bvanant

My take is that the OM-1 type system will give you everything you need. As for sharpness, I do all the printing for the Southern California UPS groups for the the Long Beach Scuba show. Everything from cell phones, to TG to RX100 to micro 4/3 to Z9 to Canon R5. All prints are 16x20 inches and the micro 4/3 systems are clearly good enough to sit on the wall next to a print from an R5 and no one says, wow that Olympus photo is a piece of garbage. The lens systems for the micro 4/3 are great for underwater and the AOI housing so far (more than 700 dives has been bulletproof. There are now a ton of strobes that speak Oly RC mode if TTL is your thing and the system is small enough to make travel easy. Bill

The backscatter MF-1 had the 5 button pushes. We knew about it and complained to Berkeley about it but at the time it was really the only choice for ergonomic small strobe and snoot. They listened for the MF-1 but I think some lights still use it.

What engineer thought that 5 button pushes in 3 seconds was a "good" implementation? Insane. We make medical devices and I can only imagine what patients would say if we made them use a series of button pushes to get at some feature of the device. Bill

For tiny things (like ladybugs in Komodo) I find that the 60+CMC is quite appealing. I have the 90 as well but somehow for me at least the 60+CMC is "easier" than the 90 at full magnification. Probably because I am using the AOI 90 degree finder; with the Nauticam 45 finder it might be different. Bill

I don't know anyone running the OM-1 with macro lenses that seems to get better results with it. Full frame folks do in fact get "better" results. Bill

In my hands, (I sold mine) there was NO visible or measurable improvement with any of the macro lenses (30, 45, 60, 90). Bill

My wife is a videographer and way more skilled/artistic than I am. (www.blueviews.net) She is also an amazing spotter of little things. One idea is to get your wife a GoPro or similar and let her create her own memories of the diving you do. We no longer do trips where you need to keep up with the guides, rather our trips (land or live aboard) are aimed at creating images. Bill

I suspect that the MF3 uses the same flash tube as the MF2 which has a color temp of about 6K without diffuser. Bill

Historically fixing this kind of lens issue has been very difficult. Getting the retainer ring off is mostly straightforward but taking the elements apart and cleaning them is more painful. The big issue is to get them back together correctly without any of the manufacturing fixtures that the OEM guys use (and they typically do it in a clean room). It can be done but depending on how much your time is worth you might just buy a new one. Bill

Try calling Reef or Backscatter, they still sell Fantasea stuff, Reef still sells your lens. Bill

DOF (in general) goes down as the square of the magnification (with several aproximations) so the CMC 2 will be a bunch better. But whether or not it is to your liking is a question. Bill

I would like to try the MFO-3 with the Oly 90 lens but it apparently is not a good fit for that lens. Chris Ross uses it with the 60, I might try it with the 60 for black water but my experience with the MFO-1 (it was useless) makes me a bit wary. Bill

I have both the Panasonic and Olympus 30s and I really can't tell them apart, the Oly supposedly has a bit more native magnification but at the port more or less. The real reason for me to use the Oly is that it allows RC mode and the Panasonic doesnt Bill

with the 30 last night Bill

I have been shooting the 30 for blackwater and out of laziness I left the 45 on. WAY WAY more PITA with a lot fewer keepers. To keep it simplest, the AOI with the 30 macro lens and the Kraken add on wide angle lens on a flip adapter. To shoot really tiny things, add the extension ring and shoot the 60 with a CMC or similar. But to be really simple just the 30 and one Kraken/AOI wet wide angle. Bill

Another vote for Helicon. We shoot (on land) several hundred shots for a single stack and it works reasonably well and fast. Bill

Looking for an AOI housing for OM-1 or OM-1 mark II. thanks Bill

Shoot a bit of video to heat up the camera 🤑

Better the charger than the battery. Bill

I have been mostly using the AOI RC strobes for most of my shooting. The very cool thing about the MF series is the remote triggering, but I don't use it much. The battery situation that would be ideal is if they both used the same damn batteries. Bill

But it's obvious I meant that engineering and design, particularly in context of size, has come a very long way. Meaning if other modern products can get smaller and contain more features, then the back scatter flash can. That is sometimes true, but not obvious. In our world of continuous glucose monitoring it took 2 companies (with essentially infinite money) more than 4 years to make the device about 15% smaller. And one of them paid Google to do it for them. For optical things there is no Moore's law so making very small strobes very bright is still difficult. I don't know how much engineering is at AOI (I think they make the strobes) but I suspect it wasn't on Backscatter's list of most important features. Bill

The question is if I have a couple of MF2 and speak olympus not Sony should I buy one? Not obvious that it is a big difference. Bill

BT parts are relatively cheap, but things get bigger and need support. BVA

I think adding the ability to remotely do a firmware update to that type of strobe would add significant costs. Not sure I need my dive lights/strobes to be on WIFI. Bill

For sale are a pair of Fotocore GTM strobes (black) and batteries for them. Probably on 6 dives with them. I am selling because I have too many strobes. They are on sale at Bluewater for $450, you can have these for $750 for the pair. Bill