John Liddiard

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.

If a macro lens focuses close enough, maybe its possible to do similar to what @Dave_Hicks suggests trapping bubbles on a flat port.

Unfortunately the proportion us underwater photographers represent of incoming tourists to Mexico is negligible. We could all simply refuse to go there and ... no-one in Mexico except a few specialised dive centres and the relevant 'tax' collectors would notice. Mexico has nothing to loose by letting this continue. If the same 'tax' rip-off was attempted in some other destinations, where the vast majority of visitors are underwater photographers, the drop in visitors would soon be noticed.

With all the technology, training and logistics pretty well handled by previous posts, the main point I would like to expand on is buoyancy control. Buoyancy control with open circuit can easily be fine tuned by breathing a little shallower or deeper. With a rebreather, the system of diver and rebreather has a constant volume. Breathing deeper or shallower has no effect. You control buoyancy by dumping or adding gas to BC, suit or loop. With hands full of camera, its not simple to do that while 'hovering' by your subject, and when you do it create bubbles or feed noise, in the same way breathing does, so negating one benefit of the rebreather. Hence the tactic is to get buoyancy perfectly adjusted before approaching the subject. Something we all should be practising, but more critical with a rebreather. That limits your approach to a subject being horizontal. Any up or down in the approach and buoyancy escalates in the wrong direction. As well as requiring a buoyancy adjustment, this can also have a dangerous effect on ppo2, another distraction. On a larger scale, this impacts dive plan. You end up avoiding even minor zig-zag, especially when shallower, because that affects loop volume. We should all avoid big zig-zag dive plans, but you don't notice just how much you zig-zag by just a meter or so without realising it until you dive a rebreather. From a more personal aspect, before I began using rebreathers my open circuit gas consumption was low. I was one of those divers who hardly breathed. After years rebreather diving, back on open circuit my gas consumption sucks, and no matter how much I concentrate I cant get back to my pre-rebreather rate. Perhaps it is the effect of +30 years age and more than a few kg weight. But I like to blame it on rebreather breathing habits.

For really cold water winter diving you could go the other direction. Narvik and surrounding Fjords have historically significant wrecks from WW2 and if you are lucky, killer whales. My Narvik article has become lost on Divernet, but it is available on Dyk.net https://dyk.net/art/bortom-narvik-–-bland-späckhuggare-och-vrak In the winter the visibility can be stunning, but the daylight hours short. Further north, in winter there is ice diving on P40 aircraft and a merchant ship Johan Faulbaum in Jarfjord near Kirkenes by the Russian border. My article on that has unfortunately also become lost from Divernet.

Yes, the lanyard clips to a right shoulder D-ring and I hold it in front of me or off to one side with both hands or one hand, which leaves it pretty much horizontal with me when in a nice horizontal trim in most situations. The camera is weighted a little negative, so moving it in and out can modify my angle in the water. If I let go of it, the base of the camera will be about an arm's length below me. If I am upright in the water, it will dangle at sporran height, so clear of my chest, but not in the way of my legs. If freediving, I wear the lanyard as a camera strap over my neck which keeps the camera tighter to me.

I keep my camera attached to me on a lanyard. But during the dive that is not for convenience - I would never let go of it except to avert a situation more precious than my camera. Occasionally I may unclip the lanyard for an awkward to position shot. Then clip it on again straight after. The only time it deliberately dangles on the lanyard is for short periods during ascent, such as while sending up an SMB. > a situation more precious than my camera ie. Needing to rescue myself or other divers. I have needed to rescue others very occasionally and feel the time saved by just being able to let go of the camera rather than spending time to weigh up if the situation warrants letting go of several thousand pounds/dollars/euros does make a difference. For the actual lanyard, I have a length of 6mm braided cord, attached either end to the housing and with a large stainless carabiner in the middle. Maximum dangle is about 45cm. I wouldn't trust a single plastic fastex buckle to not self-release.

My DIY floats are kids swimming noodles - the kind with a hole down the middle (some brands are solid). I cut these into rings and thread them over the arms. A couple of noodles will last for many years. They do compress a bit with depth and with age. I counter the age by adding an extra ring where necessary. As for the depth, its not enough to be a problem, but could be for those who like to make a camera perfectly neutrally buoyant and trimmed. The fun part is that you can get them in all kinds of colours other than black.

Looking back to the days of 35mm film, I used a Sigma 14mm rectilinear lens on a Nikon 801 body extensively for wreck photography, divers and occasionally for big fish. I don't know the exact model number off hand. I purchased the lens second hand in the mid 1990s and it was old then. I used this with a Subal housing and the medium dome (not the full 180 dome). Corners were good in the dry, but soft underwater. I experimented with various port extensions. It had a highly curved front element so could not take a correcting dioptre. Despite such limitations, many pictures taken with this lens were published and it was my much favoured lens. I still have the lens and if I had a full frame Nikon body would probably still be using it.

All my systems are Linux. Photoshop is not an option for me. For raw processing I use RawTherapee. https://www.rawtherapee.com/ - also available in PC and Mac versions I used to like it more that I do nowadays. The functionality is very good, but as with many open source projects, every bright idea gets added but never rationalised, the result being the interface gains in complexity with every new version. If PS/LR were available, I would be tempted.

Different airline and airport check-in rules vary. There is a usually a limit on the size of batteries that can be carried within a device. Over a certain size, they must be removed. Over another size and you may not be allowed to carry at all without a bunch of extra paperwork. Discrete and removable batteries mean you can't get caught in that trap. Removable batteries can also be swapped out for a second set for a quick turn around.

I suffer really badly from this dilemma. Form my web site its easy, its a catalogue of everything that doesn't get thrown away, not a sweet and simple portfolio advert. For a particular project, as @TimG says, knowing your audience becomes important. For a show with words, or an article, its often the words that dictate the pictures. If a picture doesn't support a point in the story, it gets culled. For pictures shown just as pictures, they need to have wow or interest for the expected audience. These factors are often more important than picture quality. Any picture that needs to be explained or justified beyond the words of the story (or no words) gets culled. Even then I always end up with too many and struggle over the final cull. The pictures then go through the friends filter. Do they like it? no, then cull it. Then its off to the editor because I just cant cull any further. Some editors are really good and select from the submitted pics to work with the story, but only if there are not too many to select from. I have occasionally worked with less refined editors who select the first N from the folder no matter how they work with the story. Hence a pressure on me to cull even further before submitting. But this is a happy problem to have. Better to get home with too many pictures for a story than not enough!

Before wet lenses, when I used to set a primary lens for the dive, my default plan was to dive WA early/late in the day and macro in the middle of the day. Reason being, by avoiding WA in the middle of the day I didn't need as much strobe power to dominate over natural light. Its not just daylight that gets blue filtered, all light including strobe light gets blue filtered. No matter how much strobe power there is, no matter how high the ISO, subjects further away tend to blue. Hence by getting close and avoiding too much natural light, you don't need massive strobe power for WA. For me, more powerful strobes = faster/longer burst at reduced power. One final thought, rather than bigger strobes, consider more strobes. You don't see it so often now, but it used to be some photographers would have 4 strobes mounted to cover the corners or to dismount for an off-camera fill. Even if you don't use them all at the same time, an advantage of more cheaper strobes is redundancy on a trip. Again not so important now strobes are more reliable.

If monster IQ was really the be-all and end-all of taking pictures, we would all be taking Hasselblads diving. As it is, a MFT now is as good as full frame sensors of a couple of generations ago.

A side effect of bigger pixel count is the amount storage processing and memory needed to view and edit the files. This increases at least linearly, and depending on the processing could be substantially above linear. Its not just the cost of cameras, lenses and housing. Bigger memory cards, bigger disk, more RAM, bigger processor ... It all adds up.

From Hurghada shore based, I have always enjoyed Gota Abu Ramada for fish portraits. Its usually a check dive, beginner and last dive of the day. It can be very busy, with the advantage that the fish are very used to divers and don't need much effort to stalk. Awkward for wide angle, too many stray divers in the background. Unlikely to be on the agenda for a liveaboard.

The Coptic museum has a terrifying collection of circumcision knives through the ages.

As well as boats, you can shore dive the casino point on Catalina. Get a ferry from LA, then you rent a trolley, cylinders and weights from the dive centre. Then take your trolley up to the casino and take yourself diving. There is also a kayak rental outfit where you can rent a dive kayak. This was all >20 years ago, so could be out of date by now. I found one of my articles on the web archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20110710134649/http://www.divernetxtra.com/travel/kayak0600.htm There is another article some where about the shore diving.

I use a Shearwater Predator computer strapped round a strobe arm. Its rarely perfectly the right way up, but is easy enough to read and anything not green gets my attention to rotate the whole rig if necessary. I find I pay more attention than I would to a computer on a wrist. By having nothing on my wrists for warm water diving, kitting up is quick. No messing about with wrist straps. No risk of forgetting anything. Just pick up the camera and jump in knowing everything is there. For cold water the same, except this is my backup. I keep my camera on a leash. I wouldn't do this if I hand-held the camera without a leash, too many risks in one go if I dropped it!

The 'old masters' (artists/painters) used to work in rooms with the window on their left shoulder so as not to shadow their work with their right arm (right handed). Hence a single strobe slightly to left will conform to the historic norm.

My current (ageing) situation is that I need glasses with between +2 and +3 for reading (depending on where I hold the bhook). My distance vision is clear. For diving, I use a Cressi Occhio mask, very low volume and two eyes. I have a +2 gauge lens in the bottom left corner of my mask. For using my camera, with currently un-corrected vision I can see clearly through a Nauticam 45 degree viewfinder and camera EVF with no correction. My problem - while I can see clearly through the camera, my vision is no longer good enough to spot tiny critters before pointing my camera at them. On land, with reading glasses on, looking at anything distant is obviously slightly fuzzed. For underwater, the solution I am considering is +2 or +3 full lenses for both eyes of my mask. Not half lenses or bifocals. My intent is that will give me the best vision for spotting tiny and camouflaged critters. The side effect of a slightly fuzzed distant vision won't really be a problem underwater. The anticipated problem is: will I be able to use my camera viewfinder through such lenses? Can the built in adjustment of the Nauticam viewfinder negate the +2 or +3 I would have in my mask. Does anyone have experience of such, or am I thinking in completely the wrong direction?

As and when I have time, I will do my bit to turn this into the best resource for underwater photographers.