ColdDarkDiver

This is a really interesting review. I think two things that i really appreciated about it (other than a huge amount of work) is that it: 1) Is the first comparable review of the Sea and Sea YS-D130r 2) It reviews Marelux even though Backscatter does not sell them. I also really appreciate that they did it with and without diffusers for the beam comparison since so many of us shoot with diffusers all the time, or pretty close to all the time and so comparing one with and one without is helpful. Finally, I will be adjusting the color temperature I shoot with my strobes underwater based on their findings, so even without being in the market for a new set of strobes, it was a helpful read.

The housing brand question is a real challenge with no one right answer. I went Marelux, not only for the housing cost but every accessory adds up very quick and when I priced the housing I was able to get much more. The flip side (for better and worse) is that Marelux all uses the same size port... which is just a weeee bit bigger than the N120 that Nauticam uses on many of their housings... except the Sony's which use a N100. This means the camera housing is larger even if the body is smaller. On the other side - all marelux housings use the same ports so if you change cameras in the future you are still good to go. As for the 45 degree viewfinder - I just invested in one. I like it. I would not get it for the A7c(series) as the EVF is not good. The reason why i really like it is because I need reading glasses and means I can see the screen crisply. The 45 degree viewfinder is also a big beast that is one more thing to bounce around. This is another place where the difference in cost between other companies and Nauticam is apparent. 780 USD (Marelux) vs 2000 USD (Nauticam). The Nauticam may be better? But for the A7c(r) or A7cII the evf is not why one would choose this camera.

A lot of great information in this thread. I would only suggest that between the A7cII and the A7r, the extra mpix will be very welcome for the task you propose and the a7r will be less limiting. It has been mentioned numerous times that TTL is important, but I would point out that the most expensive part of this is the TTL adapter that will work with whatever strobe you want. The simplicity of just having the correct exposure across those different fish is pretty key. And having bought a non-TTL and then a TTL... I went the most expensive route possible. With a strobe, you light it up for such a short period of time it freezes the action even if there is movement. Not so with a video light so that also means greater success with a strobe compared to a video light if the fish decide to move at all. My other thought, is a 180 dome floating around while you are trying to catch fish is a great way to get it beat up quick and a PITA. A flat port will be less likely to get scratched and that maybe of importance when deciding on your rig.

I'll play :) (in good fun - I appreciate what was in this post - but will provide my experience). So - yes and maybe? My take on this is that you want to use just enough light to light the subject but without blowing out the water but getting the depth of color that it has. ISO is critical. By doing this - and maximizing the dynamic range captured by the camera so you can bring it all together in post (if you need to) but you still need the light to bring out the colors that will otherwise be lost. Under and over exposed means you can bring it back if you need be with the latitude of modern sensors, but using everything the shot has is ideal. I find that the most important thing in murky water (which I know and love) is that one has to adjust their strobes for each shot to only light the subject and no more. In clear water, set and forget and it is fine, but in murky it is a constant movement of strobes in, out, angled out, angled in - for each shot to overlap just what one wants lit and as little water as possible. It is set by distance to the subject more than anything else... which also means adjusting power output. I also think that white point and black point setting is really important, but touching on the importance of all the dynamic range that is good, I thought I would add a few examples. These are all straight from camera - R5 (which is pretty solid dynamic range). I'm including the histogram (untouched) to show the need to expose the background and it is not only black and white point setting. Canon R5: Straight from Camera: I used all the dynamic range and it is the darks that make this something intriguing - and this is ISO 1600 - f13. Or - Kelp experience (I'm cheating here since this was ISO 100 since I was shooting sun but i think it shows how we are still using all of the dynamic range available) (Ok this one I cropped but I didn't impact the histogram with it but as shot - it exposed the background and lit the foreground while capturing all the light and information possible).

There are some examples coming out on FB now Andi Voeltz shared some using the 20-50 F4. Pasting one image here (mods - please remove if violates rules - It is pretty clearly branded so gives credit to photog). Looks promising! Can't wait for more images - and I would be really happy if a port like this worked with a lens as nice as the 20-50 (or any L lens for that matter).

I would say i disagree with two of the sentiments: 1) Most of my images expose the background, so that is a normal use case not a unique one- even if a close up and definitly CFWA. I find ISO (aka light) to be the major compositional hurdle in much of my image making. Sure packages are great at removing noise - but they all still do it at the reduction of sharpness. Absolutely agree that in this sense a smaller sensor allows an easier to shoot fStop that allow more relative light to the sensor -but I will sacrafice corners and either crop or just live with it when I need to drop below f/13. Also a couple of stops provided by wet optics also brings things closer - but $$ and size. 2) I have never wanted less than "more" dynamic range. I can never have enough especially when trying to get the darks to come alive to balance bright foreground subjects. I think there are very strong arguments for M43/aps-c/ and FF. All can capture amazing images - no doubt. But I think we are a group that constantly pushes the abilities of even modern sensors to their limit - even though we often (if not pretty much always) are adding light with strobes/lights.

I think this is an important point. Most of us only use this (and the 8-15) as a 14/15 prime. So the extension may be different if you want to get that 180 look at 7/8mm or just want the sharpest corners at 14/15mm.

They also provide the ability to have diopter corrections built in so for those of us who use glasses, you can see what you camera is doing without sort of squinting and thinking you know what your settings are or how the picture looks. So +1 for 45 degree (surprisingly large) viewfinders.

Given your criteria, I would suggest you look into the WACP and WWL lenses for the various systems and Sony is the no brainer here. If I wanted a small system, Sony A7cii with WWL or WACP (although there is not a huge size hit for going any of the A7 series). Your suggestion that the fixed port of the R50 as a limiting factor suggests you haven't really looked into the advantages of wet mate lenses. Don't mean offense if you have. The various options get away from large domes and work at more open f/stops as well as in water flexibility. As soon as you add a monitor you have a big system. Like real big - so the housing size is only a small piece of the size puzzle if you are actually considering an external monitor. Plus if diving where you need light (aka everywhere) then again - the system has grown with arms, floats, etc. If anything the larger housing makes it easier to handle (when collecting imagery) and control but to each their own. I do miss the small size of the good ol film camera! But then again, I took >500 shots on three dives yesterday. That would have been a lot of slide film!

And it looks like Marelux, Nauticam, and Ikelite will be making housings for the FX5. Nothing on the official channels but Blue Water Photo (and Backscatter for Nauticam) have housings listed for pre-order.

As a Canon shooter....I think so? I believe the latest iterations of the cameras can White Balance for deeper water without the issues they used to have. I have worked with some Sony footage recently and it looked great, but that was not deep footage.

Sony released a new body today the FX5 - Seems to be the next iteration of the FX3 line with open gate, triple base ISO, internal RAW, and some other goodies. Seems like it would be perfect for the ol' sony wet and dry optic options and could be a popular option. It seems like it won't fit in an FX3 housing... so lets see if anyone makes a housing for it. So many cameras in this space at the moment, it seems like it will be hard for the housing companies to decide which one to support. PetaPixelSony FX5 Has a New Sensor, Open Gate, Internal RAW, and S...The new Sony FX5 answers nearly ever criticism levied against the FX3.

I rented one and used it with the 30mm extension - see comments and images here: I did not try the 20mm. There was no obvious vignetting with the 30mm extension. the 7-14 and the 8-15 are very close to the same length after you add the EF-RF adapter to the 8-15. Would be nice if it was even better with a 20 vs the 30! Solid lens. To your other point - I have never put another lens behind the 140mm dome. Not sure when I would use the 50 or 35 underwater - although I do bring the 24mm macro to use when I want simplicity (but don't love any of those focal lengths underwater...) but I use that with the 180mm port.

Hi Phil - to be clear is is an adapter that allows a Marelux port (or Aquista 135d) to be mounted to an N120 Nauticam housing? I know they have had the other way for a long time. Thanks!

I don't think it is this as much as it is really easy to over zoom underwater and then be frustrated with the results. Are you at 24 or 28? Sometimes hard to tell. I know I would mess it up. Or maybe I just identified myself as a smart ass customer. You bring up many good points- I really struggle with some of the lenses not projecting fully on the sensor, only because I often find that when you put a lens behind a dome, sometimes the canon profiles get wonky. Or they do stupid things like try to correct a fisheye....like I bought a fisheye for a reason! So you have to turn off the canon profile which then adds to some pretty heavy vingetting and then cropping to not have a meh to bad photo. How will canon lenses and their profiles work with the Aquista 135d? Would be great to know. Just because there will be caveats, that doesn't mean we don't want reviews. For example - the 15-30 STM lens should work as a 130 degree lens at 28-30 (sometimes on Nauticam options) - I would love to see examples of that. Can we see that same option for the Aquista 135d? If so, that would help me want the lens. If the 24-105 STM also worked well but one needed to zoom a bit and doesn't get past 50, I'd just love to see what it looks like behind these dry (or wet) optics. Its not like we don't have tons of caveats and work arounds for all of our time underwater to deal with the challenging lighting conditions.

I think that is the biggest hurdle in the dry and wet contact options (from both Nauticam and now Marelux). I would LOVE to see a variety of canon options and field reviews of those lenses. Or even just field reviews of 1 or 2 lenses (like the 15-30 at 30 on the fullframe) Nauticam just pushes most lenses up to the WACP-2 if shooting full frame. So while Sony and the 28-60 is the go too - us Canon shooters are left with a few meh options and no good field reviews for many options. Please no EF lenses....

I reached out to UWTech and they responded that they have not tested their triggers with the Maxi at this time (and they were nice and prompt in the reply!)

Hi @Pavel Kolpakov , Will these work with the Retra Maxi with the same functionality of the other Retra strobes? I was going to email, but realized that multiple people probably have the same question. Thank you.

Phil can correct me, but if shooting Sony the 17mm Marelux to N100 Nauticam adapter (MX-31704) should allow all of the N100 ports to fit with the ~13mm shorter extension that Marelux uses. It will still take a little math to get it right across the port range as that is the equivalent of the 30mm extension on Nauticam, not just straight housing. If your Ports are N120, then there is a conversion ring for that as well, but it is 20mm so doesn't account for the 2-3 mm differences between the two housing brands - not sure that matters.

@Phil Rudin Any update on experiences with this optic? Thank you.

I use the Marelux Ninja V housing. It is just fine. My complaints are the Ninja is great but really for video only. If you can't touch the screen it is not great for stills as Canon (in stills) shows a bunch of the information under the screen parts that Ninja shows other information. You have to dig through the menu, as far as I can tell, to swap it between the HDMI clean out and the mirror, which is needed for hybrid shooting. So I would buy it again to record video and would get a different monitor/ housing if I was shooting stills. The housing is great, no issues (if not a big large... since the Ninja is a bit large). So video and want ProRes 422 or Raw? Awesome. Hybrid within one dive? Hmmm... Stills? I would look elsewhere (including Marelux's other monitor).

Also looks like it is available for Pre-order including the dive case. Unfortunately it looks like the dive case has the same mediocre button on top, even though they made the one on the camera better. This top button has been the one reason I have looked at other housings, but never been willing to pay 20x for a housing simply for a better 'shutter' button. Hopefully the new one still works better! It is unclear from the post referenced above whether the user was just using the camera without housing to 20m (and liked the buttons) or was using it in the housing. Eagerly awaiting more underwater imagery from this camera.

I went down the RAW rabbit hole with Canon for low light and can not get anywhere near the quality of video that the CLOG delivers. Often note mentioned, but if shooting challenging lighting, sometimes RAW is a real beast to make look good and beyond me in Post. Intrigued by Nikon NR being better. Or Sony. Also very intrigued by the C50 but on the fence whether the C400 or C80, with the triple ISO is really the advance compared the R5C, which is a great camera. Few housings for the C400 or C80 though.

While I have no experience with it, the recent release of a diversity of cameras that can shoot full frame open gate (3:2 form) has made me wonder how this would work underwater. It would seem that by extending the corners (aka shooting in 3:2 vs 16:9) it would really make corner sharpness much worse and we would have to shoot at smaller apertures and further push our lenses and cameras (and ISO). I'd love to hear people's experiences with this in real life, or thoughts.

The 15-30 has a MFD of 0.28 and works well behind a dome so it should be good on the 180 or 230mm. No idea on the 140mm. I'll bet its front element is too large to work well with the WWL-1B, that later of which is really designed for small front elements. This may be a nice lens for video (behind a dome and for certain shots), or stills if it works with an wet-mate or dry-mate adapter (WACP,WWL-1, Marelux Aquista) for a solution (with limited to 28mm and greater zoom...) I'm looking forward to seeing some real world examples underwater!