CCRphoto

Many thanks - helps heaps - and I like the way that you keep the fibreoptic cable attached to the arms! Must be nice to be able to dive in waters where the sharks aren't trying to eat you!

When you next have your camera rig with the Maxis assembled could you please post a photo?

Interesting! It looks like you have 3D printing all squared away too!

Nice! A bigger bag looks like it would be a good way to carry an assembled rig to a local diving site too! Anyone in Australia wanting one of the bags in @Troporobo 's post - half price at Woolies this week - https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/310586

I'm pretty sold on the Maxis - they are locked in on my spreadsheets!

Pretty much - avoid distortion, generally don't need a really wide rectlinier lens for archaeological work (unless you find an underwater city or something like that!). It looks like I can use the Nikkor 24-50 with a 180mm dome port or some quite short flat ports.

A not super-wide rectlinier lens is best - everything has been there for 2000 years so I can get as close as I want - I'm certainly not going to scare the subject away.

Qantas has recently started flying to Samoa and the airfare prices are quite reasonable - just wondering if anyone has dived there as I have a friend who has just started diving who is looking for easy diving destinations.

The Retra's better buoyancy characteristics probably mean that they take up less space in luggage overall than HF-1's + floats

Yes there is that aspect I suppose!

OK that's interesting - likely housing choices will be Nauticam or the red one (whose name completely escapes me), but I will certainly be checking that it has the facilities for HDMI output to a monitor.

I've really got to get my head around wet optics - that and digital seems to be two massive changes that I need to get used to after 30 years on the sidelines - note I said Sidelines not the Sin Bin!

For the next few years the only place I am likely to be shooting wide angle in bright sunshine is the Red Sea, but that is going to be archaeological photography at 62 metres - should be OK. If everyone in the general region would kindly stop lobbing missiles at each other that would help enormously - I've given up on plans for the Red Sea this year - flying Melbourne-Singapore-London Heathrow-Cairo just to get to the Red Sea is too much for me.

I guess when flying from UK/Europe it is a consideration as you have the low cost carriers etc like EasyJet, unfortunately in Australia we aren't that lucky, but I am fortunate that I have decent membersip levels with Qantas (OneWorld) and Emirates so the minimum checked baggage allowance I get is 56kg, +10kg carryon. For most routes however my checked baggage allowance is 69kg and sometimes up to 96kg.

I am expecting to be selective with packing - will I take a 105mm macro and port to the Red Sea? Probably not. Will I take a big fisheye and dome port to Tulamben or Amed? Probably not.

That is a very interesting comparison tool to have!

I think that I will probably end up with a variety of lenses, and given my old habits of pushing the boundaries of macro I suspect there will be a few that aren't normally in the collections of underwater photographers... Cheers @Architeuthis - a lot of good info there!

Hopefully I will get a better idea of the size comparison at the Sydney dive show in a month's time - I think that once I have seen and handled things there then I will be able to make a decision.

I'm about to look it up - sounds like a Gen Z thing - probably developed for iPhone...

The lugging around aspect appears to come down to port sizes more so than housing sizes I think - the OM-1 MkII camera body is (LxWxH) 135x73x92mm, and the Z5ii is 134x72x101mm - so the housings shouldn't be much different in size, but the needed ports (especially dome ports) will likely be quite a bit bigger. I will have to take a good look at the housings side by size to see how they compare. Costwise - I think that it is going to work out quite similar - which I must admit surprised me a little. Just more things to consider I guess. One advantage with OM-1 MkII is that there are several active members on here shooting it who I can lean on for information or help if needed, whereas there doesn't appear to be any Z5ii users, so any help needed might be from Z8 users - if things are similar between the Z5ii and the Z8.

Watching this video from Matt & Alex about the 1/200 sync speeds of the Nikon Z series, their suggests were - - lower Iso while ensure that you have powerful strobes - which poses the interesting question of are there any shutter speed "sweetspots" with the Nikon Z series? - use HSS - if needed after these steps then use a ND filter Between those it should be OK hopefully - the only place where I would be really concerned is the Red Sea - as anyone who has dived there can attest it is bright as hell there even underwater in summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSby0YHsboA

Good to know - cheers!

Sounds like I should be able to make something work! Cheers!

True - are there any workarounds for this these days?

That is how it is looking on my spreadsheet too - although I haven't really looked for the cheapest deals on camera and lenses yet. The other advantage that I can see with the Nauticam Z5ii housing is that there is a lot more secondhand ports, extension rings etc available on ebay etc in the N120 size compared to the N85 size that the OM-1 housing takes. There are also some good aftermarket dome ports etc in N120 while very little if anything aftermarket is available in N85.