really aware of this when considering buying a MFT (maybe also downgrading from FF). Regarding depth of field: yes it is true that you usually shoot with smaller apertures with FF. But inside wrecks or at night you can open up the aperture and reduce corner sharpness. It does give you options, especially if corner sharpness isn't needed for the shot (corners not lit up in wrecks or shooting at night with just water around the subject). So you will have options, with the smaller sensors you will run out of options at a much earlier point in those circumstances. But I am too convinced that there are many people that are led by their experience from cameras over water to buy housings for their full frame cameras and are utterly disappointed because they find their expectations not matched with the results. On the other hand, I would always go for FF personally: I shoot different subjects and conditions. So a very versatile camera system is key for me. I need a camera that can deal with wide angle, fast action, macro, blackwater, wrecks. And the FF setup will provide me that. It can just handle everything you trow at it. But, if I were to shoot mostly macro for example, I would maybe tend do go to MFT because of their lens selections and the smaller footprint.

I also made the switch from MFT to Full Frame some years ago and have never looked back. My reasons for the switch were: - the 4:3 ratio of the MFT System didn't appeal to me, I like the 3:2 better - back then the optical viewfinder was far superior to the EVF (different story today!) - the files of my Olympus always had a blue water color that I did not really like and it was kind of hard to get a pleasing color (for me) in post processing; the colors from the Nikon FF were much more to my taste Image quality in a sense of pure resolution or details was not on that list. I still think that the pure details and resolution is mostly limited because of the medium we are dealing with - water. The shot taken through less water will almost always have a better resolution/more details than the shot taken from a bigger distance. If shot from the same distance, there will be an advantage for FF, but I too found it to be less than expected and it might be not enough for some people to justify the additional cost and weight. But there is one point where the FF sensor really can shine underwater: shooting wrecks or caves. There is a significant ISO advantage and you can get much more clarity out of the FF files, when shooting without strobes. If you use lights inside caves or wrecks, the lighting situation can become tricky and the FF sensor will give you better dynamic range at higher ISO settings, giving you better image quality, and much more headroom for post processing.

At least the Seacams seem to have some kind of yellowish color on the flash tube, maybe some kind of coating/treatment. They are rated with 4400k. As they provide the GN for underwater, that might be true for the color temperature too. In the Retra comparison you can clearly see that they have a warmer color temperature. Their diffusor does not alter the color temperature, it is just a white diffusor.

Same here. Like always there are pros and cons on everything. The custom battery packs can be crazy expensive and if it fails, you won't get replacement if you are on a trip somewhere. Spare is mandatory here. Same is for the chargers, which can be custom too. And according to Murphys Law they will work fine at home and stop working right on the once-of-a-lifetime trip in the middle of the ocean... I have four battery packs for the seacams... Could have bought almost two mid-range strobes for that. But with the early Retra Pros, the Super Charger was not an option but more a necessity (at least for me). And charging 16 AAs can get cumbersome on some liveaboards today, depending on how much photographers are on the trip. Mind everybody charging their phones/tablets/Laptops/dive computers/dive lights anyway...

The Nikon 60mm is a very popular lens for Blackwater Diving! The AF is quite fast (at least on Nikon cameras). If the adapter does not introduce any problems, that lens would be my recommendation. You can use it as a Macro lens (1:1), but also for fish portraits and blackwater.

RIP 😔

Yes. They don't state the white balance setting on the left shot as far as I can see. The info maybe somewhere else, I did not look it up. To be honest, the colors in both shots don't look really that pleasing to me. The left one ist way off in colors in my opinion. The right one I would personally have tried to achieve a warmer color on the foreground and less magenta. You can get those more greenish water colors in tropical waters if you shoot really shallow at sunset. But that particular picture does look a bit too much green even for such a shot.

Thank you! Actually our model cancelled the trip because of private reasons a few days before the start. Lea (the model in the pictures) was kind enough to join, although we didn't know each other before and it was also her first time modeling! I had a camera and a housing that I had never used before, a model that I didn't know and a model that hadn't done something similar before. What could possibly go wrong 😂 But she did an amazing job right from the start! And those shots would not have been possible without her!

Thank you very much, happy you like the pictures! 😊 We were not on a liveaboard and at least some of the wrecks can actually be accessed from shore. But we were on daily boats and I would recommend doing that. As for operators, I cannot praise Omar from Divers Divers (https://diversedivers.com) enough! Hope the link is ok in this forum? He did an outstanding job and is a really nice guy that really does care about you and not just takes the money. On our way back, our flight from Aqaba to Amman was canceled. The distance to Amman is about 5 hours by car. Within 20 minutes Omar send us his bus from the dive center and a driver in the middle of the night!! Doing trips to Dead Sea, Petra and Wadi Rum is an absolute must in my opinion! Wadi Rum is close to Aqaba (where the diving is), but Dead Sea and Petra will be better from Amman. As most international flight go to Amman, I would do trips to Petra and Dead Sea from there and then go to Aqaba and Wadi Rum. I was surprised about Petra: we all might know the one famous building (Indiana Jones anyone? 😄), but it is a huge area. our guide there told us if you want to see all of the ancient city it is about 12 hours by foot! There are very nice hotels at Petra, so I would recommend to spend at least one night there and then have the evening and morning in the ancient city. We were at the middle of the day in June.... not so much recommended 🥵.

Thank you! The "military museum" and the plane (Tristar) were sunk on mostly sandy bottom with almost no reef around it. So on the outside you have almost no fish, but a lot of small fish using the inside of the wrecks to hide as shelter (have no pictures of that unfortunately). But I did not notice relevant coral grow on the wrecks. Maybe to much divers or still not time enough. We also had some bad weather (sandstorm catched us on surprise), with rather low visibility (to Red Sea standards).

Around one year ago, I had the pleasure of being invited to a live shootout to Aqaba, Jordan. Having never been there before, it was quite a challenge as you only had one day (limited to two dives) for shooting each wreck dive site. But it was super fun, I learned a lot and got to know a lot of very talented and super kind underwater photographers. I was more than happy that even two of my shots actually got awarded! We made trips to the Dead Sea, Petra and Wadi Rum which was also a great experience!

As I don't shoot green waters, I have no experience in that. I would rather trust that their claim on this is right but as stated, I don't know from personal experience. Also I could imagine that not everybody wants to have green water turn blue, as that might look very unnatural in some cases. That would indeed be a point worth considering if buying a strobe with warmer color temperature and shooting in green water!

I think the pictures clearly show that a wide, even beam just gives a much more pleasing light. The light of the S220 ist more harsh, because the coverage is just not enough for these shots, giving a hotspot in the middle of the frame and ha hard "fall off" of the light at the edges. I agree that this will mostly show up on close distance shots, as with subject further away the light source is getting smaller and water scatters the light, acting as a natural diffusor. But as it is highly beneficial to shoot at close ranges, for a wide angle strobe I would almost go for the one with the most widest, even beam. You can add a diffusor to every strobe. And I would agree that it is kind of "leveling the field" to some degree but it does not level the field completely. There is still a noticeable difference in the quality of light. Also you just need diffusors on some strobes anyway, as they might give really harsh light without it (see the S220 without diffusor above, oder the Sea&Sea in the Reta comparison). A strobe with the wide, even beam without diffusers will give you options (add a diffusor if you need it), the smaller one won't and you are limited with what the diffusor gives you. There remains a difference in the light from a strobe with a wide beam angle (common for round flash tubes) to a strobe that gets this beam only if you add a diffusor. At least that is true for the strobes that I have been shooting with and know their light out of personal experience. There is a difference between a Sea&Sea YS-D2 with diffusor and a Retra Pro and there is a difference between the Retra Pro and the bigger Seacams. Of course how much of the difference shows up in your images will depend on shooting style and the standards you want to achieve. Some might just see no difference, which is fine. They will be lucky and can get away with the cheaper strobe and just be happy! But once you notice the difference, it cannot be "unseen" in my opinion. I don't belong in that category of having to justify a big expense, while just can't admit that I could have get the same results with a cheaper solution. The Seacams were lend to me to try them out and compare them to my Retras. And I bought them after testing them, so I knew what I was getting and for me and my style of shooting it was an upgrade and worth the expense (got them used).

You can see the effect in the backscatter video about the filters at around 5:50.

Hello Kalle! I am not much into the Sony eco-system and APSC so I am afraid I will be of little help here answering your question. But regarding lens choice, I think it will depend on what you want to shoot? So maybe you could give some more details about what (pelagics, wrecks, coral reefs, caves) you want to shoot? Or should it be the most versatile option? Then I am sure the others will have it easier to make an educated recommendation!

Really nice! Especially the shot of the donut nudi and the backlit leaf fish! Well done! 👍 Did you use a snoot for the backlighting of the leaf fish?

I think it is right that using those filters will have the effect of more even out the difference between the strobe lit part of the picture and the natural light. At least I would assume that, as I never used them. Whether you would want this effect depends on the shot you're trying to achieve and the conditions like depth, distance, color of the subject etc. The attached picture was taken at I think around 25m depth. As you can see the natural light almost provides no more color, and the transition from the part lit with the strobe (within the distance that you can get the natural colors of the subject) to the distance where the colors are absorbed is kind of sudden. Just look at the corals in the lower part of the frame and on the ceiling right, you will notice the immediate fall off of color with distance to the strobes. I would assume that putting on blue filters would "even" this transition at the cost of altering the foreground color. That would - for me - not work in this shot. But it could be of use if you are shooting subjects too far away for getting their natural colors with the strobes anyway. Regarding the original topic: this shot was taken with the Retra strobes with the filters for warmer light and just auto white balance, using a fisheye lens and maintain a distance of about 1m to the subject. There was no (!) color correction whatsoever applied in post processing, just the overall saturation was increased a bit. Those are the colors you get just right out of cam with warm strobe light and auto white balance. So you can judge for yourself.

I think it is this video? Actually a good overview and comparison! The blue filters are really something new for strobes, although I have to say I personally don't like the look of the wide angle pictures that they show in the video. But that might just be me and also maybe in the future somebody will make use of them to produce some shots that might change my opinion. We will see. But I did like the look of the macro shot with the blue filter! The background did look better with the blue filters.

Just to make sure my comment on the Seacam 60D is not burried in the „personal fight“ (I am very sorry for that!): Make sure you test them before buying! They have no seperate dials for mode and power setting. They were the first and only strobes I actually googled the operation manual as I needed them to operate as off camera slave strobes. My impression (did not test them really) was that they don‘t compare to the 150D and are not just a smaller version of them. But that is just an impression using them as off camera slave strobes on less than 10 dives. But to each their own and maybe it is the best compromise for you!

I know that is off topic, but I really can‘t let somebody just accuse me harassing wildlife for „getting a shot“. It is a really bold statement from somebody who was not there when I took the shot. As can clearly be seen in the picture, the snappers face my direction, they move towards me, not the other way around. If you approch them by moving towards them they will turn away. I was hovering there and waiting for at least 10-20 minutes, waiting for them to get used to me. I had two people just rush through the school, bringing me kind of back to my starting point. When they get used to a diver, they sometimes will just ignore your presence and swim around you. I did not manage to have that situation very often, but it is possible. The shot would in my opinion not be possible as it is by swimming towards or into the school! But yes, I guess there always has to be some „cheating“ involved if people don‘t understand how a shot is made.

You really did not read anything that I wrote, did you? (No, I don’t need an answer to that please!) But yeah you are of course absolutly right. Just let all the people know, so all the books about underwaterphotography can be rewritten and the workshops don‘t tell people false information to get good pictures! It is quite a surprise you are the only one knowing about all that. You would think that turning the basic rules of underwaterphotography upside down would have had any impact on the community of underwater photographers… I have made my claims, you made yours and everybody that reads it can judge for himself. Have a nice evening!

Yes, of course he does. What else could he do? He now just has decided that wide angle shots are all only about schooling fish and reef scenes are just „not important“. Because we all know nobody shoots reef, big fish, wrecks etc. I am afraid, you can‘t argue with that kind of people.

Yeah well I did see that one coming, it had to be 😅 Well I wish you all the best with your future pictures! I am sure they sell well and are constant winners in all contests because well, nobody else has a clue what they are doing or what they are doing is actually all wrong! Have a nice evening!

There is no reason to take every picture that is „possible“. It is about getting good pictures. It has nothing to with the actual topic, but I don‘t show all pictures on my website. But I went through my archive just for you and found a really old picture I took some years ago with not so good lighting and an ugly sun in the background but shot with a fisheye (!) and at close distance. I didn‘t know back then that it can‘t be done and just did it… but I was told now here that it is not possible. So now I know that it is impossible to aproach schools of fish close enough for even a fisheye shot and won’t do it again 🤷🏻‍♂️