Klaus

I normally only look at the Waterpixels site on my computer screen, because of the nice images. But I just realized that the Triptychs are very "vertical" and indeed better to display on a smartphone screen (or a rotated IPad).

Are you also grounded home after the summer, no upcoming dives and procrastinating on your hard-drive? Here’s a project that could be fun. Do you remember the picture frames sold by a Swedish furniture store that allowed you to combine three prints into one piece of art? Let’s rummage on our computers and see what assemblies we can create on the Waterpixels site! Part of the fun is that we have to cheat around the file size limitations (if they are still enforced), i.e. we need to tile our artwork (1200 pixels long side), hence I call this the “Triptych Challenge”. I am pasting three images on directly adjacent lines and in my browser that seems to kind of work. Hint: It's easiest to do this top-down. Three horizontal images combined into a vertical Triptych probably work best, but who knows what one can achieve with the web editor. As for the selection – no restrictions. Tell a story, combine different colors, go from tiny to reefscape or just blend your favorites. Let’s see what you have on your drives! Here's one to start it off: And maybe another one for creative incentive: All right, take it away!

My inquiry last year did not yield any informed responses, so we set out to explore Cabo Verde and fill that white spot with our experience. In short: The trip was very rewarding, but we needed to remain flexible with our plans due to unreliable inter-island flights. The country’s soccer team is now qualified for the 2026 Soccer World Championship and the slogan on their shirts is “Cabo Verde – no stress”. I could not have imagined anything more appropriate – for their hospitality, the atmosphere and the concept if something doesn’t happen today, then perhaps it will tomorrow. In the meantime just enjoy some vitamin C(aipirinha) mixed with the excellent local Grogue. There is no working decompression chamber on any of the islands, so if you develop DCS you need to be flown to the Canarias (1 hour plus transfer). Even for this medical treatment you need a valid passport or visa for entry into the EU, which is not the case for the local dive guides. Thus, be mindful when diving with them as they may not have the possibility to get ANY hyperbaric treatment. Communication works well in English but when we offered our options, French was regularly preferred. We travelled in late August / early September, which is during the “rainy” season, a bit more humidity in the air but not too unpleasant. Touristically this is rather off-season, but most importantly: It’s turtle nesting season! We started our trip on the island of Sal. This should have been just a one-night stopover before flying to Mindelo, but we changed this because Erin (the storm!) had devastated the island of Sao Vicente shortly before. Thus we decided to stay for one week on Sal in Santa Maria. There are a number of dive clubs and it seems they all provide good service & dive more or less the same sites. The reefs are mostly volcanic rocks placed in sand and currents are not uncommon. Thus, the beautiful sand is not just on the beach but also quite a bit in the water column and causing backscatter; visibility was 15 m or so. I used a moderate wide-angle setup here (M43 with Olympus 14-42 zoom and Inon UWL-H100) and found this to be a good compromise to “peer” into the rather narrow spaces between rocks and sand. A wider angle of view might have been even better. We saw large schools of fish, lots of moray eels, lobsterscrabs and several of these guys (locus lobsters in English, I believe): Some nudibranchs were also part of the dive: The corals grow mostly flat and are covering the rocks on their surfaces, we also saw some fire corals timidly emerging from the surface. There are two wrecks (both intentionally scuttled, I believe), one sat at about 25-30m, the other shallower at 14-17 m and this one literally filled with schools of pufferfish. The dive centers are all closed on Sundays (except maybe Scuba Caribe, associated with the Riu resorts). To pass the time, we embarked on a guided trip to see the island - Sal is famous for its beaches and I can’t add anything to that after the trip. We did not see any turtles during the dives, almost surprising given how abundant they are around the island during the nesting season. But we encountered them every day: After the double-tank dives in the morning, we relaxed a bit and then went snorkelling at the pier in Santa Maria (“downtown” area with a beautiful beach). The turtles seem to like that spot and between the anchored boats we encountered them every day. (frame extracted from an action-cam video) You can also pay for a boat-ride and guided turtle-snorkeling, but that’s certainly not necessary and several times we saw that the commercial boats brought their clients in the very same place. The pier is where the local fish market is, the catch is cleaned and this goes back into the sea. You may thus see some fish heads on the bottom, if the big stingray hasn’t taken care of them yet. From Sal we took a flight to Praia on Santiago Island, this was the only flight that worked as planned (only 90 min. delayed). Cabo Verde, no stress. Praia is a real city and worth visiting for a day; we then wanted to continue to the island of Fogo, climb the volcano, lug a fisheye up there and image all the beauty of the world at once. But the plane broke down, our flight was cancelled just as we wanted to check our luggage, we were transferred to a hotel, re-scheduled for the next day yet the flight was cancelled again. Because the plane didn’t fly and the ferry was booked out, we had to abandon Fogo and this was a huge disappointment. Cabo Verde, no stress. So, guess what: We went diving instead, this time in Tarrafal in the north of Santiago Island. The dive center is on a small bay in the rocky coast, the dive sites are thus along vertical walls that drop to about 18 m, then continue as a slope with rocks to greater depth. I used a macro-setup here, for me that means simply swapping the Inon wetlens with a +5 diopter on a flip-mount. We saw a good number of nudibranchs, my first frog fish (adorably static creature for a clumsy photographer!), yellow soft corals, moray eels, and spider crabs. The usual crowd for this habitat I suppose. Shore entry is good and after a check-dive we could go as a buddy-team on our own (thus I had my personal and excellent critter-spotter with me). Two smaller turtles were hanging out in and around the small bay, we saw them both while snorkelling and while diving in the bay. From Santiago we needed to hop over to Boa Vista Island, do some more diving and also to catch our return flight home. This time we were already waiting at the gate when the plane broke down, so pick up the luggage, go back to a hotel and no information except that the flight for the next day ways fully booked. Time went by and we were getting a bit nervous, then out of nowhere a very early flight option appeared. This worked out (60 minutes late) and, two days later than planned, we arrived on Boa Vista and were amazed by its incredible sandy beaches. All’s well that ends well - Cabo Verde, no stress. Diving was accordingly shortened on Boa Vista, but we did go for one double-tank dive. Despite the limited experience I think that the dives are comparable to Sal. I tried my fisheye here since it didn’t get any use on the top of the volcano... A good choice, since macro-subjects were not so abundant on the sites we visited. This mooray was probably wondering why someone shows up with a manual focus fisheye lens... The starfish is another creature that can't move fast enough to avoid my clicks. Catchupa, to local stew, is made with corn, beans and FISH if you want. The town of Sal Rei is located on a shallow inlet protected by an island – corals are abundant but not spectacular because they “only” cover the rocks or grow to small structures. We did not find this particularly interesting for snorkelling. THE thing to do on Boa Vista at during nesting season, however, is clearly to book a trip during the night with one of the turtle conversation societies and see a loggerhead turtle dig its nest, lay the eggs, cover them up and return to the sea. It’s a delicate balance between preserving nature and exposing it for tourism as a way to raise funds for the conservation. Our experience was well organized and the limits of how many guests can come along are reasonable. And it is only about one hour (=time on the beach) once per night. That nightly visit also provides a reason to keep the beach protected, rather than build another resort. The nesting turtle population seems healthy and expanding, let’s hope it will stay that way. To sum it up: This was definitely a very worthwhile destination. If you only want to dive and click, staying for one week in one of the big hotels on Sal or Boa Vista is a good plan. You won’t discover much of the local culture and hospitality (all this is embraced by the word “Morabeza” in Cape Verdean Creole) but things will be reliable. If you can spare some extra days, it pays to at least hop over to one of the other islands that offer more than just beaches. I’ll add some non-diving impressions below. OK, one has to say that the beaches on Boa Vista are definitely something. But we also witnessed a true downpour, something that doesn' happen very frequently there. Praia on Santiago offers some nice restaurants ... ... and one the weekends live music is frequent. Some grand vistas can be explored when hiking (Rui Vaz on Santiago). You don't necessarily have to dive to see fish. Tarrafal on Santiago has an amazing beach, where that vitamin C(aipirinha) can be enjoyed as well. Local fishermen bring their catch up shore right there... ... and if you want to cook it, you can get a piece on the next street corner. It felt weird at times to enjoy so much luxury and leisure while the local population cannot afford most of that. But we always felt as safe as at home and I did get the point in the end: The one thing that's free for everyone of us is a smile. Morabeza! If you are intersted, hop on a plane and check it out!

I am not familiar with the Nauticam ports, but if you get a small dome that has very little extension to begin with, you could try out a real fisheye quite cheaply with the Samyang/Rokinon/... manual focus 7.5 mm lens. These are usually not expensive on the used market and after calibrating it a bit, it can be used as a fix focus lens under water. Mine can cover things from a few cm away from the glass to "infinity" quite well at f 11. I use it with a ~ 10 cm dome in a polycarbonate Olympus Pen housing. That is a really light and very compact combination, both in and out of the water. Nauticam may be a bit heavier on the housing side but the port should be quite similar. If you like it, you can later sell the MF Samyang and get a used Lumix 8mm AF lens (also not too expensive second hand). They work with the same port configuration. Alternatively the adapted Tokina 10-17 is more flexible and apparently works with the same ~10 cm / 4 inch ports. There is a different brand Speedbooster alternative available (can't remember the name) and you can perhaps pick up one of those second hand for not too much money. The Samyang could be an entry point for this as well, you only need some extension. But they all require that one dome port. Fisheye-shooting is fun!

A thing to consider for stills is to shoot in raw (probably does so already) and use AI-based noise reduction and sharpening features afterwards. I think this works really well on the 16 MP images from my EPL-5 (m43) and it makes a HUGE difference for the topside pictures from my Olympus XZ10, which may be comparable to a TG6. I use on-1 photo raw, which has a very peculiar user interface but they also offer a photoshop plugin. It‘s free to test, ideal on a rainy weekend, and cheap to buy if she likes it. I posted some suggested settings to try for a start on this site but all of the available tools are likely giving an „upped“ result compared to the camera-jpeg. Combine this with Ben’s addition on a GoPro to the rig and that could give a flexible & somewhat redundant solution. Apart from that I always notice a massive improvement in image quality and life quality as well when I travel to a place with lots of sun and clear water. Sigh….

It would be nice if one could BUY the firmware update at least for the previous models. But there may be 1 million little hardware changes that we don‘t know about and that make it impossible. Or the profit margin is so much better when selling a new camera? It might end in a subscription trap like Adobe…

Toslink cables can be bent after heating them a bit. The bend then « sticks » when they cool in that position. I made a curled cable by winding it around a wooden cooking spoon and placing that in the oven at 50 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, then switching the oven off and letting it cool down. (The lady was out of town on that day.) It works nicely though I find that « real » connectors stick more reliably in my housing’s connectors. I also use the Olympus mini-flash, so lots of light and manual mode only - TTL via an LED trigger may be a very different story.

The image quality of the kit zooms can be improved substantially by software nowadays. I am using on1 for this - not just to get rid of noise, but also to improve sharpness and contrast. For micro43 and compact cameras I think it works like a miracle to „improve“ the optics and you can get nice pics for much less (money and Travel weight) than buying the pro-style lenses. It certainly is a question of personal preference but you can give it a try with your pics from the Nex or your DSLR. They have a free 30 day trial. Here‘s a kind of report I posted about it to get you started:

It seems that adapting the Tokina 10-17 mm Fisheye zoom from Canon aps-C to m43 is an interesting option. Depending on the adapter (0.7x vs. 1x) you get a full fisheye or a slightly „teleconverted“ version on the M43. I am not sure whether this fits well into the AOI housing, you may need to work on the adapter mechanically because it has a tripod mount. If you search on this site, I think @Chris Ross has a nice description for this setup. Other than that, the AOI housings likely pair really well with the Panasonic fisheye for a very compact system. I use a cheap-version of this with the manual focus fisheye from Samyang/Rokinon etc. This is a good „entry drug“ for fisheye but I‘d recommend spending a bit of extra money for a used Panny Fisheye. Mostly because then you can also control the F-stop during the dive. Dome etc. is the same, but you need to zoom with the fins. And convince the fish to stay in place, which I find difficult at times.

Money… is also needed for all the rest of the experience like travel, dive centers, guides, tips etc. No UW photographer is poor, but this is only for the really rich ones. If you can - enjoy! Personally I will rather go for what @Chris Ross once called « buying better water » .

Don‘t hold back. This forum is for sharing images, no? I‘d certainly like to see more.

The computing issue can be solved by either money or patience, if you don‘t need to be quick on social media. I have not had much luck with recovering images from the bin, but I like using this to „forgive“ slight optical imperfections from kit lenses etc.

In this post I want to share some experience with photo processing using ON1 NoNoise / Photo Raw 2024 (still the current version of the AI tools). There are now many programs out there with AI de-noising, sharpening and more capabilities and they likely all do a good job. ON1 allows quite flexible tuning of their algorithm and for my images the default settings are NOT what gives me best results. This may be comparable in other programs – so here it comes. My personal “sweet spot” is to use both, NoNoise and TackSharp. For NoNoise, I set luminance to 65%, detail to 23% and color to 50%. Tack sharp is very aggressive and I only add it in to give a small “touch-up” at 15%. There is another slider called “microsharpen” and I tend to leave that at the default of 100. Like this: If the contrast is too crisp, I reduce the microsharpen value (to 50 or even 30). If I am disturbed by AI artifacts I first reduce the TackSharp to 10% and then if necessary the detail to 15 or 20%. Usually that is enough. I use either an Olympus E-PL5 or an EM-5 (the first model). Both cameras have the same sensor, so the IQ is the same. And they certainly benefit from modern processing software. Examples, of course! I start out with above-water pictures because I vary the ISO more than under water. But water is close (lens was a Lumix 12-32 kit zoom, the tiny one). First, an outside picture at base ISO of 200 (full image is AI-processed): And a 100% crop without any de-noising applied (so essentially raw but with adjustments of contrast, vibrance etc.) Here is the crop with the AI-settings applied: I like the detail in the shadow below the deck that is much better here; some artifacts are visible, but not too bad. And now an image of the steam engine inside the boat, this was taken at ISO 6400 (full image is AI-processed): Here’s a 100% crop with no noise reduction applied. Not bad at all, I think – considering it is a 13 year-old camera model. I use ON1 PhotoRaw and this also offers a “classic” de-noising option so I can compare NR options while everything else is the same. Probably comparable to other programs and I applied this with caution at something like 25% luminance, 50% detail, 100% color and 50% detail in that. Slightly better, but if you go stronger luminance values it wrecks all the detail. Now here is the crop with the AI settings applied: Not magic – but better still. There is a bit of luminance noise left, but for my purposes this result is perfectly sufficient. What I like about this algorithm is the “elasticity” – both images were AI-processed with the exact same settings and they both (and many more) turn out nice. The program defaults are way too aggressive, though. As mentioned before these settings are my “sweet-spot” and I now routinely apply this to essentially all images (but read the very end of the post). Does this turn my classic cameras into a current Sony full-frame model with a Zeiss Batis lens? Certainly not. But this is better than the out-of-camera jpg (which I am not showing because contrast ect. is different). And it of course does not change the autofocus-performance of my old cameras - just forget about using TackSharp to recover an image that is clearly out-of-focus. That’s a myth. Now what about under water? This is a grouper in Madeira, shot with the E-PL5 and the 14-42 kit lens behind a flat port and an Inon UWL-H100 wetlens (no dome) at ISO 200; some sand was in the water and I used strobes, so lots of backscatter (full image is AI-processed): A 100% crop of the cheek with no noise reduction applied: Here is the “classic” NR version (though it really doesn't need any NR): And here comes the version with AI applied (my settings): Some detail on the grouper skin is probably AI fantasy, but if I really turn up the contrast on the original I can see the larger wrinkles. The grains of sand were real, too. Artifact or not – once I stop pixel-peeing, it looks really natural and I don’t have the actual grouper to compare with. But I do think that ON1 was trained in part on pics of leather sofas. This is the eye with no NR: With classic NR: And with the AI settings: Pick your preference… I am also cropping a region with backscatter for obvious reasons. For this, I am comparing the mild “classic” noise reduction: And the AI version: I read they trained the model to be well-suited for starry skies, and this can be seen. Backscatter is more focused and more intense – which is, after all, what I am asking for with my settings. In this picture, the backscatter has to be removed by other means anyways; I ended up using a blur and masking out the grouper. Whether it is easier to do this before or after applying the AI de-noising I honestly cannot tell, it probably depends on the strategy and tools employed. Is there any other downside to this? Yes, and that is processing time. I do not have a powerful computer (a 5-year-old laptop with an i5 processor and its built-in graphics only). Processing a 16 MPx raw image with these settings takes literally 15 minutes. To make things worse, ON1 PhotoRaw will go through a new calculation every time you re-open the image for processing (I hope the Photoshop-plugin is different). Thus, with the settings in place, it takes me 15 minutes to open an image. No kidding. That’s why I don’t apply these settings until the very end. Rather, I open images without any NR, adjust whatever I need (contrast, white balance, remove blemishes etc.) and with highlights and shadows I leave a tiny amount to room because the AI procedure increases contrast a bit – thus I avoid clipping. When I am all done with the images in e.g. one folder, I navigate to a different source image, copy out the NR sweet-spot settings, go back to the current folder, select all images, paste in only the NR settings, select to export all images as high-quality jpg to a subfolder and then go to bed. Depending on how fruitful the trip was, I might even go to bed twice before it’s done. This is why the “elasticity” of the algorithm is so important & useful. If you want to try it out – they offer a free 30-day trial with no restrictions, I believe. There are standalone packages and a photoshop plugin. I have no affiliation whatsoever with the company and I am sure other tools can give comparable results. Just make sure you venture beyond the default settings.

Getting distracted is not a privilege of photographers and videographers. I stirred up a lot of sludge in the local quarries. In my opinion it may be more the mind-set of collecting images in/for public, i.e instagramming, that increases carelessness above and below the water. Banning does not work well on dry-land hot-spots either. If I had a better idea, though, I‘d make it known in a second. Alas…

From a clear non-expert perspective: it is often recommended to leave the gear „open“ during air travel, presumably because the reverse pressure during flight may dislodge O-rings (?). Is this similar to surfacing at the end of the dive and then diving gain, or is the „travel-without-Oring“ advice overly cautious? This has probably filled megabytes of forum threads already, so feel free to pm and enlight me.

First of all, congratulations to both of you for the growing family! I would prioritize peace of mind here as well. Talk to the doctors, but above all listen to your wife‘s feelings. If she can be happy, so will you - and vice-versa. In fact, that one continues well beyond pregnancy. No matter where you go this year, you will certainly cherish the memories of that trip once the little one is born. Things change a lot then, it‘s fantastic but very different. So prioritize the calmness rather than the shooting subjects - soon you‘ll be taking different pics and enjoy it very much ;-)

I got seawater into an old Sea&sea strobe once - never touched any of those Orings before. It was after a few dives, sort of half-way during the vacation. I think the Orings that sealed the strobe itself were simply showing their age. (For an HF1 that is simply impossible at this point, though- too recent.) But when I finally did take it apart, I couldn‘t find any obvious source of the leak. For the record: The batteries had stayed dry, since the compartment is sealed…

We do need that Waterpixels-branded fishing vest in the online store, don’t we? 😉

Totally agreed. There is a need for packable, light and sufficiently powered strobes for those who travel with maybe a pair of hiking boots or things like that in addition to the UW photography gear. Sure, 4x AA won‘t recycle very fast, but the longest recycling time is for the strobe that had to stay at home 😉 And for everyone else there‘s other brands that offer long-life Lithium-powered light sabers. It‘s good if we can still choose which compromises we want to make. And as far as I can tell the new Inon does not even „need“ to be stronger since the Z330 is not available any more? So there may be some ambitious marketing claims, but even if it is a down-to-earth Z330 remake it will have its niche in the reef.

From what I know of HSS in dry-land you will always want the maximum output - or more still. Turning it down may be technically feasible (Marelux?) but rarely useful. Back to the original question - backscatter: Since we agree that HSSis essentially the same as using an LED torch, does anyone have comparative experience between strobe and LED-light for the white thingies?

Let‘s not get worked up on this too much - those who are fully satisfied with their strobe might not even read this thread. On the other hand, is it possible for a UW photographer to be fully satisfied with ANY strobe? There are some fundamental laws, and one of them says that energy can only be transformed but not created. And another one says (more or less) that all energy transformations are associated with losses. So current to light and heat as loss. Inon makes a clear statement in the instructions that you should not fire flashes at full power repeatedly. Sea&Sea did not, but the D2 earned a reputation. I guess that there may be some differences between the brands, but 4x vs. 8x AA is DOUBLE. They simply cannot be that ignorant at Retra. It would require the very first generation of „auto“ strobe circuits, which just dumped the rest of the charge after switching off the tube. This was before 1970 or so. Can we get back to the Ionon Z-XXX that at least some of us find interesting? Any pictures that we LIT by one or two of those?