eocean-eu

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 !

To be honest, since HDMI underwater cables have a long history of being fragile whatever brand you use, the sideway exiting cable is probably providing less strain to the cable than the up/down usual location of connectors (the other alternative is monitor with back straight output). I see that as an improvement in terms of durability but on the other hand, yes it eats side space which might interfere with arm location/handle.

Only with the 5" . The 7" has a small blackout (1sec maybe) but I do not consider this lag to be a problem. And again, the issue is only for video shooters, not photographers.

I've tried all the resolution and there is something odd in the Z8 HDMI behaviour as it seems to switch back HDMI resolution whenever you stop recording or go into a menu in video mode... while being super consistent in photo mode. Whenever resolution change, a new EDID handshake is done between camera and monitor. If the monitor is slow to do the handshake or has limited choice of resolutions, you'll get temporary or permanent blackout. The most common resolution that will work for any camera is indeed 1080p60 but even that seems to be a slow boat for the combo Weefine 5 and the Z8. I've also tried with an HDMI EDID dongle to see if I could force the handshake process with no luck. On the other hand, as you did with your A1, I've never had any single issue with my GH5 on 1080p60. It's a pity because the Weefine 5 is a nice little unit to travel with in comparison to the bulky 7inch TV set :D . The Nauticam one won't be better for sure on that point.

Aside from being made by Nauticam, there is IMHO nothing really exciting so far about this monitor. Nauticam has not even bothered including batteries in this setup and cables. Both will increase the price sharply. The monitor so far has nothing that makes it a game changer, no internal recording and we do not know yet the supported resolution. I am using 5 and 7inches Weefine monitors on the GH5 and Z8 and while they works flawlessly on the GH5, the Z8 has long blackout with the 5inches in video mode (lenghty EDID handshake apparently) tberefore I wouldn't buy anything before having a good idea of the supported HDMI resolutions in the manual. At the end of the day, you get more features with a Ninja with its dedicated Nauticam housing for a substantially lower price.

Everybody is likely to pay more wherever you are because for any international business, this becomes a "challenging economic environment" when you might lose a big portion of customers in a region while not getting more in others. It's clear that to maintain benefits you'll certainly have to increase prices at least a little everywhere or to find other ways to reduce costs of manufacturing. In Europe, Brexit has been for me a good example of a lose/lose situation. I used to order for my job parts from big companies in the UK because they were made there. After the Brexit, it was a hassle and costly because of customs to get those. Some manufacturers among others opened some warehouse in mainland Europe. Others just didn't have the resource for and I now rarely order from them. Now the prices for those parts for those companies that have now offices in both side of the Channel are about 200% what they used to be before Brexit was effective. Aside from the rising costs since Covid and Ukraine, those companies had to buy/rent warehouse, deal themselves with customs or make assembly lines in Europe. It costs money in all cases and it has to be absorbed by the customers at the end of the line.

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.