Dave_Hicks

Packing your camera inside your housing is a bad idea and can result in damage or alignment issues. I don't know about you, but I've seen a number of suitcases dropped from overhead bins, thunked off of curbs, and flung by baggage handlers. These impacts create a lot or stress and torsion on the camera mount and controls. You are much better off with the camera in a padded bag or backpack. I've done it in the past too, but learned to do better. Most Nauticam housings I've owned or seen have the back o-ring in a captured grove, so entirely static. If yours is different, adjust accordingly.

I'm just going to come out and say this is a bad idea. Just don't put a port on the housing when you pack it. Is that so hard? It's actually easier to pack this way. Many housing come with a non-sealed flat plastic cap to fit over the open port to keep it safe and clean. Removing orings and putting them in a bag risks loosing an oring you are going to need and contributes to overhandling and stretching. This leads to leaks. Many people also over lubricate them which again stretches them. The back oring does not need lubrication at all as it's static. Some manuals suggest lubing this, but it's not needed and makes it pick up more grit.

I have been to Hammerhead locations in Cocos and Socorro with CCR only groups of divers. They hate bubbles and come much closer when Open Circuit divers are not making a racket. I don't think that strobes have nearly as much influence.

A good fall back to multi core is a 2mm OD TosLink cable you can buy anywhere. It is nearly as good as multi-core at light transmission, but maybe not as robust. I tend to make my cables 1 meter long, sometimes 1.5 meter for extra-long arms. Find a Toslink with 2mm OD that is several meters long and you will be good. These are very inexpensive on Amazon. I posted a thread with 3d printed designs for connectors that work perfectly with 2mm cables.

I suggest bringing on every trip: Batteries for everything that uses batteries Major orings for housing and ports (usually comes with a housing/port) Spare strobe cables Extra arm clamp or two Tribolube in little tubes Several Microfiber towels Set of allan wrenches 6" cresent wrench Small strap wrench Nauticam spares including a few c-clips Vacuum pump I keep all of this and more in a larger ziplock bag that always travels with the camera housing.

Tribolube 71 works with all o-ring material.

That seems more like a pro than a con. The 24-50z covers the entire range of the WWL-C, making it a perfect fit. I've used it a few dives to good effect now and am very happy wth it. All shots taken last week with the Nikon Z8 and WWL-C / 24-50mm.

Probably not a good idea. It could possible be done, but port rings are generally aluminum for a good reason. Weight bearing and strength of filament are not going to be great for this. It might function but i would not trust it. The effort would out weigh the minimal cost of the ring. Now gears are a different story...

This is why you export a catalog from your laptop and import the trip catalog to your desktop. The catalog contains all the edits and metadata.

The newer Nikon Z cameras like the Z9 and Z8 have a new RAW format option called HE*. This option was not in the D850 DSLR. It includes a slight amount of lossy compression in the original RAW capture. However on analysis from many reviewers, and presumably Nikon itself, there is a negligable loss of image qaulity in the resulting files. The RAW NEF files are reduced in size from around 49MB to 35MB or about 30-40%. HE* RAW format is actually the default on the Z8, which should be a statement on how much confidence Nikon has in this choice. I think they adopted this format to increase capacity of the buffer for these high-speed cameras. I decided to leave it as default for most of my shooting. I have not noticed any reduction of quality from the D850 images.

One your Laptop, create a new Folder in the LR catalog for every Trip or Event. Import your photos to that folder on the laptop every day after shooting. I will often triage and tag photos while on the trip, or even do some postprocessing on favorite or remarkable shots. You want to preserve those edits and metadata. When you get home, export the Trip/Event folder from the Laptop's LR catalog as a new catalog. Copy that over to the desktop computer, as well as the folder full of photos. Import the exported catalog to the Desktop's main Lightroom Catalog. If necessary, you might have to point LR to the new location of the files on your desktop.

Another in a long legacy of Sony proprietary memory card standards. Remember the Memory Stick anyone?

It is going to come down to EVF quality and focus accuracy. I have the Z8 but have not used a Z7. If you found major improvement in responsiveness and brightness of the EVF it might be a good trade. I have found the combo of a 45deg viewfinder and the ability to shoot and review in the EVF to be remarkable with Z8.

The Flash Trigger batteries last forever it seems. Mine last for years and i often do 150-200 dives a year. The vacuum sensor batteries need to be changed frequency on the other hand

Try it out and if you see the issue write to Backscatter.

Is the preflash button on the Inon330 strobe depressed and locked as needed with that configuration?

The sync issue i had with backscatter was intermittent. It worked until it didn't and typically continued to fail for the rest of the session. I believe there was a "learning" issue where the strobe used logic to determine preflash and this was not effective.

Yes, I have seen this problem. More than likely this is a Synchronization problem. The issue will exist somewhere between your flash trigger and strobe. What exactly are the brand/model of strobes and flash trigger? I had problems with the Backscatter MF2 not syncing with some Nauticam flash triggers. They have updated the strobes to solve the problem and replaced my strobe with one that works.

Welcome from another Seattle CCR diver, but its Nikon for me.

Thanks! I'll be diving Redondo tonight around 6-6:30pm if you care to join.

Clockwise: Pacific red octopus (Octopus rubescens) Deep Blade Shrimp (Spirontocaris prionota) Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis) Red Rock Crab with eggs (Cancer productus) Shot with a Nikon Z8, 105mm and +5 SubSea diopter, Backscatter MF-2 snoot strobe + Inon 330 fill strobe

Very cool! Just downloaded and installed. Now I have more manuals to read!

As I am rarely diving and taking pictures of large white walls, I think I would go with the first setup. No diffuser. You lose a lot of power with the diffuser for what? Slightly smoother light coverage? I don't see how that will have a significant impact on real world, messy organic scenery.

I just finished my Lensbaby Focus gear. It took 4 parts, but it works great. The lens is very simple and does NOT support autofocus or aperture control from the camera. Entirely manual. I made it for a friend that likes to experiment with these creative lenses. Spacer to sit under the gear and raise it to the level of the Housing's cog. Gear with slots to engage the collar and turn the gear. Slides over the collar and supports the telescoping lens. TPU sleeve to grip the lens Collar with pegs to engage with the gear cylinder

I see. The beauty of 3d printing is you can just make two gears! But sure, less stuff to carry around.