TimG

Hi Mark Good to know its been of help Ikelite housings: the big differences are price and, depending on which model/camera, size. Ikelites are usually made of polycarbons and are often boxier with possibly less access to some camera controls. Chris will correct me, but I’m not sure Ikelite housings necessarily have ports allowing fibre optic connections to strobes. By contrast, the aluminium housings Subal, Nauticam, Aquatica…. , tend to follow the form of the camera body more closely and are more compact as a result. Generally all camera controls can be accessed and usually in a very ergonomic way. Both optical and electric strobe initiation is usually possible. I must admit my preference would be to go for an aluminium housing but many use Ikelite and enjoy the company’s reputation for good customer service. Tamron lens? Do you mean Tokina? If you go with the Tokina 10-17 I’d suggest holding off on a rectilinear lens till you’ve used the Tokina for a while and then reassess.

Yeah, that thought struck me too, makar0n...... I've just emailed various fibre suppliers in Europe to see if they have that 613 core, so let's see what happens. Another possibility is if a member is heading to the US and can bring a bundle back. It weighs nothing and if it's not on the cable drum, takes up little space. We might be able to do a bulk order again. The Inon single L-shape bush you suggest from Onderwaterhuis would work well. It was Oskar at Retra who told me about the problems of cutting fibre with scissors. One other thing he mentioned that can impact on TTL-quality transmission: offset two-hole bushes. One central hole in a bush delivers a more reliable signal than a bush with two holes.

Fingers crossed, Ben. I lived in Indonesia many years ago and can sure understand the difficulties - especially, I found, of having only one supplier who pretty much had a monopoly on scuba and scuba-related gear.

Very cool printing your own connectors. Respect! Good on Dave sharing that. Could you post a photo so that we can see what they look like? I know Elias (Kraken de Mabini) uses a very inexpensive connector that he gets from Amazon which he semi-glues on to the cable. I must admit I've not looked for the 613 core cable in Europe. I was living in Sint Maarten when we did the order and was able to get it shipped in bulk to me with minimum hassle. I cut it all to the lengths that folks wanted and then took packages to Europe to mail in the EU and UK. It must be obtainable though in Europe or at last some kind of equivalent. Maybe one of IT network-ace members knows?

Easy to make and way cheaper than shop-bought. Here's how:

Time then that you ordered a Waterpixels one! 😝

Hey Mark I've been using the Tokina 10-17 for some years and it’s brilliant underwater on a crop sensor system. Horrible though above water! One nice thing about it is that it works very well with a 100mm domeport - so small and light weight for traveling. And it’s perfect for CFWA with a 1.4TC. If you go the crop sensor route, you could pair the Tokina with either a 60mm, 90mm or even 105mm macro lens. I use a 60mm and 105mm. I think I prefer the 105mm as it lets you stand back a bit further but it’s harder to use initially.

The same stillviking! Great to have you with us. A big, warm welcome!

Hey Mark Some thoughts: If you have already decided that you want to shoot macro and WA then I'd suggest an early decision is on format rather than camera manufacturer. So, full-frame (FF), cropped sensor (APS-C or DX) or Micro 4/3rds (M43). All of them are a big switch from a TG6. What do you intend to do with the images may well determine what you choose. If you are shooting for purely personal use, view on screen, show your friends, then you really don't need to go for a large format sensor (ie, FF). DX or M43 would be perfectly good. If you are thinking of huge prints (say bigger than A3) or serious image sales, then maybe you need FF. The camera marketers will try and steer you down the FF path but that is really not necessary and can, I think, be counter-productive. If you go FF you are looking at bigger, heavier and more expensive lenses. Whilst macro is easy to house in pretty much any format, housing wide-angle is much more difficult and expensive for FF than one of the smaller formats. A big domeport is usually necessary unless you choose just a fisheye lens. Both DX and M43 lenses are much easier to house, less expensive and less bulky. If you chose FF then for macro and wide-angle you are looking at, say, a 105mm macro lens; and a 15mm fisheye (FE) for wide-angle or a 16-35mm lens which will give you a rectilinear image and not fisheye. FEs are much easier to house than a 16-35. You would probably chose the same type of lenses for DX or M43, ie macro and FE or rectilinear but because of the smaller sensor size, the numbering might be slightly different especially for wide-angle. So, for example the DX equivalent of a 16-35 is a 10-24; the equivalent of a 15mm FE is a 10.5mm FE. Strobes, arms, fibre optic connectors, vacuum valves are all the same whichever system you choose. All these are items that can be transferred from system to system and are worth careful consideration and not scrimping on. Then cost. A new FF system complete is probably in the region of £13-15,000. You can probably get that down to around £7-£8000 if you go second hand and pick up some good deals. A DX-based system is probably two-thirds of that. M43 a little less again. My suggestion would be that you give serious thought to the end use of the images. Decide the format, then decide what lenses you would like; then see which manufacturers make them for which camera; then narrow down the camera. I wouldn't suggest you start with the camera body. That is the cheap bit of the package, not the most critical and the least long-term purchase. I'm sure others will chip in with views. But for the moment, I would not narrow down your thinking to either Sony or Canon. That might be your final decision but, as I say, get a good idea first what you want to achieve and then work out how. Otherwise there is a really good chance you spend a ton of money and not get what you want; or spend a ton of money unnecessarily. I hope that helps a bit.

We should start a sweepstake to see at what part number on the schematic people get to and find it no longer fun.... 🤭

Great to have you with us, Balazs! Welcome.

Seems pretty poor service to me if the attitude of the supplier and the company is, well when we decide to get around to it, we'll look at sending you a replacement. Yowzers.

Snap! Welcome aboard, François. Great to have you with us.

Terrific! Thanks!

Hey Steen I use the UWT one in my Subal housing. Works like a charm. The man behind it, Pavel, should be appearing here soon. He was on Wetpixel a lot and always very helpful. He's keen to be involved here now.

OK, we don't have the setup yet..... (fair comment!)

Totally agree. Anyone who has a series of shots like these over a period of time, do post them!

Super pics, Dave. Maybe the shock of going from really good viz in the St John’s area to the Port Ghalib harbour messed with my viz calculations 😜. But it was really poor viz where normally I wouldn’t bother trying WA pics.

Tom, do you think you could do a post about your pole-cam arrangement? I think that would be of interest to folks here.

I know a few members use the Retra reflector but I thought I'd post a short piece about using them as it was something relatively new to me. Apologies if this is old hat! I was in the Red Sea out of Marsa Alam a few months ago. The last dive was the usual outside-the-harbour type dive and the viz was utterly cr*p: maybe 3'-4'. One of those dives where I wondered why I was bothering. I'd been using my D500 with the Tokina 10-17 for the whole trip and usually had the Retra reflector in a BCD pocket (yeah, a big pocket!) but hadn't really used it. There were loads of juveniles knocking around on the site so I thought I'd take some pics just for the fun of it. I gave the reflector a go, reducing the power from the strobe a good bit and using the reflector aimed more directly at the subject to try and reduce backscatter. Results on the camera screen looked ok. When I got back and looked at the images on the big screen I was pleasantly surprised as to how well they came out given the viz and turbidity. On the pic below, there is some backscatter on the top left but, generally, give the viz, not a bad result I thought (yeah, the picture is nothing special, I appreciate)

Hi MrC. Delighted that you’ve joined us. Welcome! We hope you really like the new forum.

I agree with you, Wolfgang. The Tokina is amazing underwater - certainly with the DX sensor cameras that I have used. I can't say I liked it all with an FF Nikon D800. Horrible! The only slight hesitation with the lens is the build quality. Over maybe 15 years I've had two of them and they have both had the same issue - the zoom ring detaches. This is user repairable with some tape but it is a bit of a shock first time around. I know too others have had the same issue and it's something to watch out for. But IQ on sub-FF? Superb.