Dave_Hicks

Welcome to WaterPixels. I am also in Washington State, here in Seattle. Both are great communities full of avid divers and photographers. Look me up if you need a dive buddy!

When I was using Eneloop cells, i would buy a new set every year. I was doing about 100 dives a year at the time. I used two sets of 8, so replaced one of the sets every year. A few years on now, most of my old Eneloops won't consistently charge anymore even for use around the house in remotes, thermostats, etc

So much for the conventional wisdom that AA batteries are superior to LiOn because you can buy them anywhere... For what it worth, i used a pair of 4XAA chargers that are USB-C PD powered. Redundancy and no issues with local power supply. Carry a 60W USB brick and run all chargers off of that

Is that a printed ring holding the dome on an extension ring? Subal maybe? I considered that but decided to just print the whole port a single part. If there is ever a need to use to curved port in a more diverse set of configurations I could make a 20mm ring holding the dome. I reprinted overnight and am getting ready to test this out.

It only took a couple of minutes to insert the o-ring. I made about six test prints to fine tune the fit. Too loose, still loose, too tight, just right. I made it snug enough that it was not impossible to place the o-ring. We will see how well it works in the water soon. I built in a provision for a locking ring outside the glass to secure it a bit out of the water. Now the original Zen dome I could not push out the glass by hand. I had to pluck out the o-ring with a steel pick. My dome i can push out by hand, so it is not as tight but hopefully good enough.

Yes, that looks like a problem! My extension ring design has that lip but i didn't (think) i needed that extra diameter for the port. I will add that back into the design!

Yes. It was from a Zen Underwater WA-100 dome port for Olympus 9-18mm. Cost about $200 on ebay. The actual glass rim diameter was 103.85mm. I bought 103mm x 3mm 70a orings from McMaster Carr. I got about 5 orings and used one up repeatedly using it to test fit and installation techniques in draft prints of the top of the port.

Great idea! Absolutely upload it to Makerworld. I'll try it out, very clever idea.

Curved Glass Macro Port - Nikon 60mm n120 Hot off the printer: 17 hour print time! Perfect off the printer! No post-processing or clean up was needed beyond brushing off some threads and dust. Port, glass, glass o-ring, lock ring for glass, Ultima Dryglove lever or o-ring insertion: Pushing in the o-ring: Quarters, then Eighths, then the rest. Installed and Holding Vacuum: Pool test later today. Dive with empty, spare housing later this weekend.

Yes, that is true of my Z8 as well. My older D800 & D850 synced to 1/250. I have not found the 1/200 sync to be an issue. Sure 250 would be better but it should not be a decided factor for most. If it is very important you can spend a $300-400 for an HSS compatible trigger that will eliminate sync speed as an issue at all. I actually just ordered a Turtle Smart3 trigger (non-TTL) to get support for HSS and Rear Curtain.

Enjoy your new rig! I am curious my you didn't house the Z6iii? You could still use small ports like the WWL-C or 140mm dome. Olympus is probably smaller still, but not dramatically.

Yes! I took these images at Magdalena Bay last year snorkeling. The first humpback shot was taken from about 2-3 feet distance. I don't think this would have been possible with a rectilinear lens. If I did this again I would probably add a 1.4tc to the lens. You can still get the same width at 11mm but you have a bit more reach when things are further away. Nikon Z8 w/8-15mm Fisheye lens, f8@1/250s iso640, Nauticam 140mm dome, Natural Light

That's awesome! I'm very happy you are using the Port Float! I am curious how your experience was printing it. What printer and material did you use? How is it working for you? Cheers - Dave

Yes, i made a TPU rubber design that is much easier to install underwater than neoprene and it rinses and cleans better. Currently available Dome Ports are:• AOI DLP 06• Nauticam 8.5 inch • Nauticam 140mm• Nauticam 180mm• Sea & Sea 12mm • Zen DP 100• Zen DP 170 https://makerworld.com/models/2391039

These are all fantastic images! Good job mastering the new gear. My one bit of feedback is that using a snoot can create a sort of "stage spotlight" effect where you see the ring of light. Sometimes this is a nice effect, but it can also be distracting. What I often like to do is to use the second flash at lower power to create a bit of fill lighting at an offset angle. You still get separation from the background with the snoot as the main light source, but a more graduated fall off of the light into the background. It looks a bit less artificial this way. Example: Atom Snoot as key light, MF-2 as fill light: Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, MFO-1, f11@1/200s iso125, Backscatter Atom with snoot, MF-2 strobe

n85 Extension Rings:

I am using printed extension rings regularly these days, with a few dozen dives in the last couple of months. If you decide to try this, work up slowly to build confidence. Vacuum test for a few days first. Then dive an empty housing for the port. In a pool, then the ocean. After that you should be comfortable. I printed an n85 ring yesterday and will be testing it today.

Proprietary batteries are the worst! I dumped by Kraken spotting light for that reason.

You can't buy a smaller flash than the Backscatter Miniflash. Single 18650 or 21700 lithium ion battery.

I'm not sure what the lesson is for buying extra batteries. It's not hard to carry extras, which I usually do on a trip. I can't imagine how you could forget the orings. They really should never be off the caps except for once in a very long while if you need to clean the cap. I probably took off my Inon orings like 2 or 3 times in over 500 dives with them. As for flooding and cleaning the battery compartment, sealed battery chambers is standard on most strobes. This is not unique to Inon. Always carry an extra strobe cable in spares. I often have a spare trigger and soldering iron on long trips too. I've fixed several solder joints on other divers triggers and hotshoes in the last few years!

Personally, I am very sure about this. I predict that within a year or two there will be few to zero UW strobes powered by AA cells still being manufactured.

Inon still has not shown more than a mock up of this strobe and zero specifications. It is highly likely that it still uses 4 AA batteries, which imposses a ton of limits that will yield a non-competitive product in today's market. I loved my 330s and keep them for backup, but they are not a good choice today.

I just recently published it on MakerWorld: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2877582-float-for-backscatter-hf-1-strobe-220g-buoyancy

Blue or even Red! The HF-1 w/float is a bit bigger than the Retra, but not by a lot. Max diameter is about 15mm more, height and weight are nearly the same as the Retra's are heavier to start with. When I first put the Retra Maxi's on my Rig, replacing the HF-1s, it was annoyingly buoyant and unbalanced. I had to remove 2 Stix Jumbo blocks (180grams each) to get it back in some sort of decent trim. The HF-1 floats are a bit more buoyant the Stix Jumbo at 220 grams each. Using the HF-1 floats now is actually a big convenience because I don't need to Add/Remove Stix blocks on my arms when I switch between Retra and HF-1 strobes.

I think you are correct, in general. However, the Retra Maxi strobe is actually bulkier than their past strobes and than similar HF-1. That size and displacement leaves it just a few grams negative in the water. It seems to me they optimized for a buoyancy target more than minimum size of the package.