SwiftFF5

@Marc Furth Just curious, why were you disappointed? The reason I ask is because a friend who owns a dive shop went and his group was also disappointed, but the reason that they were disappointed is that most of them were relatively new divers and were looking for "big stuff" which you won't see a lot of at Coco View (as I explained above). It is not a good fit for everyone, but it is perfect for me.

@ChipBPhoto I was there last in March, but this was my wife and I's 19th trip - so we love it there. I would say that it is mostly macro these days. You don't see many of the huge schools of reef fish that we used to see, and although you will often see turtles and rays and a nurse shark once in a while, there is lots of small stuff to see. I like to do 4 -5 dives a day (and sometimes up to 2 hours on a jump back dive when no one is trying to get me back to the boat), and CoCo View lets me do that, whereas other places are much more limiting. I would echo everything that @ACHiPo says. CoCo View isn't fancy, but the food is good and plentiful, the staff are wonderful and they just take good care of you. When you get off the plane and clear Customs, they greet you with "Welcome Home!" and it really does feel that way. Mickey is a fantastic teacher, and just great to chat with. He helped me with some fish identification (juvenile green razorfish) last time. Also, if you get a chance to dive with Stacy (the manager), he is a fantastic macro photographer and always finds something interesting. I hope that helps, but am happy if you have any other questions.

I have seen the reports on the fatality, but no details yet that I am aware of. Unfortunately, there are more Public Safety Diving fatalities during training than on calls. Part of that is we have to do a lot of training to keep our skills sharp since we don't get that many calls (which is a good thing), but that means most of our exposure is during training. Many of them seem to be medical issues, but I don't know about this particular case. She seemed to be young and fit, so she doesn't fit the profile for a cardiac event. I will be watching to see if they report what happened. Sorry for the thread hijack.

While I don't think that you will go wrong with the OM-1, I am using a Panasonic Lumix GH7 with an external monitor and love it. I mostly shoot the Olympus 60 mm macro lens that was mentioned and it is my favorite lens. However, I shoot video exclusively so my use case will be a little different than yours.

Someone here started a group/app called Critter Dive which is helpful along with a bunch of books.

Nice, thanks for sharing. That's a trip that I would like to do some day.

Actually, I use a desktop to look at Waterpixels not a phone. I prefer to look at the photos on a nice monitor. Thanks

I saw that announcement too and wondered about it. Since it has been quite some time since I have held a Sony camera, much less dived with one, have they solved their underwater water white balance issue that caused an ugly green cast to all my old videos?

No, I just have a shortcut to the Forums section on my browser that I hit, then scroll down to look at the bolded categories for new content.

Can it be made visible from the forums? I pretty much only go straight to the forums page, but do like to browse what's for sale.

I have been working on designing a tripod for 3D printing that uses ball end arms for the legs. I have one done but have not gotten it in the water yet to test (although it works on land where the rig is even heavier than in the water, so I suspect that it will be strong enough). Since it hasn't been tested properly, I have not posted it to Thingiverse or MakerWorld yet, but I probably should.

Nicely done, especially for a first video. You are correct, macro video is challenging, which is largely why I keep trying to get better at it. I probably shoot 5 or 6 hours of video to get a good 20 minutes or so of usable material. Lots of material on the cutting room floor as you say.

Very nice, thanks for sharing

I also have the Olympus 60 mm macro lens, and it has become my favorite lens underwater.

I have this exact set up and really love it for shooting video. Someone will get a good deal. Good luck with the sale.