Dave_Hicks

When I shoot macro, I mostly use an MF-2/snoot on the right and an HF-1 on the left. The left side has very long arms. This allows me to use the snoot as a primary light and the HF-1 as fill light. The long arms allow me to place some backlighting behind the subject or from a steep angle to provide some contrast and shadow. If there is a tight spot I can push the HF-1 arm out of the way and just use the snoot. I have 3 Jumbo Stix blocks on the HF-1 arms that nicely balance the rig. The whole thing is nearly neutrally buoyant. I see no problems with the pair of MF-2s as a good macro setup or CFWA configuration.

The Kraken RS-160s look really nice on the spec sheet and are used to great effect by a few photographers that I really respect. Including for macro. I don't know why the Retra's would be better in this regard. The Kraken is a lot more modern than the Retra in its design and specs with a better battery and charging solution in particular. USB-C charging of 2x21700 batteries. With the money saved over the Retra's you could add the Kraken Snoot or even better, add a Backscatter MF-2 snoot/strobe to your collection. Now you have flexibility and backup while spending less money than the Retra set.

I am liking the idea of a slip over shade that fully protects the body and maybe shields the glass a bit from getting scratched. My old SubSea+5 diopter is scratched to hell on the body and a bit on the glass too. I tend to get down in the sands and rocks with super-macro shots. I'll try this out for a while and confirm that it doesn't get in the way. Thanks for sharing the idea, @Tom Kline

Who makes or sells it?

Does it screw on or slip over? Just for fun I made a slip-over shade while I was eating lunch. 🙂 TPU Rubber, it shades about 25mm from the glass and can be push down to only protrude about 12mm. I do not observe any vignetting.

It looks like Nauticam makes a shade for the SMC series, but I don't think it uses the thread at all. It seems to slip over and can be raised or lowered. It's also probably too tall for the much more pancake MFO lens, at least if you want to retract it. It's an interesting idea, perhaps I'll try designing and printing one.

I guess we need to add "burp your strobe" to the best practices of Underwater Photography. 🙂 🫧

Picture? What's the function?

Probably a good idea.

Yes, i thought about that. Could a build up of pressure in the compartment cause the issue? Perhaps only if the batteries were the root cause and not an external flood.

We'll see what happens when I dive it again this week. There is usually some water under the cap, but I don't know if the orings are wet. Perhaps the first one is, but I could not say for sure. I know there is an overpressure valve, I assume that is the metal disk as the center of the cap. It would be interesting to know how to test that independently.

No, i was mistaken. The MFO does have a front thread. Maybe it's meant for a filter or something?

Yes, official on no stacking. There is no front thread.

TLDR; The strobe lives and seems to be working normally after cleaning it up. Yesterday I was doing my second dive of the day when one of my HF-1 strobes made a little tiny pop and stopped working. The green indicator light was off and turning it off and on again did nothing. I was at about 80-85 feet at the time. I turned it off, folded it away, and used the remaining strobe for the rest of the dive. I had set up my camera and strobes on Friday night, and they headed out early Saturday morning for two shore dives about a 90-minute drive away. The conditions were not great, and I didn't take many photos maybe 50. I lightly rinsed the camera and strobes at the dive site and then soaked it in the sink once I got home. I had another pair of boat dives planned Sunday morning, also a 90 minute drive. Since I had not taken many photos I decided to leave the entire rig, camera and strobes alone and dive it again without opening or charging anything. I did a few test shots and packed it in the car. The first dive all worked normally and during the second dive both strobes worked until the Pop. After I got home, I soaked and dried the entire rig and then went to see what was going on with the dead strobe. Had the batteries died suddenly, was the strobe broken? It didn't seem likely to me that it might had flooded. As such, I was a bit surprised to see moisture and a little black goo in the battery compartment. It made another little pop when opened, releasing pressure. There was NOT a lot of water in it. It was not fully flooded, just a bit wet. The batteries and strobes electrical contact showed some black goo and corrosion on the positive terminal at the bottom of the compartment. I dumped out the batteries as set them aside wrapped in paper towels. (they went to a can outside the house) I took the strobe and rinsed it repeatedly under the sink and scrubbed the battery compartment with a toothbrush. My handy electric blower dried it out quickly. I wrapped some sandpaper on the end of a chopstick and cleaned up the corroded Pos+ terminal at the bottom of the compartment. I went to the manual and confirmed my recollection that the battery compartment is sealed from the rest of the strobe. The manual says "maybe" the strobe will survive a flood, and that unless it starts acting erratically you can keep on using it. After allowing it to continue to dry overnight, I loaded fresh batteries this morning and the strobe seems to be working correctly 100%. I'll dive it in a few days to confirm further, but the good news is that it seems to live up to the sealed compartment promise of the manual. I really don't know what caused the flood. I am very meticulous in cleaning and lightly lubricating the orings and sealing surfaces with tribolube with each battery change. There was no hair or debris in the seal when I opened it. No cracks in the case or cap that I can detect. I removed the orings and cleaned the cap and groves carefully with a toothbrush and lint free laboratory wipe. The orings seem to be in good shape so I cleaned those too and put them in spares. I swapped in the spare set of orings that Backscatter provided with the HF-1 on both strobes. I didn't take any photos of the flood, but it was not very dramatic in any case. Just a touch of goo and corrosion. It just goes to show that every strobe or o-ring sealed device is never 100% foolproof and the best we can do is take care. Have a spare on hand if you can't afford to be down a strobe on a big trip. I have a couple of big trips coming up in April and May, so I'll be bringing at least 1 spare strobe and a few extra batteries!

Anyone have a use for an old Ikelite Video housing? For parts or a science experiment maybe? I think is was for a canon cx 600? video camera. You pay shipping, its yours.

The MFO is standalone only. No stacking.

Well, that's wrong. Even the screen shot you shared instructs that you need to Push in the button to Position 1 when using Manual strobe power control on a non-preflash camera. Except for Olympus shooters, pretty much everyone is using Manual mode with these strobes.

Looks like the Preflash "Bastard Button" is gone. Perhaps it is using a learning mode now like most other strobes. And no electrical sync at least on this model. There is a plugged disk on the back, so perhaps electrical is an option.

I also have a double flip. I very occasionally use a SubSea +10 diopter, similar to the SMC1. If I want to use that I'll still pair it with the MFO on the flip. Otherwise, I've replaced the Flip / Subsea +5 combo with the MFO directly on the port.

I did another few dives with my new Nauticam MFO lens on my Nikon Z8 with the AF-S 105mm macro lens. Based on my earlier experience, I decided to mount the MFO directly on the port and dispense with the Dual Flip adapter and it's 300g weight. To my delight my camera rig was just about perfectly neutral in the water with this setup. (Nauticam Z8 housing, HF-1 and MF-2 snoot strobe, 6 stix jumbo floats on the arms, and my custom-made port float) I let it go in mid-water and it just hung there. :) If I am shooting macro with the MFO I don't see any compelling reason to take it off the port. It can handle all distances from maybe 10cm to 100cm. If anyone can think of a reason to keep the MFO on a flip adapter I'd like to hear about it. I can't think of one right now! Here are a few photos: Cockerell’s Dorid (Laila cockerelli) Range: 10-15cm Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, Nauticam MFO diopter, f16@1/200s iso160 Backscatter MF-2 strobe & snoot + BS HF-1 strobe with beam restrictor Red Rock Crab (Cancer productus) with egg mass Range: 60-75cm Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 105mm lens, Nauticam MFO diopter, f11@1/200s iso160 Backscatter MF-2 strobe & snoot + BS HF-1 strobe with beam restrictor

The Inon 330 has a flaw that tends to result in the Power Switch getting "loose" and failing to work over time. I've had one that was serviced for this failure, and another that is just dead now. My remaining functional Inon 330s are retired now for emergency backup.

The design constraints of a float and port are very different. A float should minimize dry weight and maximize buoyancy. It is not protecting anything, so failure IS an option for a DIY project. A port is mission critical and more forgiving of dry weight. The walls are going to be much thicker than a float can possibly allow due to buoyancy requirements. That said, i made a couple of buoyancy floats that slip over a Nauticam 105mm (port 87) that have lasted over 8 month and about 100 dives. Printed in ABS, just four .6mm perimeters , acetone smoothed, and sealed with epoxy and a carbon fiber external wrap for durability. They are still going strong, but no more than 100 feet max depth so far.

Orca Torch D710v. Simple, powerful, 21700 common battery with great run time.

That is a total marketing BS designed to paper over the high cost of Mac memory upgrades. They are not any more efficient with RAM than other PCs, and sometimes worse because they share memory with the graphics cores. Apple recently stopped selling Macs with 8 gigs of ram with a new baseline of 16gb. 16 gigs of ram should be the minimum anyone considers. More if you are doing photo or video work as a primary use case.