ColdDarkDiver

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.