Dave_Hicks

I don't recommend transporting a housing on flights with the camera installed. It is a risk to bend, fold, and mangle the alignment of the tray and controls. Depressed buttons can damage the camera body. I usually put my well padded viewfinder and optical cables inside the housing when packed. I travel with the housing loaded by car but not if the housing in in a suitcase or roller bag.

Thanks! Maybe in a few weeks. I am in Raja Ampat for another couple weeks.

Look into a Bambu P1s with AMS as the best cost effective option. If you buy without an AMS you will end up buying it later once you realize how useful it is.

I've been using something similar for a couple of years. It is remarkably effective in drying off housings and ports. I think I've shared the Amazon link about a dozen times to people that see it and want to buy. I should get a referral credit!

I made an MFO-1 hood that also fits the SMC diopters. I have not laid hands on an MFO-3 yet to see if its appropriate. https://makerworld.com/@awkward_swine/collections/16165730?appSharePlatform=copy

No strobes or arms sticking out. I did attach a single 12 inch arm with jumbo stix floats as a crossbar over the top of the housing to make it near neutral. Nauticam Z8 with 140mm dome and 8-15mm. I think a 1.4tc would be an improvement over what i did. Shooting 15mm & near 180degs was great for point blank whales and baitballs, but some more reach would have help for 75% of the subjects. I did very little duck diving and was annoyed by the one over-eager dude on our trip who did. I had to "remove" him from a bunch of photos he didn't ruin out right.

I have had fantastic service from Backscatter, especially with the first run of the flaky MF-1 strobe. They also went above and beyond expectations dealing with some Nauticam flash trigger issues. Retra is also very responsive and easy to deal with based on experience of several friends. I had an Inon 330 repaired maybe 5 years ago, no problems. In the past Ikelite service was very good. Recently the experience was not as good.

I load my camera with a 512gb CFExpress card and a 128gd SDcard. I have 10 of the SDcards (numbered) and rotate in a new one everyday as I import to the PC. Its an easy backup with close to zero effort. So all photos are on 2 memory cards and the PC during a trip. I usually have a backup drive as well if i chose to use it.

Be sure to buy the Intel CPU version. ARM is great for everything but Adobe apps.

You are exactly describing the reasons for my position on this issue. 😉

Two months ago Ikelite service charged my friend money and returned a broken and improperly assembled housing. And they would not even replace the broken hotshoe cable without an additional charge. Ikelite used to have fantastic customer service, but this experience puts that very much in question.

A friend bought a used Ikelite D850 and sent it straight to Ikelite to be serviced. It came back with broken hotshoe wiring and improperly installed spring push buttons that depressed camera controls. Unusable. I fixed it all up, but the aperture control and power button were nearly impossible to engage. I had D70 and D300 housings from Ikelite that served me well. When i got a full frame D800 i found that their port system just didn't work for those WA lenses due to vingetteing. This experience left me very unimpressed and shocked at the poor quality and service of the Ikelite brand these days. Either their quality has fallen or my expectations have gone up. Probably both.

That's a good reason. But not one that i need to be concerned about for my needs.

What is color? If 99% of PC and Phone users can only see sRGB, then i don't see the point. Why do i need to see colors that nobody else can? Artists, film makers, publishers can deal with this for their needs. The rest of us manage to cope with sRGB.

Nauticam just released a new housing for the Nikon Z5II that does not include the added width to seamlessly accommodate F-mount lenses. It's far more compact as a result and basically targeting newer Z-mount native users. One has to imagine that they will shift to Z-mount native housings for more models in the future as F-mount recedes farther into the past. EDIT - Looks like this shift is well underway. The Nauticam Z6III housing also uses this new more compact form factor. NA-Z5II Housing for Nikon Z5II Camera – Nauticam To enable F-mount they optionally offer adapted gears or a port body with integrated F-mount compatible gearing. (which is pretty crazy looking)

The Web runs on sRGB and many print shops work only in sRGB. For my needs of online display and creating large format (30 inch) prints, sRGB is the best choice. I personally don't see any need for an Adobe color space monitor or workflow.

I think this model is probably an identical display to my model, but it's been updated with a modern USB-C hub. Mine is USB-A only. (with HDMI and DP video inputs)

I've been using an older version of this Viewsonic 32" 4K monitor for years and it's been fantastic. It is moderately priced at under $600usd. It's 100% sRGB which is more than adequate for my needs, and probably most non-professional users. It was over $700 when I bought it 6 or 7 years ago, so this seems like a great deal.

The design for these adapter models has not been published: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2391114-adapters-for-retra-and-backscatter-hf-1-strobes#profileId-2619513

The model for this design is now available for download: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2391039-universal-dome-port-cap#profileId-2619412

In a few days I am leaving for a three-week trip to Raja Ampat. Nine days at Misool Eco resort, then 9 more days on the Emperor Harmoni liveaboard. I've only been shooting the Maxi's in darker cold water with limited visibility. Using them in bright clear conditions should add some additional perspective and the high dive count will be a good measure of their reliability and battery capacity. I'm doing my packing for a trip today and considering what to bring along. My current planned camera loadout is looking like this: Nauticam Z8 system 2 Retra Maxi Strobes 1 Backscatter Atom Strobe with adapted OS-1 snoot 1 Backscatter MF-2 as an additional backup strobe Nikon Z105mm macro lens w/MFO-1 Nikon Z24-50mm w/WWL-C Nikon AF-S 8-15mm w/140mm dome Macro setup with the Atom + Snoot for primary, Maxi with macro rings for secondary Wide angle setup with the two Maxi's, optional reduction rings & filters I've shot the HF-1s lots of times in these conditions, so I won't bring them on the trip.

They should be about the same. The strobes are very close in color temperature and the filters both target 4500k.

I made a pair of adapters for Retra and HF-1 that allow the use of accessories from the other brand. I have warming filters more mounted in the photos, but you could put an LSD on the HF-1, Backscatters Floro filter on the Retra, etc. Mix and match accessories.

I think there is only one version. It is hardness 68D vs 95a or 90a, etc for standard TPU. I looked the Shore Scale for reference: The Shore A Hardness Scale measures the hardness of flexible mold rubbers that range in hardness from very soft and flexible, to medium and somewhat flexible, to hard with almost no flexibility at all. Semi-rigid plastics can also be measured on the high end of the Shore A Scale. The Shore D Hardness Scale measures the hardness of hard rubbers, semi-rigid plastics and hard plastics.