Dave_Hicks

The Atom has a Red light mode! The snoot mod I built worked well, dove it tonight.

I just got an Atom last week, and this week I made a snoot-adapter for the OS-1. Backscatter is planning to sell an "OS-2" snoot for the Atom but it looks like it's just the OS-1 optics on a different plastic mount. I quickly reverse engineered it from the product photos and used my spare OS-1 front end on my DIY adapter. I'll dive it tomorrow and report on results. It seems to work just as well at the MF-2 / OS-1 combo, but more powerful. This might be an ideal snoot setup as the MF-2 is limited in battery life if you have the spotting light on all the time.

China copy of a Hong Kong China company product? Its China all the way down!

Buzzer is more annoying than useful. Personally, i would just use it as is if simple measures can't fix it.

I am still field testing these designs for the new Backscatter Atom Strobe but thought I would share a sneak peek! Bumper Ring Full reduction ring set - Wide, Macro, Super-macro 4500k Color Filter that fits in the wide reduction ring Adapter to retrofit the OS-1 snoot to the Atom Strobe using the strobes bayonet mount

To be determined!

Thanks! We had some major floods last month that put so much silt in Puget Sound that I could only see one of my two fins. :) It's a lot better now.

Sharing are a few more wide-angle shots with the Maxi's. The water conditions around the PNW tend to be fairly particulate at the best of times, so I normally like to use reductions rings. The Maxi strobes (and my HF-1) are pretty cold around 6200-6500k so I also like to use a warming filter. Retra's wide angle 4500k warming dome is not compatible with reduction rings however. I ended up fabricating custom reduction rings a with 5500k --> 4500k gel filter installed. I think it all worked out really nicely and I was satisfied with the results. A note on battery life - Using 5300mah batteries, I took about 330 photos across two dives on this outing. At the end of the day the battery indicator light was still Green, meaning they still had greater than 75% state of charge. I only used the spotting lights a little bit to illuminate the GPO in its den. Battery life of the Maxi's seems to be great. I'm looking forward to some three-dive-days in the future to really stress them out. The photos below were not edited for white balance, this is how the colors came out of the camera set to auto white balance with using the 4500k filters: Nikon Z8 w/24-50mm, WWL-C, Pair Retra Maxi strobes Custom Reduction Ring and filter:

From what I can see in testing of Burst shots and recycle time, I think that Retra has designed the Maxi to prioritize triggering the flash with each frame. The Maxi will continue to fire with each frame even if at a reduced the power level. This is probably a valid choice at 1/8th or 1/4 power. At 1/2 or Full power I think this breaks down as the subsequent shots in the sequence become so underexposed that they might not be useful. The Backscatters seem to prioritize hitting the expected exposure with every flash, and will start dropping frames when they can't keep up anymore. At 1/2 and Full power the Atom still delivered useful exposures even if only every second or third frame. The HF-1 only skipped frames at Full power and then exposed every second frame. I think this is a case where preferences will vary.

No, please read it again. I tested with 3fps for 10 frames. The Maxi works perfectly at 1/8th power. Any higher power and you lose start to reduce the exposure with each subsequent frame. It's a gradual drop off at 1/4, and more significant at 1/2 and Full power. The Backscatter HF-1 and Atom are ramp up a bit higher in burst shooting. They never shoot an significantly underpowered frame. Instead they start skipping frames. Both work perfectly at 1/8 and 1/4. The Atom starts skipping every other frame at 1/2 power. The HF-1 starts skipping every other frame only at Full power, and the Atom skips two frames at Full.

The short answer is that the Maxi can shoot steady across 10 frames at 1/8th power (+1). At 1/4 (+2) there is a gradual drop off in power over 10 frames. At 1/2 the drop offs are significant and its a no go at Full. There are no blank or skipped frames. I shots at 3 frames per second in these tests.

I spent today diving with the Maxi's at a dive site called Sund Rock about 90 minutes drive from Seattle. Good visibility today (5-10 meters) so I am hoping for a few good wide-angle shots. I will do some test shots and comparison including recycle and power of 3-5 frame burst shots. I'll compare the Maxi, HF-1, and Atom strobes.

My 3d printed floats are hollow, mostly. Printed in ABS, 4 walls, 5% infill. Not sealed with any additional products or acetone smoothed. Not necessary. I have the printing parameters tuned well enough that the hollow body structure is completely waterproof and crush-resistant to a tested depth of about 35 meters. Trying to minimize dry weight against buoyancy. I have been using a few of these across 50+ dives each and weigh them periodically to very they have not taken on water. So far, they are rock solid.

A very clever solution. Hide the ugly foam floats on the port and stuff it with buoyancy in a sleek wrapper! Genius! What is the dry weight over the whole port float unit?

They are all over the place at Alki Junkyard. I am not good at spotting them, but my buddy was!