eocean-eu

There is a new monitor from Weefine, the WED-5 PRO that has just been released last week. In short, it replaces the small WED-5 with more nits, added functions (peaking, luts, etc...) and a completely new cable that seems heavy duty with a big cable gland. As this cable is connected on the left side of the housing, it might be in the way of the nearest arm on some setup but the cable itself looks very strong I don't have the numbers in memory but it looks slightly heavier than WED-5 both over and underwater and around the size of the WED-5. It runs on a bigger battery. Overal, it feels to be a new nice addition.

I am also a vimeo plus member for probably 10 years. At the moment, the real dealbreaker for me to leave Vimeo would be the inclusiion of ads which I found super annoying on Youtube.

Indeed. The problem with Vimeo is mainly their search engine has been disabled in Europe. You can still access all the features if you have a VPN pointing to the US or it seems to work if you have a direct link to the video. The base link for the search engine outside Europe is vimeo.com/watch with all the things we used to have but in Europe you land at the root of your own page and that's all. To quote them about that change: Q: What specific features are impacted by these changes? A: Vimeo no longer organizes or promotes individual user-uploaded videos on Vimeo.com in the EU or UK. As a result, certain features available in our Free plans are no longer available on Vimeo.com in the EU and UK: Searching Vimeo is now limited to video content within your own Video Library. Channels, Groups, Categories, and other curated video collections, including Staff Picks, are no longer accessible. My Feed is no longer accessible. For Hire is no longer accessible. Although some features are no longer accessible in these regions, you continue to retain full ownership and control of your content. You can still share and embed videos on your websites and social networks. I must say that I could not care less about what the European Film Academy is offering on vimeo especially in regards to underwater video filmmaking. There is simply nothing.

I don't know which housing you are using but Nauticam sells an active cooling system for the NA-R5II housing. It's bascially an expensive set of one or two electric fans and a battery box.

With most camera having now focus assistant like on-screen magnifier or even better peaking options, IMHO fine tuning the focus on your subject manually can make a big difference between an okay and a superb picture. I shoot macro video. I use manual focus most of the time rather than autofocus (the only notable exceptions are for me blackwater and wide angle on wrecks).

Setting your output signal to match the resolution of the monitor is the way to go otherwise you might get a black screen in certain shooting mode or take longer time. There are exchange of list of available/usable resolution between monitor and camera. It's called EDID. Whenever something is set to auto on one end, it takes longer. Yet, it's still not always sufficient on certain camera to properly reduce blackout time.

A Nauticam service center can replace the glass.

Normally yes as Nauticam is very consistent to offer bayonet and M67 on their macro lenses. On the initial picture, it is mounted on a M67 flip system.

Depending on what your are filming, you may consider - if that's possible for ypu - putting the housing on a tripod and step away by a few meters once you have framed your shot and started recording.

I don't have experience with housing mounting hydrophone but some with hydrophone hanging in the water. I am using an Aquarian hydrophone. I suspect you can get easily interfering noises just by rubbing the housing, by the autofocus if it's in auto, even fan if your housing or camera has some. If the hydrophone is directional and let's say mounted forward; it could be better. When hanging the hydrophone in the water, I get noises of me rubbing the cable up to 1-2m from the hydrophone.

Yes (I am doing this kind of calculation quite often for my job :) ) but I tend to think some values are a bit optmistic for watertight by design monitors as there is not a lot of free volume inside so I am a bit surprised as far as 2/3 of the land weight vanishes thanks to Archimedes thrust for those units. It's also worth noting the weight of the attachment system might be substantial (another clamp + pair of ball ends or swivel system)

I am surprised on how various brands can get land weight at around 1.5-2kg for only 300g underwater. Those numbers may be acceptable for solution with housing for monitor like the Seafrogs unit where you get lots of volume inside but I doubt this applies for monitors watertight by design since they are super compact with little volume for air inside.

Along the exotic brands of housing for exotic land monitors, I've found Seafrogs actually makes an aluminum housing for the Shimbol M5 (you can find it on Amazon). The cable looks nice and it requires an M24 port on the camera housing. There is no indication of size and weight (aside from the land monitor unit) https://www.seafrogs.com/products_details/1293270225312227328.html

Thanks Edy for your detailed answer. Yes it's definitely a Nikon thing. I don't have any problem with my trusty GH5s which works just perfectly whatever monitor I hooked on it (underwater or on land). Those blackout/rescaling is something worth considering for someone who may want to buy a monitor. It's worth also noting some camera only turn on HDMI on in playback mode. It's never happening in the high-end range of products but I remember a friend buying an used SmallHD monitor and housing only to find out it was not working underwater. Long story short: read the camera manual before spending thousands of euros/dollars on a U/W monitor.

Thanks for the detailed review. Regarding the comments on Nikon (which is an echo of my complaints with the Z8), As the problem is not happening in photo mode, by curiosity, would you mind trying to see if the monitor has a long blackout in vdeo mode when stopping video recording or going from live view into menus ? Thanks !