John Liddiard

I moved from SLR and assorted lenses to m4/3 with a kit zoom and wet lenses a few years back. It works well for a journalist approach to a dive site. One site, get the wide angle to set the scene, fish in the middle, then macro all in one dive, then swap back again when the whale shark shows up! Then on to the next site. Wide angle is comparable to before the move. I find the main difference is on macro, where the CMC has to be close to the subject. A dedicated macro lens could achieve similar magnification from a little further away. In some situations that is a plus, and in some situations its a limitation. But its not a like-for-like comparison because I have never owned a dedicated macro lens for m4/3. If choosing again today my ideal would be a primary lens 60 or 105 macro (full frame equivalent) and a wet lens to convert that to wide angle. I would loose the ability to zoom for convenience at the extremes. But the balance of my diving has changed. I used to do a lot more wreck diving. Now I do more macro diving. Without travelling with a full shed of camera kit most of us need to compromise somewhere.

Seems to be a lot of duplication of capability. A main lens+ port for all types of shot. Then wet lenses for all types of shot. So as well as a bigger camera and housing, that setup also has the bulk of all that duplicated capability to carry on trips. If you want to convince your buddy, prune the upgrade to a bare minimum, leave out the duplication and file away it for 'later expansion'. The wet lens subset, single port and single main lens, will be an easier initial upgrade because it is closer in operation to what they already have. Then let them upgrade the primary lenses and ports slow time as they gain experience. Also to consider, they are used to using the camera screen to drive the TG5. Will they be using the screen or the viewfinder on the new setup? That can be a psychological hurdle, especially as most housing viewfinders get in the way of using the camera screen.

Back when I first started in underwater photography (1980s), I had a single strobe on a fixed arm. The advice I received was to try hand holding the strobe (disconnect the arm from the camera) to try different positions and angles. Looking back, that advice was the biggest single change in my photography and it didn't cost a penny on new equipment. These days everyone has multi-jointed flexible arms, but the same applies. Move the arm/strobe about relative to the camera and subject to experiment with different lighting.

Not for the hairy bloke who sat on that urchin.

I suspect the target market is more directed at surfers. For divers, maybe there are other benefits. Will it resist other puncture hazards? (I know someone who sat on a spiny urchin and perhaps this could have saved them) Will it last longer? How does the weight/buoyancy compare? Is it less compressible? Is it tear resistant - could it be used for a thin neoprene drysuit? And - how does it compare for cost?

Coron has a good spread of wrecks. Last time there I was defaulting to wide angle for the big wreck scenes. I noticed the deck of one of the wrecks was teeming with unusual nudibranchs. Next day I returned with a macro lens and all I could find was a few dragons. The others had all moved on.

Very neat. What translation of lens strength do you use from above to underwater?

Reviving an old thread. Has anyone tried these https://www.see-deep.com/ ? Apparently they were on a crowd source a couple of years ago, so maybe an underwater photographer on these forums has already tried them from the crowd campaign.

Its OK, found it under > My Activity Strems > All Activity.

Maybe I am missing something. I can't find the 'Latest Activity' link that used to appear (almost) top and to the right, where there was a list of all recent posts by age. Can anyone point me to where that is now?

Good to see the simplified controls. I like the robustness and reliability of my Inon strobes, but after many years I still have not got my phd in Inon. Moving the optical connector to behind the arm mount could also be good for protecting it.

I use the kit 14-42 pancake lens with a WWL. Very crisp at 14mm but needs to be perfectly aligned with the port. Whilst there are many other factors involved, I would guess the slightly wider 12mm lens could be more even more sensitive to alignment.

For a simple DIY, A cheap chunk of plastic - such as an old breadboard. Use a hacksaw to cut a block that covers the housing flash window (so no direct light creeps into the picture to add scatter). Find a drill size that matches the diameter of the plug on your fibre optic cable. Drill a hole through the middle of the block. Use duct tape or pvc electrical tape to tape the block over the flash window.

And don't forget the nasty category of competition - the rights grab.

The stats on sinking are just the tip. I have been on a Red Sea liveaboard where safety issues included diesel fumes being pumped through the cabins by a badly fitted AC unit and the crew denying there was any problem. Most customers ended up sleeping on deck. That was a boat booked by a major tour operator, so it is not just the danger of booking direct based on a web price. Its not just the Red Sea. I was staying at a resort in Raja Ampat where some divers turned up on-spec having jumped ship from a liveaboard they considered unseaworthy. There are safe and well maintained liveaboards. But in general, you need to accept that in many less developed countries none would match the safety standards expected of a boat operating in (for example) the UK, even if they do surpass the comfort/luxury levels of many UK boats.