Floris Bennema

Just a very practical answer. I love the 0 to 5 star system in Lightroom. After a trip I remove the worst shots and then give the images the amount of stars I think they reserve. Mostly I'll only process the images that got 2 stars or more. Now it's easy to pick out a selection to show others, depending of the trip I'll show the 3+ or 4+ images. Once ready it's also easy to decide which images a suitable for my website or social media. The star-value of a selected image can be changed by just typing in a number. The great advantage is that is so flexible. Often I change the amount of stars an image gets in hindsight, sometimes years laster. Selecting the best images from multiple trips at once is easy as well. For instance, now I see that overall I have 47 5-stars and from my Asian trips 22, presenting them is just two clicks away. No, believe it or not, I am not sponsored by Adbode 🙂

Just found your question 🙂. I have an original Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 50mm on my Olympus 5III. I use it with a MEKE 10mm Expansion Tube Ring and an Exacta–m4/3 mount, the combintion extends nearly 7 cm from the body. At f/8 it focusses from 18 to 30 cm off the top of the lens, depending of the position of the focus ring . The DOF is shallow then, just some cm's. Although I created a zoomring for my Naticam , I did not use it under water yet. Here's an example above water. Although it will be a bit of chalenge to focus underwater, I think it can be nice addition.

If yo pull your strobes back the light spreads out earlier relatively to the camera. Reducing the dark areas effect of slightly angling out.

If you angle the strobes out so that only two particles are lit in the second case, the 'dark areas' will have the same size as in the first case. The benefit of the pull back is nicely explained in Seewolf's "Getankenexperiment"

I always leave it to auto. According to ChrisH explanation that does the trick.

Seemingly it's hard to say "Yes, you are right".

I fully agree on trying to get the best colors out of the camera. I learned from AM in a REBOOT course that 5500 K result in the nicest greens in less transparant waters, while 4400K result in the best blues. So now I use my Z-330 strobes with or without 'SOFT' diffusers in green waters and use the 4600 K diffusers in blue waters. With pleasing results.

Not that there are many, but from which region? A photo uplad could help too.

For the rest of us there are web versions. East Pacific https://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/sftep/en/pages Caribbean https://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/caribbean/en/pages

At the beginning of this year I dived in the spectacular waters around Misool. It was a great opportunity to forget about my usual macro photography and go for wide angle. Although sea life was at its best, the relatively strong currents made it difficult to take shots with much control. In addition, it usually was quite dark under water, as our divemaster mostly took us to 15 to 20 meter depth and the water at times was full of plankton. Here my idea of ‘colour blindness' came in, the surprise you get when the strobes light up the scene. The dark blue reefs, of which our travel friendly torches just lighted some pieces, were full of colour. I did not fully realise it looking at my shots in the viewfinder, but got a pleasant surprise afterwards. Videographers with their permanent lights won’t have this WYSINWYG handicap. Photographers that know the species at their dive site, or only shoot macro, also not. However, especially when it comes to gorgonians and sponges at depth, we often cannot predict the outcome. In wide angle photography this phenomenon prevents the use of colours in our compositions (unless you spend much time on one site) . For me it isn’t a great handicap, I like the surprise. Now I wonder, are there many underwater-photographers that pay attention to colour combinations? The first shot revealed an unexpected variety of colours. Taking this shot I knew what I would get, the species are well known.

This video just came out

Rather intimidating to post after these great images, but as this is about personal favourites, I'll add mine. This year was not very successful for me, after we arrived at the Red Sea, I dived into an Egyptian hospital bed with appendicitis. Back at home the viz was bad. Fortunately at the last dive the water was clear enough for a smooth green background. Nice to combine with the soft pastel colours we often see in northern waters. Olympus E-M5 iii with a Panasonic 45mm. Two INON 330-2 flashes. 1/160 @ f/13.

Bit confused by the sentence. I referred to Inon Z-330. With Dome Soft filter 5400 K; 4800K and 4600 K filters available too.

I used one strobe for some time and had difficulty to avoid strong shadows. The subtility of Rembrandt lighting is that in addition to the direct light on one side, he used reflection of light at the other side. Possibly you could Imitate that with strobe light on one side and natural light on the other. But that would complicate your freediving photography even more.

Yeah, not that high, 5500K according to specs.

I use hard type multifocal lenses in a normal mask for many years now. For me it's perfect, but some people can't use these lenses because their eyes are too dry.

I saw your Roatan film and liked it a lot. Those funny sounds me smile. Top.

Hi, I photograph quite a long time now. For many years with compact cameras, now with an Olympus 5 M3 in a Nauticam house and two Inon 330 II strobes. After a lot of macro hoping to improve my wide angle when waters allow. Dives in the Netherlands and a lot of other places.