CCRphoto

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm attending a Sony event in a week's time, and Laowa are also going to be there. If anyone has any questions that they want me to put to Laowa please let me know.

OK well if it was hands on in China last weekend then it can't be far away hopefully!

@Brett Lobwein @Simon Pierce - you guys will have to get Sony to lift their game and get Fish Focus included in a Sony firmware update!

I will be at a Sony event in a bit over a week where they have Laowa exhibiting as well so I can ask them about it.

Can confirm that the problem has been resolved now for me! Many thanks!

Many thanks @Phil Rudin and everyone else who has contributed to this so far - please keep the posts coming. Hopefully later tonight I will be able to start putting it all into a spreadsheet to post on here and then keep updating it.

Its one of those things that people who fly a ridiculous amount learn off frequent flyer forums, and anyone else finds out the hard way at the wrong time - or most people never get affected by it and remain happily oblivious. Like you I fell into the flying internationally very frequently for work category and so spent a fair bit of time on frequent flyer forums learning how to maximise the benefit and also make each trip a less miserable experience. In my case I was flying from one continent to head office on another continent every fortnight for a 1 day meeting - do that every fortnight for several years in business class and you rack up decent frequent flyer status!

Best I correct some of your terminology - A Ticket is the overall booking - outbound and return legs, or round the world or whatever - it will have a six character booking reference on it (also known as a PNR) A Leg is all or part of a journey from a Checkin to the point where you first collect your bags after that Checkin - so in your case Narita-KL-Male was a Leg, and Male-KL-Narita was the return leg A Sector can be one flight or possibly several oneway flights with the same flight number - I will use Qantas as an example - QF1 is Sydney-Singapore-London Heathrow - all on the same QF1 flight number - basically you stop in Singapore and get off the plane for around 90 minutes while they refuel it and load new food etc. Coming from Melbourne I think it is QF37 (from memory) to Singapore and then I jump on to QF1 in Singapore to go on to London - so that is two sectors - but one Leg. Another important thing to know is which airline is responsible when things go wrong. Say for instance on your return journey the Male-KL sector flight on Malaysian but with your codeshare JAL flight number had been delayed and you missed your JAL connection from KL to Narita - which airline is responsible for finding you a new flight from KL to Narita? The answer is Malaysian is responsible as they were the operating carrier for the sector that was delayed that caused you to miss your connection in KL on to Narita. Malaysians options would be to either put you on one of their flights to Narita (assuming that they go to Narita and not Haneda) or they could purchase a seat for you on JAL at a cheap rate deal between airlines for these sorts of situations. If you have high frequent flyer status then you could also call the call centre for JAL and they would sort it out for you as you were on a JAL ticket. I was in this sort of situation a couple of years back - I was on a Qantas ticket and had completed the outbound legs from Australia to Cairo, and was due to fly home Cairo-Dubai-Singapore on Emirates with a connection in Singapore onto Qantas back to Australia. Unfortunately there was a massive flood in Dubai and the airport was trashed - no flights in or out of Dubai for several days as the airport was inoperable so I was stuck in Cairo. I learned of this while on my way to Cairo to catch the flight to Dubai. I tried to contact the Emirates office in Dubai but had no luck, the Emirates international call centre was swamped, so I rang the Qantas call centre and they were able to find a seat for me on some Emirates flights Cairo-Dubai-Melbourne a few days later. After I arrived home I submitted a claim to Emirates through their website for the costs for hotel accomodation in Cairo - a rather unnecessarily tedious process but eventually about five months later they paid, and I applied to Qantas for what is called Original Routing Credit - which got me the Frequent Flyer Status Credits and miles for the route that I had been originally booked to fly (Cairo-Dubai-Singapore-Melbourne) - that was quick and easy.

That about sums it up... the checked baggage rules are very confusing... unnecessarily confusing... but it pays to be aware of them... and even have a printed copy as even people working the checkin desks are often not fully across them. Cathay's webpage is the first one that I have seen that explains things in a way that is easily understood.

You beat me to it - here is the relevant section from OneWorld - The decision in Male however that the Malaysian allowance (+OneWorld tier extra baggage allowance if applicable) was actually correct. The best explanation of how it all works is actually on Cathay's webpage - https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_HK/baggage/check-in-baggage/carrier-rules.html As you can see your trip stayed entirely within IATA Tariff Area 3. So then the first carrier to cross from one sub-tariff area to another is the Most Significant Carrier and their baggage allowance applies. On your outbound leg it was JAL when you crossed from the Japan & Korea Sub Tariff Area to the South East Asia Sub Tariff Area on your way to KL. However on the journey back to Japan, the first crossing from one Sub Tariff Area to another was on Malaysian when you crossed from the South Asian Sub-continent Sub Tariff Area to the South East Asia Sub Tariff Area while flying from Male to KL. It is one of those weird quirks that can work against you - or work for you when you know the system. For instance when flying from Melbourne to Cairo my two main options as a Qantas/OneWorld slave are on Emirates flying Melbourne-Dubai-Cairo or Melbourne-Singapore (on Qantas) and then connecting on Emirares Singapore-Dubai-Cairo. If I book the ticket through Qantas on Qantas or Emirates operated aircraft but with Qantas codeshare QF flight numbers then I earn Qantas Status Credits + miles and receive my Qantas baggage allowance. If I book Melbourne-Dubai-Cairo with Emirates EK flight numbers then I can earn Qantas miles but not Qantas Status Credits - but I do get the more generous Emirates baggage allowance. The maximum benefit possible though is gained by booking Melbourne-Singapore-Dubai-Cairo through the Qantas website with all flights having a QF flight number even though the Singapore-Dubai-Cairo legs are operated by Emirates. Doing it this way I get the generous Qantas Status Credits + miles for flying Melbourne to Singapore on a Qantas-operated flight, and also earn Qantas SC's + miles for the Singapore-Dubai-Cairo legs as they are on a QF codeshare flight number (while actually flying on Emirates) - but because Emirates is the operating carrier for the Singapore-Dubai leg where I move from IATA Tariff Area 3 (Asia & the South Pacific) to IATA Tariff Area 2 (Middle East, Africa and Europe) - I get the much more generous Emirates baggage allowance - which in my case because of my Qantas frequent flyer status is 3x 32kg bags. All of this is because Qantas has an alliance with Emirates despite Emirates not being part of OneWorld. Some people might ask why don't I fly Qatar Airways instead of Emirates seeing as Qatar is a OneWorld airline? Basically Qantas and Qatar Airways have never played nicely together for several reasons and so the earn rate for Qantas SC's and miles when flying Qatar is the absolute minimum that OneWorld will allow Qantas to offer - the earns on Emirates are much better.

I will have a look at the IATA rules tomorrow, but if it said on the ticket that there was a different allowance on the return leg then...

All seems a bit odd. Were the return legs booked on the same PNR as the outbound legs to Male?

If anyone in Australia is interested in this two-piece option, I have tracked some down in Australia - https://travellershome.com.au/product/granite-gear-2pc-wheeled-duffle-backpack-set-70l-red/ - only the red available right at the moment, but black and midnight blue will be in stock again at the end of October or early November. Heaps of padded dividers, etc etc on Aliexpress so will fit out the main compartment with those and store the camera gear in there, 17" laptop plus loose stuff etc in the zip off small backpack.

Came across an interesting option today - its basically a soft roller with a thinner backpack that attaches to it - but you can connect the two together and use it as a backpack if the ground doesn't suit a roller. You will need to add a divider set into it like @bvanant did. Unfortunately Granite Gear don't make this model any more☹️ but ebay or Craigslist might find you one, or you might find one available on Temu or Aliexpress as the Chinese factories often sell old designs that they used to make for big name brands. The main section is 20cm deep so perfect for most UW photo gear. https://www.granitegear.com/cross-trek-2-22-carry-on-wheeled-upright-with-removable-pack.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1WXgeVNmZU

This appeared in one of my feeds today - might be useful - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006280445673.html

Hoping that we might be able to compile a list of 3rd Party Full Frame wide and macro lenses for mirrorless cameras that are suitable for underwater photography. In another thread @Phil Rudin mentioned the Laowa 12mm F2.8 Lite Zero-D FF rectilinier lens - available for Sony E & Nikon Z in AF, and Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF and L Mount as MF - US$699 for all versions - usable behind a 180mm port. Once we get a few sugegstions up here I will start a spreadsheet.

Weird - I've never had my carry-on weighed by Emirates despite many trips from Australia to Egypt on them. Years ago I had a photographers vest made that had pockets on the front for lenses etc, and a sleeve on the back for a 17 inch laptop, but I have misplaced it somewhere.

I've tried Firefox too - same result! I just tried what you suggested with the page zoom level - still no joy! If someone could please use the Snipping Tool or something similar and send them to me I would be grateful, the graphs that I am missing are - - Guide Numbers - Weights - Power Levels - Flash Duration Edit - I have now been able to get the full screen version of the Guide Numbers to display by reducing Page Zoom to 80%, but the others won't display even with Page Zoom set to 50%... The others all appear as expected with Page Zoom at 100%

So probably not just a Windows problem then. I'm going to email Backscatter and see if they can send me a pdf - if so I will send a copy to you.

Just tried an Incognito browser tab - same problem unfortunately Just tried the same combination - still no joy! I might contact Backscatter.

17" laptop - have tried Chrome and Microsoft Edge - same on both.

Is anyone else having trouble getting some of the bar graphs in the article to display? For me some of them just don't display as I scroll down and leave a large white space, and I get a blank white page when I click on the "Full Screen" buttons. If anyone is able to turn the article into a pdf and send it to me I would be grateful!

@Phil Rudin - the recent Backscatter strobe tests reported that the Apollo III 2.0's output was significantly less when tested compared to the Marilux claim of GN44 - has Marilux made any comment about this?

I wasn't aware of this thread until now! Copper mine shares went up another 11.5 cents today so not long now...

Please let us know the minimum and maximum focus distances once they become known.