Bronson FE

@bghazzal appreciate the note! 🙏 And you got it right, it was the Fang Ming. Very fun site for sure; lots of epic schools of fish. La Paz seems like a great place to spend some time working! Glad the color felt good to you — I shot natural light throughout the trip taking manual white balances with a WhiBal card. It’s interesting going back through the footage after the trip — the shifting visibility really makes for a variety of color casts in the water. Best, Bronson

@fruehaufsteher2 thank you! We organized the trip independently, but took our day-trips out on the boat with The Dive Gurus based in La Paz. They were great! We took 2 days out looking for mobulas and had nice success both times, finding a few very large groups vortexing. It’s only legal to snorkel with them rather than dive, but it was still absolutely worth it. Cheers, Bronson

Highlight video from a recent trip to La Paz. The mobula migration was a particularly incredible sight 🤙 Shot with: Sony A7Siii in a Nauticam housing Sony 26-60 lens with Nauticam WWL-1B iPhone (above water) YouTube link

Thank you all, much appreciated! 🙏

Macro highlights from diving the South Puget Sound around Seattle, WA in 2024. The seemingly unremarkable environments of sand, rubble and kelp hold an incredible amount of interesting life. Shot with: Sony A7Siii in Nauticam housing Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Kraken Solar Flare Mini 18000 (2)

Thanks Dave! Hoping we’ll get to meet up for more diving soon 👌

Footage from an amazing God's Pocket trip earlier this month. Enjoy! 4K YouTube Video Shot with: Sony A7Siii in Nauticam housing Sony 28-60 lens with Nauticam WWL-1B Kraken Solar Flare Mini 18000 (2) -- B-roll shot with Sony A7C & IPhone

I’ve had mixed results manually white balancing with a card and video lights in wide-angle. Ive had nice color results at times, but I’ve found it can sometimes be difficult to conveniently get the card in the right position to accurately represent the subject distance and accommodate the angle of the light beams while holding the card. Especially if you’re angling to avoid backscatter. In my experience, setting the WB to light temperature value doesn’t quite get the color I’m looking for if there’s any ambient light, even with higher power lights blasting. I’ve generally had nice results with Sony’s auto WB with video lights, making sure to lock it in so it doesn’t shift during recording. Perhaps some tweaking in post, but Slog is pretty malleable. *I shoot with a Sony A7Siii, SLog3, 2x Kraken SFM 18000 without filters

@Davide DB Thanks! I believe those are a type of sea lice on the giant bass' face. They often get cleaned off by other smaller fish (1:41 in the video shows one biting one off the side of his face). I'm shooting with a Sony A7Siii in Nauticam. Sony 28-60 with Nauticam WWL-1B. Natural light, manually white balanced with a card, no filter. Depth varied from 10-70 fsw. I'll add this info to the description 🙂

Enjoy some kelp and giant black sea bass 🙂 YouTube (4K)

@Dave_Hicks genius — love how integrated that feels to the rig in comparison to other float collars I’ve seen. And @Davide DB thanks for pointing out that thread. -500g sounds like a nice balance to me too. For context, I’m currently using Sony 90mm lens and 3 adjustable XIT404 arms for a tripod.

@bghazzal Thanks so much for the detailed share on your experience! My setup is about -1kg and I've felt like a lighter load might feel nicer throughout the dive and make camera moves off the tripod a bit smoother, but was curious as to how close to neutral retains that stability against smaller movements of the water when setup on the sea floor. So it's great to hear what's worked well for you. 👌

For videographers who’ve dialed in / measured the buoyancy specifics of their macro setup — curious to hear how many grams negative you’ve found to be the most effective balance for keeping things stable on the tripod while being light enough to not feel cumbersome throughout the dive. A kilo? 500g enough to counter some movement in the water? Just aiming to finesse 🙂 Thanks all! Cheers, Bronson

Thank you! This was mostly boat dives, with a few shore dives mixed in 👍

A few highlights from Vancouver Island in early March 🤙

Marine life of the Pacific Northwest by Andy Lamb & Bernard P Hanby Coastal Fishes of the Pacific Northwest by Andy Lamb & Phil Edgell Whelks to Whales by Rick M Harbo

Thank you! That was one of my favorite behavior shots of the trip for sure. Maybe a little territory dispute…The attacking octo already had his own shell, which was interesting.

Thanks! Cuttlefish and Frogfish are always particularly fun to watch in their hunting modes

Footage from a recent trip to Lembeh in mid November to early December 2023. A small sample of the critters we saw during 10 days diving with the awesome folks at NAD dive resort. 🤙 Cheers, Bronson

Thanks for sharing, and good luck on your Maldives trip 🤙

@Interceptor121 Super helpful, appreciate the response 🙏.

I’d love to hear any personal experience and opinions on using Sony’s 28-60mm kit lens with Nauticams wet optics — particularly the WWL-1B for wide angle and the CMC for macro. Bonus if anyone has comparative experience on how this setup compares to using a higher-end / faster lens behind a dome, in terms of image/video quality. Thanks for your thoughts!

Appreciate the add to the community. Looking forward to hearing everyone’s experience / expertise. Cheers, Bronson