Barmaglot

The SeaFrogs version of Vivid Leak Sentinel has never been advertised for sale anywhere that I've seen, but if you email info@vividhousings.com, Miso will hook you up.

I would be a bit wary of adapted lenses on A7R II; the autofocus performance with adapters on Sony bodies that old is somewhat iffy.

They are threaded in, but I'm not sure of the kind of threads - perhaps M6.

Was the Metabones adapter in green or advanced mode? Their documentation says that the advanced mode is limited to a 'small central PDAF area', whereas green mode uses the 'full PDAF area of the sensor'.

This is the port in question, right? https://seafrogs.com.hk/collections/flat-macro-ports-for-sea-frogs-housings/products/flat-short-port-for-sony-fe-28-60mm-f4-5-6-lens-autofocus-only-zoom-gear-included As I recall, it was initially released with the A7C housing, but the camera positioning with regard to port opening should be the same between different housings. On the other hand, this is SeaFrogs, so it's not a given. Have you tried contacting their support about the poor fit of the port/lens combination?

I know; the WWL-1 targets 28mm FF-equivalent lenses - that is to say, it should not vignette at 28mm on FF, 19mm on APS-C, or 14mm on M43. My own wet lens, the AOI UWL-09F, targets the same 28mm FL, and with 16-50mm lens behind it, it loses vignetting at 19mm. The severe vignetting that you experience indicates that either the SeaFrogs 28-60mm port fits badly, leaving too much space between the lens front element and the port glass, or there is some other issue with the lens placement, such as a wet mate adapter (flip/swing/etc).

That vignetting is rather odd; I recall users of older SeaFrogs housings (things like M43 with 14-42mm) report normal performance. I use an APS-C 16-50mm with AOI UWL-09F, which targets the same 28mm FL as the WWL-1, and vignetting goes away at 19mm, just as expected. The 28-60mm should not vignette with the WWL-1 at all. Are you using it on bare port, or is there some sort of adapter in the way?

D-Pro is a manual-only strobe, so TTL is irrelevant. You could use the Nauticam manual trigger, but the Turtle is slightly cheaper.

You can use a Weefine WFL09S/Kraken KRL09S; it's very similar to MWL-1 but costs half as much.

Wetpixel.com is owned and operated by Adam Hanlon. In addition to the website and forum, Adam organized and sold diving trips. Last year, this business of his went under - he took a bunch of people's money and didn't actually organize the trips that he sold. Since then, he has completely disappeared. Wetpixel.com itself is no longer open to registration by new users, the content is not available unless you're logged in with a pre-existing account, and when Adam stops paying the registration and hosting fees, it is going to disappear. WHOIS lists the domain expiration date as May 14th 2024, so that is a possible cutoff point. Waterpixels.net was created as a way to preserve the community following this incident.

@christophe chellapermal recently reported being underwhelmed with Z8's autofocus (on blackwater dives - probably the most challenging scenario for AF underwater) compared to D500.

Preliminary review: https://theunderwaterclub.com/backscatter-hybrid-flash-preliminary-review Looks like they're indeed quite powerful. Considering that a Retra Pro Max with a supercharger is $1780, i.e literally twice the price of this, this makes the Retras a very tough sell.

Weefine's TG-6 housing comes with with an additional battery, but it's easy to see how much extra bulk this adds, especially to a small camera: null

I use the reflectors on blackwater dives. I have the strobes at 3 and 9 o'clock positions, facing somewhat inward, maybe about 45 degrees. I get some backscatter, but not a lot.

It's still a lot of power to dump into a very small package - this is how YS-D2s ended up blowing their bulbs all the time, and this strobe claims something like 3x the power. All-metal designs like the Retras and Seacams are generally better at conducting away heat, contributing to their better reliability. This one exacerbates the challenge by putting a bunch of LEDs and their associated circuitry into an already cramped housing. I'm not saying this kind of challenge is insurmountable, but it can't be easy.