Tom Kline

Thank you Jim, glad you found it useful. To your question: About a decade ago a visiting Swiss photographer used a wireless remote control by placing the device in a floating small sized Pelican case that was wired to his housing using a cable similar to what I use. You might be able to build something like this yourself. Another solution, which I have used, is to trigger an underwater camera using a built-intervalometer. None of my Canon 1D type cameras had this so it was not an option for many of my shots (I have used four different 1Ds). First use was with a Nikon D3X. Its limitation was a maximum of 999 intervals which is not many shots when it comes to salmon. I selected 3 shots per interval but this was more of a band-aid solution. More recently I have used the intervalometer in my Nikon D4S which allows 9999 intervals so is far more useful. As well the intervalometer works well in conjunction with a remote cable, for example, I used the intervalometer to take a shot every 15 seconds as a back-up in case I was away from the release stick or the release stick ceased to work (this has happened). Most shots were done with a cable. I remember this shoot because I drained the battery in the D4S with the very last shot (of over 10K) showing actual spawning. Needless to say a lot of files had to be culled. Intervalometer shooting is also useful for angles where one cannot be close enough to observe such as on the far side of a stream relative to a primary housing. Also one has available the full use of two hands to move a polecam rig while the camera keeps on shooting. This was how I managed to get multiple perspectives when shooting the underwater shots for this gallery: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Family-ties You can see in the topside shot included in the galley that I was on the ground right next to the stream and the camera pole was aimed towards my left side (can only see one of red sneakers I was wearing over my waders in the pic). As well, this particular housing has just two bulkhead holes, one for the flash synch and the outer for a “remora” (a common name for remoras is shark sucker but mine is a housing sucker!), so I was compelled to use the intervalometer.

I have been using 8-cell Power-X chargers for many years. My 4th copy is black whereas the 3 older are grey. I am looking at the tiny label on the bottom of the black one now - It has MH-C801D in the name but no mention of smart. Mine all came with AC adapters for US current that connect with a DIN type plug. The only issue I have had is that segments of the LCD display seem to fail after a while (years). This happened to one unit of my first two bought (close to 2 decades ago) so bought #3 and more recently #4. The now 2 units with a semi-functional LCD still charge but hard to tell with missing segments. It is a good idea to have 2 of any type of charger so one can swap them out or have two to charge more batts (16 at a time is minimal for Retras). A possible issue on boats is unreliable electricity. This was a problem on a research vessel I have been on. So all computers were plugged into UPS units. On one cruise it was reported that one UPS unit caught fire as a result of the ship's poor power (a 1960s vintage vessel) on the previous cruise. I would not be surprised if the longevity of power adapters is much less when used on boats. Possibly with portable generators as well.

Remote control has been a core technique for my UWP of salmon for over two decades. There are many pix showing set-ups on my web site at: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/n-mnzBPB They are in chronological order with newer ones first. They show Seacam housings most of which are set up to use the Seacam remote control. https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/n-mnzBPB/i-ChFJBmw/A shows a set-up placed on the ground. In this pic you can see the bulkhead near the bottom of the housing where the remote is plugged in as well as the remote control “stick” at the other end of a 10-meter long cable, my standard length for remote control. The button on this stick works just like the shutter release button on a camera body (at least for Canon and Nikon, the brands I have used). A light touch on the release button wakes up the camera (if the camera is asleep) and turns on the autofocus (AF). A further push triggers the camera. As the AF technology has improved over the previous two decades I have had to adjust the timing between the first touch and the triggering to allow the camera to focus. I often took a full second way back when, following advice given by Chuck Westfall, the late Canon tech rep, on the net. Here is one example: https://digitaljournalist.org/issue0506/tech-tips.html This is not the one I recall reading which may have been on DPR or Photo.net. Regardless, it is important to finesse the AF system a bit especially if one is using a more computational type of AF such as auto-area which is what I use with Canon. Nikon came out with a similar mode starting with the D4 generation. The many shots on my website suggests this works. There are other makes of remote control besides Seacam. I have used the Aquatica remote with the Nikon D1x which I installed by disconnecting one of the N5 bulkheads from the hotshoe fitting and installing a cord with a fitting for the Nikon 10-pin socket on the camera. The Aquatica remote uses Ikelite cords that connect with the N5 bulkhead as opposed to the S6 bulkhead used by Seacam. The Aquatica release does not separate the wake-up-AF-on and the trigger functions; it is just a simple switch so I connected two of the three wires on the inside of the housing (that goes to the camera) and only used AF priority. Nonetheless the first shot in a series was typically OOF when using the Aquatica release. It might be better for video but I have zero experience with that. Reef also makes a release. See: https://reefphoto.com/products/zen_remote_release_handle. It is a bit cheaper than the Seacam and uses Ikelite cords. I have not only not used it I not even seen one in person. Hopefully someone will provide you with some info on this. The Nikonos RS had a remote control as well. I modified mine to work with the D1X because I could separate AF-on from triggering. The RS release is a piece of junk compared to the Seacam one. I will leave it at that. Cheers! Tom

Done. The button label looks like a cartoon call-out. BTW, before seeing this I did not know you are responsible for the new vid show, thought it might be Matt's!

A serious blast from the past! An actual table of contents for an internet thing!!! Nota bene, a table of contents is something one typically found near the beginning of books. Claude, however, is far from perfect. See the Seacam entries at https://wetpixel.echeng.com/companies/seacam/. "Both (viewfinders) were available for all Seacam housings..." The Seacam Silver housing for the NIkon F5 was offered in versions that did not take the interchangeable finders but instead had a flat window for use with an F5 with an Action-finder attached (DA-something, I know because I have one). As well, the remote system started a few years earlier before it was shown at DEMA (2007 as reported in the Wiki) because I was able to order my D2X housing (late 2004 or early 2005) with it installed (ordered retroactively during the 9-month wait it took). I seem to recall the remote was announced alongside the Seacam housing for one of the Canon 1D cameras (either 2 or 3 series). When I saw that on Wetpixel I called Liz at SeacamUSA and asked about adding it to my housing as well as the big question for me: Would it be able to be used with longer cables than the lousy 1.5 meters of the RS remote control (which I had at the time). The answer was yes and has been at the core of my digital UWP.

After making the above post I saw that there was a big error in my hiearchy which I have just fixed. Fishes was in the wrong place. It was an easy fix.

A hierarchy is useful for doing the whole taxonomic nine yards. Here is an example from my LR catalog. I only have to type in pi, the first two letters in pink, and LR often gives me pink salmon as the first choice. Select that and all the higher bits are automatically added on LR export such as when generating jpegs. Note that I have over 91K pix of just that species but the number above is smaller. It is possible to equalize the numbers but it is time consuming so I have not done it for a while. As well you will note the mixture of English and scientific names. This is so the English names for higher taxonomic groups also get included in the key-wording. The includes some rather obvious words like vertebrate. I have been using LR since version 1.0 so this is a fairly developed KW list. It is VERY easy to modify. Just drag the keyword around in the list. Put it under the KW you want in the hierarchy. I have done a LOT of modification over the years. This includes having to deal with taxonomic revision such as for the mantas a few years ago. Often have to fix spelling errors! Need to do some clean up as well - the fish prey KW needs to be moved or deleted. I use the # symbol as well as all caps to designate a division in the KW list just to keep them more organized. It can selected (via a dialog box) so that this not exported hence it is a non-keyword.

Looks like a potentially useful tool. Looks like I will not be able to use it as I have Intel macs (tower and laptop) and will NOT be updating my pro model anytime soon (very last Intel model). At any rate it looks like you have loaded up on beta testers. I think the way to do the test is to make a "daughter" catalog for one area. I have done this for Hawaii and loaded it onto my laptop for a trip to HI. I was thus able to use existing keywords as well as see what I already have in the way of pix for a given spp etc. as I imported new images. New pix were in a new folder in this catalog. On return home I made a daughter catalog (selecting the new folder) on my laptop which was then imported onto my mothership (tower computer).

I have the adapter Chris mentions. There are several versions. I have used three versions thus far. One of the first two might work for you. It is a bit of a Rube Goldberg with both fiber optics and a cable, one on each side of the adapter that dangles in the middle. I found this to be not rugged enough for my use in Alaska. The third version screws into a Retra starting with the gen 3 models so does away with having to use fiber optics. This is what I am using now. One thing you should know is these adapters are for manual use, no TTL. I suggest that you use a strobe that takes N5 cables. This is the only way you are likely to get TTL flash which was more useful with film than with digital as there is no chimping with film. There are loads on the used market for not very much. The last new model was the Nikon SB105 that was introduced to replace the recalled SB103 so are likely to be not too used. Make sure to have back up synch cords on hand as they do eventually fail.

Looks like it may be an Acropora. Really need a close-up shot showing the ends of an arm. As well it looks like a fairly young colony (small size - few polyps) so may not have developed much of the 3-dimenional aspects of one that is more developed.

Shorting out the triggering contacts should trigger the strobe. This trick can also be used on topside strobes. Some (mostly older and studio) models will generate a significant arc. Make sure to have the strobe power,on for a while to reform the capacitors - 30 minutes should work.

Nice report! A basic tenet of underwater photography is that one needs to minimize the water distance between the camera and the subject. Therefore the angle of view of one’s optics needs to be proportional to the subject size and therefore the focal length inversely proportional. A 200mm focal length macro lens will be great for shooting butterflies topside but mainly useful for tiny subjects under water. Aiming and focusing a 200mm will also be a bit more challenging than shorter focal lengths.

I think it is now more important that ever to sign one's works to "humanify" them. Hence a watermark. This can be forged as well but if there is an authorship question the author can be contacted to verify. It is only a matter of time before AI starts adding imperfections - a speck of backscatter here and there for example. Easy to ID species will be less problematic for AI compared to others. I invite people to look at dichotomous keys to see the types of minutia that may be needed for others. Some require looking inside as well as I recall a fish key I used in a class that showed up during an examination that required knowing the peritoneum color.

Tariffs strike again!

I wrote it live so to speak but I did have to scroll up and down quite a bit to see the prev mssgs super keyboard challenged