CCRphoto

If you are in the UK then it is well worth talking to Easy Composites - their knowledge and customer service is absolutely top notch.

We coated it in an epoxy coating and it was incredibly durable - we beat the absolute crap out of the ROV's doing inspection work that would have had ROV lovers screaming - e.g. running a ROV at full speed down a partly flooded culvert so that it had enough speed to launch itself over the gravel bar part way through and keep going with the inspection - and then get dragged backwards by its tether back over the gravel bar to get it back out - and the foam was never dented - from memory it was a two part swimming pool epoxy that we coated the foam in - it was just what we had lying around.

In my previous life I have used the buoyancy foam from Blue Robotics when making ROV's neutral and it works quite well, but fishing floats will be a lot cheaper if you can get them! https://bluerobotics.com/product-category/watertight-enclosures/buoyancy/ Is there any real advantage to foam floats compared to using buoyancy arms?

I will see what I can find later tonight.

I came across their high-powered strobe late last night - it certainly looks very interesting and a real possibility for the sort of performance that I want.

Cheers Chris, that will make my life easier!

Ability to watch movies would be a plus when doing my archaeological dives - over 2 hours of deco!

OK it might be worth a try then. Hopefully 12degC water won't affect the battery life too much.

Unless there is one hidden somewhere on here already then I will create a list/table of strobes that are currently available. I will probably do it as an Excel spreadsheet seeing as I'm an Excel nerd and it will be easy to update. I've been out of the loop for a long time so please add to this list of manufacturers - - Inon - Supe/Fotocore - Sea&Sea - Retra - - - ...and please add to this list what you would like in the table - - flashes on full power - guide number - focusing light Y/N - TTL compatible - - -

OK Cheers! My only concern with the Weefine is battery life so I will do some more research on that.

Very nicely done!

BTW have any new monitors been released that aren't on the table? Based on the table specs I am considering either the Fotocore MR5.5 or the MR6. The main difference apart from the slight size difference is that the MR5.5 comes with a heap of buttons on the monitor - any opinions as to whether the buttons on the monitor are a help or just something extra to fail?

I bet - I might have to get you to give me a guided tour sometime!😄

As someone who is an officer in the fire service and is also marine firefighter qualified I can confidently say that most liveaboards I've seen have a lot of highly combustible furnishings etc in them. A liveaboard with a steel hull and superstructure is slightly better than some other construction types, but as a rough guess I would say that if a fire on a liveaboard isn't extinguished in the first 60 seconds then it will be beyond the capabilities of the crew and firefighting equipment onboard to extinguish.

You certainly live in a good location to obtain all sorts of underwater photography bits and pieces!

Back 30 years ago there wasn't a lot of doodads or doohickeys around! I remember how excited I was when Sea&Sea released the little bracket for MMII that you could mount extra lenses onto that attached to an arm!

Many thanks - will check them out!

If using an oddball wide angle lens that doesn't appear in the Nauticam tables, is there a method to work out where the dome port should sit in relation to the front of the lens? (to enable me to work out what extension rings I should fit?). Hopefully there is a method that gets at least close so as I don't have to do too much trial and error!

Many thanks for this great thread - it is very helpful, hopefully you will get the chance to update the tables sometime too.

Many thanks - I will check that thread out! The Weefine sounds like it will work fine!

I normally dive on a rebreather, and now that I am getting back into underwater photography I'm looking for a monitor that has a really long battery life to add to the Nauticam housing that I recently picked up secondhand so as the monitor will last as long as the rebreather. What are the options for monitors that last longer than 2 hours? And what else do I need to know about monitors when selecting one? Are there any articles or dummies guides to selecting a monitor?

Just starting to get back into U/W photo after a 30 year break - seems like everyone needs a lot more cables and doodads and doohickeys now!