eocean-eu

It makes sense to keep the lens cover when you are in the water and wait for a crewman on the boat to give you or get your camera on board. At that moment, it can be easy to damage the glass or port. A neoprene cover like for other nauticam port could be a less bulky solution.

U/W Competition is actually a word that describes different things. Your image can be judged at: - dive shows - online scuba contest - online U/W image competition - film/photo festivals - actual underwater competition/championship where you dive and then immediately submit your work. All of them are vastly different and the criteria to win are different. And since there are no real standard rules for a given category, it also adds some variability in the outcome. I've been modestly doing UW films and a few of them have won in the 4 first categories. I was also part of a national team some years ago at a CMAS underwater championship. I have mixed feelings about all this competition things but yet enjoy doing them. Here is a summary of my thoughts on this: ** The neutral ** - Don't do this for money and don't expect visibility there might boost a career or fame. It might have happened in the past but since bringing U/W is super easy nowadays, standing out of the crowd is getting harder and harder. Most contests and especially festivals do not provide any cash reward. You sometimes get goodies, occasionally a partially paid trip, some free dive somewhere but that's all. - If you want to have pictures properly evaluated, don't submit them to contests part of dive shows or any online contest where voting is public because it's like when people post badly framed pictures on FB and their friends tell them those pictures are amazing. Some people will ask their friend to vote for them. It makes sense to them to get a prize but it's not a good indicator of the quality of their work nor the work of other contestants. - The most serious UW championships tend to me to be more like ice skating competitions where your pictures are expected to match arranged criteria to make points with an imposed theme, imposed dive schedule and post-processing. Pictures are excellent technically speaking but often tend to be creatively dull because of all these constraints. It's perfectly normal but this is something that can be hard to fully grasp. Other championship are more relaxed on rules and are more focused on divers having a good time. ** The ugly ** - Sometimes contestants can go too far as they manipulate the scene or animal to get the perfect picture. This is not limited to diving but wildlife pictures in general. There is a problem when subject taken is unlikely to have the common behavior or to be at its usual location. They are many pictures online of "free falling open-water octopus" (aside the blackwater ones which are normal) or swimming animal that usually rests on the bottom. It's always frustrating to see those kinds of pictures winning where one would expect the competitor to be disqualified. - People can go as far as cheating in any thinkable ways at any form of contests. That's why sometimes raw pictures are asked by the judges. That's why cards are cleared, WIFI disabled, time stamped differently at actual U/W championships. Yet, some people try to submit pictures that not belongs to them or upload stuff before the dives... and they often get caught. - Sometimes some judges are just clueless and completely miss the first point or they are just part of the dive industry with little experience on judging pictures and sometimes there are not even divers and are judging UW picture... Comparing different photos/videos with sometimes different topics between competitors is tough job so you would expect to get some professional U/W image makers in the panel with some knowledge on biology. Those guys exist and some competition are judged by those guys but it's unfortunately far from universal. ** The good ** I kept the good for the end because it's probably the most important and what makes me still want to "play" at competitons: - it's nice to compare your work with what other do and any award is somehow some signs you're making good quality images. On the long run, it's a good record of your progress and each award raises your own bar to another level. - Actual UW competition are nice to meet other folks who shares the same enthousiam for image making. It's an occasion to share and learn and develop friendships. - Festival (especially nature ones) are great to show people the beauty of the ocean and to pass some take-home messages about threat and conservation required to our playground.

I don't own the 60mm but I've just received the Laowa 58mm in Z-mount format. For the 58mm, I don't see any major issue for underwater use for the few tests I've made in regards to distance. Focus for the 2:1 magnification is very close to my port (N120 macro port 6 + 50mm extension) at 2-3 cm / around 1 inch in air. As you mentioned, it's a fully manual lens that I will use with peaking activated. I've made a 3D printed focus ring for it for my Nauticam housing. I don't know which port you use on your Sony but one way to get aperture control would be to use a port extension with knob and design a ring for the aperture and one for the focus. That is my current plan (the 50mm extension can be fitted with a knob).

I don't know what you imply with "with my vision" but if you suffer like me and many aging people of presbyopia, you'll still need some corrective lenses on your mask because whatever size of screen you'll get, it will be blurred. I have prescription lenses and one day I forgot my mask and borrowed a standard mask. Manual focusing on subject even with peaking enabled was complicated... Regarding the cable, having a spare set is to me important to have for any distant trip.

I have both the 5" and 7". I use the 5 with my GH5s and the 7 with the Z8 as there were blackout on the 5" with the Z8 each time after I stopped recording video (the photo mode has not this issue but it's a Nikon issue as it also affects other brand of expensive monitors...). I prefer the 5 as it is more compact despite the total lack of controls except on/off. The 7 is a classic cheap monitor with many options/buttons such as flip screen, etc... Brightness was okay in shallow waters in Lembeh but not exceptional but still very usable. The 2 x 18650 batteries in the Weefine 7" are enough to do 3 x 70min dives. The design of the 7" has slightly changed I think in 2023 with a better shade, new cables. Weefine cables were previously junk as they tended to break easily. They have a new design that seems better but still the cable is thin in comparison to Nauticam (which also used to break). Time will tell how durable they are

Thanks for the links. The last one concludes 'If you have a flashlight with a single LED single lithium battery then get a Linear driver. If you have a flashlight with one or two NiMH/Alkaline batteries, then you need a Boost driver. If your battery voltage is much higher than the LED voltage then get a Buck driver ' A recurrent design for lights with several LEDs (not the single COB design) of the same color is to assemble them in serial. It has several advantages in terms of light quality, effeciency, safety, design but with a major disadvantage that when one led breaks, all the matrix is dead. A diode might break when cooling is not sufficient as it may break or unsolder. If one looks at a high power LED datasheets, there's a fair amount of data and information regarding cooling. The thing is the added voltage of all LEDs in series in divelight in many cases exceeds the total voltage of the battery pack. This puts boost/step-up drivers as the preferred choices for big divelights.

I have also a MW4300 I use for snoot lighting and a luxmeter. I can do some light measurement at 2 to 5 min intervals 😉 and see how constant it is or not.

The thing is most people find video lights expensive and stops mostly at the number of lumens you get but quality components inside are expensive. Cheap lights have generally one or several issues: - bad quality battery = short runtime - badly cooled LED = short life for the product - bad driver = short runtime * little possibilty of power adjustment * unsteady power * short life and then there's bad design e.g. the light will leak after a few dives like for many lights that are sold on Aliexpress I've tried to repair a few divelights from friends and most of the time, the electronic was just cheap and bad or the LED was not even powered sufficiently. A good driver is expensive because it monitors the batteries, temperature, acts as a step-up voltage converter with constant current output and offer dimming. That's a lot of things to deal with. The circuit will naturally heat and if not properly cooled like the LED it will malfunction, Components may even unsolder themselves or fry.

I think the specification of constant output is hard to find simply because most if not all LED video lights have constant current outputs due to the electronic needed to power up the LEDs and provide power dimming. This is what people into electronics call "led driver". In our battery-powered devices, the driver will make the best use of the batteries so that the output current stays constant. So the LED in opposition to the old filament bulbs is not expected to naturally dim. It might and will dim at some point because the electronic says so to protect batteries or extent battery time, or it will simply start to have a visible strobe effect or just shut off. I've played with some of those electronic modules in the past. Some have the ability to dim the light by lowerings output amps but often the dimming is achieved through "PWM" (Pulse Width Modulation). The LEDs is then powered by a high frequency square current with for each cycle a fraction of time at full output (light on) and the remaining time it's off. The eyes are unable to catch those fast changes but PWM is sometimes responsible for image flickering when frequency is too low and does not match camera settings. Also, dimming might affect the quantity but also the spectrum of the light right from the LED. LEDs have an optimal range in terms of volts, amps and core temperature (which requires adequate external cooling).

2 more things to try: - Apply some WD40 and around the lens/flip threads and wait a bit. - soak the flip and lens into an ultrasonic cleaner.

Hello, Underwater cables are known to be fragile parts (I work in the marine industry) but those little video cable we use between housing and monitors seem even worse. I am using a Weefine WED5 on my GH5s. I mainly bought it for its compactness but immediately noticed the external video cable is thin, thinner than the Nauticam ones I have. This made me suspicious on the long run regarding reliability. So the cable finally died after 60 dives (and still under warranty). Another diver told me he was already in its third cable and the reseller told me Weefine has issued a second generation cable. Has any of you noticed those cable are particularly fragile ? And do you know if 2nd generation is actually better ? Thanks !

Hi Everyone, I am Lionel from France. I manly shot videos. I wish this new forum a long lasting success and will certainly enjoy the discussion about our hobbies. Kind regards !