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TimG

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Posts posted by TimG

    1 hour ago, Davide DB said:

    IMHO, I think it's more likely a batch of defective batteries. If I were you, I'd try to contact Eneloop/Panasonic and report what happened.

    Yeah, that was my thought too.

    Posted

    For sale:

    2x Ultralight 12” (300mm) arms with 2.5 pieces of Stix Jumbo foam - €60/£50 each

    2x Ultralight clamps - €30/£26 each

    Price Includes shipping in the EU or UK

    Both arms and both clamps = €170/£145 including shipping in the EU or UK.

    For a UK buyer, I can arrange to mail the goods in the UK with a slight delay.

    In perfect condition. Rarely used.

    You only need to buy arm and clamps system once. By the best! ULCS.

    IMG_2797.jpeg

    Interesting images in your tests, Hugues.

    I can only say I’ve never noticed any reflections or anomalies underwater that have had a noticeable impact on images. Some images of course are rubbish but that’s more likely my fault rather than the gear. I’d suggest that the underwater environment is much more almost forgiving in the way potential anomalies appear. There are so many other issues which impact that they rarely (never?) show up in the final image.

    I wouldn’t worry too much over what your tests are showing. (But maybe that’s just my suck it and see approach!) Get the snoot in the water, shoot some images and see what you’ve got.

    The only “technical” issue I’ve experienced is that of aligning the focus light with snoot output. That was very difficult with the Inons but not an issue with the Retras. After that I’ve always felt anything else was down to the guy pressing the shutter. 😉

    • Thanks 1

    I’m not sure I can suggest a best distance. I do find it’s more a case of “suck it and see”. So much depends on the size of the subject, its background and what you’re trying to not light - and how you want to light: from above, from the side, from behind.

    What works for me is to have the snooted strobe on my left hand with the clamps set so that the snoot can be adjusted relatively easily. Right hand on the shutter release. I take a couple of images, check exposure, decide if I’m using the right mask, the angle of lighting - and then work the subject adjusting angle and distance. Then apologise to the subject for possibly blinding it.

    I’m using a D500 and either a 60mm or 105mm lens. I do find that from time to time checking the results on the LCD screen, I lose the subject! Especially with the 105mm. And I do keep thinking how nice it would be to have a mirrorless body with on-screen replay. But that’s not an “investment “ I currently want to make.

    Perhaps locking the snoot strobe arm to a distance might help a bit with that. However in my earlier snooting days, I tried a locked snoot, partly in desperation (!) but found it just didn’t work.

    I do think flexibility is the way to go. Experiment. A lot of the time the image isn’t quite right. But the Bingos! can be fabulous.

    On reflections, are you thinking reflections from parts of the background? I’ve never seen reflections resulting from the snoot itself. Background ones are sometimes unavoidable but generally really careful composition (yeah, not always possible) and mask choice can overcome that.

    Tom, can you see distortion on the old battery? The magnetic contacts are not perfectly aligned on the same plane so the magnets won’t stick?

    Our experience is that is the issue, not rusting (although rust is present) and I’ve seen a few examples of that.

    Hey Hugues

    A fun project……

    I use a snoot a lot for the majority of my macro shots. Generally I find soft edges work best. This gets away from the “spotlight look” and is closer to highlighting the subject in a more subtle way.

    Of course once a while a spotlight is the ideal lighting style but, for me anyway, this is much less often.

    To an extent though I’ve found you can vary a hard/soft edge by moving the snoot closer or nearer to the subject - and using a mask to fine-tune the width of the light. The closer to the subject, the more sharp the edge; the further away, the less sharp.

    • Thanks 1

    1 hour ago, Chris Ross said:

    Agree that the magnetic contact seems to be a weak point. You could try scraping the rust off and then soaking in citric acid.

    Yeah, I thought that too. The rust can be removed for sure but the distortion of the contacts remains and the magnets just won’t hold for charging to take place. At least that was our experience. Annoying.

    37 minutes ago, Chris Ross said:

    Just to clarify, are the contacts shown are outside of the torch? I would expect that the rust is from the magnets used to hold the charger in contact with the terminals. I would think that just scraping back the rust and also considering sitting the contacts in a citric acid solution it would cleanup nicely. Iron oxide aka rust is soluble in citric acid but it won't dissolve the iron that has not yet rusted.

    Also to clarify, is the new battery a complete unit with outer casing and contacts? It seems like a spare battery is a better deal than a new torch.

    Chris, yep, the contacts are external and attach to the charger by magnetic contacts. We tried removing the rust but the contacts, or the fitting, seems to be misshapen by the rust or some other action and the magnetic contacts won't adhere.

    The battery does have though a plug-in charging socket on the inside (so the non-water contact part of the battery) which is accessed by unscrewing the battery from the light head. It works fine but means taking the torch apart (not complicated) to access the charging point.

    That magnetic charging system does seem to be a weak point.

    • Thanks 1

    My partner's Orcatorch has the same issue (and we know of other too).

    She discussed this with the Orca reps at the Boot show in January and they suggested a new battery unit. Yep, over €100 so she decided just to charge it by unscrewing the battery unit and charging using the plug in cable rather than the external magnetic contacts

    Thanks indeed. Amazing technology but, yeah, comes at a price.

    I’m using similar tools on LR on a fairly basic Mac Studio with an M1 processor. That is pretty quick and can handle the AI “Denoise” in under minute. The results can be really impressive and have resurrected images that would have been right offs in the past.

    3 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

    @TimG Thanks for sharing! I have a trip booked on the same boat next Feb/March 2026. We'll be diving Misool Eco Resort for just 7 days, and will follow up with what seems to be the same route you took, but in reverse. We return from Misool to Sorong and get on the Emperor Harmoni boat the next morning. We then fly back to Sorong and head home.

    I didn't find a lot of info or reports about this operation online, so it's great to hear you had such a good experience. I'm really looking forward to the trip and your photos.

    I'm sure you'll have a great time, Dave.

    They switch the start point of the trip periodically so it begins in either Sorong or Kaimana and ends in Kaimana or Sorong.

    • Like 1

    Posted

    If you have updated LR recently to v14.3.1 you might have discovered a new Mask, Landscape, in the Develop Module.

    I've just played around with it a bit this evening and have found it works really well for many u/w images. It even identifies the water as, err, water. It seems to be able to differentiate divers, water and corals. I found I could create a number of masks which allowed me to make adjustments to the drivers face, to the corals and to remove backscatter by masking the water.

    Definitely worth a try.

    Screenshot 2025-05-10 at 21.24.10.png

    • Like 6
    • Thanks 1

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