Dave_Hicks

I shot this finger tip sized grunt sculpin last night with my Z8 and 105/+5 diopter combo last night. No trouble at all and i didn't lose my lunch in the process!

Omg! Chromatic aberration! Run, fast. I've just got a Z8 and have been using my old Nauticam 45 with it. The viewfinder is set to the smaller setting which seems adequate to get the full field of the viewfinder in the eyepiece. If the is any chromatic aberration it is confined to the periphery. I didn't notice anything so it must be subtle. I don't doubt that the new model is likely better. I could afford to buy it if i wanted to, but i just don't see how it is necessary or would make a tangible improvement. If i find someone else using one with the Z8 i will compare. Until then i am happy with the old viewfinder.

Thats a very cool project! Really ambitious and well thought. I'd love to see some images from the snoot. What did you do to make sure the watertight compartments stay dry at depth? I've experimented with some 3d-printed camera arm floats and found this difficult without making it too heavy. An epoxy coating was suggested but I have not tried that yet.

Lots of great info and pictures, but all I could think about where did he get a MousePad (or whatever it is) with both Whale Sharks AND Kangaroos! Then I saw the Quantas logo on it... 🙂

On page 718 of the manual. 😉

Just bite the bullet on the Nauticam housing. You will sell your old Nauticam housing before long and offset some of the cost. I would put a pause on selling your existing strobes as that is just another money sink for marginal gain. Slowly move toward Z lenses, but there is no rush. Your old lenses and port will work fine with a Nauticam Z8. I don't recall if you had a 45deg viewfinder, but the old version of that will work too. You don't need the new $1,700 version. Just set the Z8 EVF to use the (slightly 10-20%) smaller setting instead of standard. Works great for me.

It looks great! Nice detail in the eyeballs, great colors too. I might try to make it a bit darker with greater use of shadows. Perhaps with a fine point snoot to restrict the light to the eyes and feelers, less on the carapace. Still light the eyeballs for the great color. Backlighting with a fill flash and snooted from the side might be nice.

Nauticam Zoom Gear for Nikon 24-50mm Z lens Typically paired with the Nauticam WWL-C wet wide-angle lens. I've posted a Thingiverse project for a Nikon 24-50mm Z lens zoom gear, for use with a Nauticam housing. Tested in a Nauticam Z8 housing but should work for any similar Nauticam 120 port sized housing. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6460615

I designed and printed out the Nikon 24-50Z zoom gear for Nauticam today. This lens is typically used in combo with the Nauticam WWL-C wet lens. I dove the 16-35 zoom gear I made last week on the weekend. This one took a few attempts to get right; too tight, too loose, finally just right! It's posted on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6460615 The gear works well, and it all fits very cleanly, turns easily. I used a PLA+ hard plastic for the gear and a TPU sleeve for the lens. Remove the rubber grip from the lens, and put the sleeve on in its place. It should slip on with a little effort and grips well. Place the rim down of the sleeve toward the camera. The gear slides over the sleeve, rim first with gear side away from the camera. The 24-50 lens has a sort of "twist to lock" feature as the element telescopes out of the body when in use. The gear has enough grip to lock/unlock it, and then turns easily from 24-50 when in the housing. Set your slicer to use 10mm walls when printing the gear. This will ensure that it prints the base of the gear in rings rather than lines. This will probably work much better than the default.

Don't add more things to complicate the situation. It looks like you have some vignetting, but it's angled. Make sure the shade is completely aligned with the port once it is settled. You generally need to loosen and tighten the shade once your mount is fixed. Also make sure the lens is flat on the port if you have a hinged adapter. It can be easy to bump it up a few millimeters when you dive.

Nauticam Zoom Gear for Nikon 16-35mm lens I've posted a Thingiverse project for a Nikon 16-35mm zoom gear, for use with a Nauticam housing. I dove it this weekend and it worked great. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6460301

Yes I do. Two KISS Spirit CCRs for my wife and myself. I've had this unit for about 8 years, and dove the Sport KISS model starting in 2007. Most of my diving is CCR, and all of my local PNW diving.

I have posted a Thingiverse project for the Hollis BOV 2nd stage regulator purge cover. Mine failed a few weeks ago so I made a replacement regulator part. Works great! https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6460250

Buy some contact cleaner and use it. Monthly.

This is a picture of my D500 hotshoe from a few years ago. It was not used in a housing, but as a surface camera on a dive boat for about a week. After the trip I put it in a dry cabinet where my cameras live. Sometime later I found it like this! An extreme case, but the point is that buildup and corrosion can form even if your gear is well cared for and not directly exposed to water.

Ahh, I missed that part in your description. The other option is that there is a short on the trigger board. Either moisture or a physical contact. Try putting some black electrical tape over the trigger and then insert it. If you can sort of lightly shield both sides with tape you can prevent any errant contact. Additionally, clean both the cameras hotshoe contacts and the hotshoe cable connector with contact cleaner and Q-Tip. A weak connection could be a transient issue. I've actually had hotshoes spontaneously form visible corrosion from exposure to sea air. One of my topside cameras that spent a week on a dive boat got totally encrusted.

Sounds like a fiber optic cable failure to me. The cable could be deformed under pressure and if there is a crack or break it may not work under water when it does in air/low pressure. I would try a couple of things: * While at depth unplug and reconnect each cable end point to ensure there is no bubbles between the connectors. I have had this prevent a strobe from firing on occasion. * Swap out for a fresh set of multi-core fiber optic cables. See above.

I just started diving my Z8 this week. So far I am using my F-mount lenses but I should have a Z24-50 to put behind a WWL-C in a day or two. As for the 105mm, I really can't image how much better the Z version could be. It's already an extremely sharp and fast lens. Replacing it just seems unnecessary and conspicuous. (as if replacing my D850 system wasn't already...)

Curious as to why you are getting rid of the strobe and 105mm just because you got a Z8. You can still use all of those with the new system. I also just got a Z8 and Nauticam housing, but I'm not going to dump my F-mount 105mm lens or the others anytime soon. The Z versions might be new and improved, but not by much.

I have not received my Nikon Z 24-50mm lens yet, but I do have the 16-35mm with a Nauticam gear. Very similar to the one pictured above in the previous post. In anticipation of making a 3d Printed gear for the 24-50 I decided to replicate the 16-35 gear. I decided to make the gear itself out of a rigid PLA+ material. I made the sleeve out of TPU, printed in a ring. I then cut the ring so that it had about a 5mm gap when wrapped around the lens zoom collar. Surprisingly, I got the gear dimensions just about perfect on the first try. I left some wiggle room in the inside diameter that will be taken up by the sleeve. The sleeve took two prints to get it right, but I cheated a bit by cutting off some ribs/ridges that I added and turned out not to be necessary. I updated the design to remove those for the next gear I make. I also made some Cura parameter changes to the Gear that will make the next print a bit cleaner. (10mm walls so the gear base prints in rings rather than lines.) I will upload and share designs of all my Gear sets after I dive them and validate their functionality in the real world. Below are some photos of the 16-35 gear.

I have been using Duramic TPU which also has a shore hardness rating of 95A. It's a lot cheaper at ~$20/kg and seems to work pretty well for everything I've printed with it to date. I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

It never hurts to carry a spare strobe with you. These days a bring two Inon 330s and a Backscatter MF-2/Snoot along. I nearly always use the MF-2/Snoot when shooting macro with a single 330 for fill light. But if one of my big strobes dies, I can always use the MF-2 for Wide Angle as the fill or spotlight role. If you dive a lot, I suggest investing in a 3rd strobe for redundancy.

I won't have the lens in hand until Sunday, so I'll make a gear next week. I have a good design template but need to get the precise measurements and try a couple of material options. I will post the design on Thingiverse once I've tested it out. I dive a couple times a week, so it won't be long.

Welcome from a fellow Seattle diver! Looking at your website I see lots of great images, but I am not seeing any Pacific Northwest photos! What's that about? You live in one of the best diving regions in the world. I'd love to meet you on the beach here in Seatle anytime you get the urge. Cheers, Dave

I use the first one. It's very well made and works exactly as expected. I use it on a Nauticam housing with the KRL-09 and SubSea diopters.