Barmaglot

AF works brilliantly on my A6700 with Metabones and EF-mount Tokina 10-17mm, with the caveat of shooting stills only - it's much more limited in video mode. Regarding F-mount Tokina 10-17mm on Nikon mirrorless, Monster Adapter has recently announced LA-FZ1 adapter that will support screw drive autofocus lenses. It is not, however, certain that the extra hump it has on the bottom will fit into every housing. https://nikonrumors.com/2025/02/28/monsteradapter-la-fz1-officially-announced-nikon-f-mount-lenses-to-nikon-z-mount-cameras-with-built-in-focus-and-aperture-motors.aspx/ However, you can use the 8-15mm fisheye on a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter (make sure to use the most recent Kenko HD PRO models) to gain a similar zoom range - on 2x, it's effectively a 16-30mm fisheye, covering almost 180 degrees diagonally on the wide end. Older 2x teleconverters had produced significant degradation in image quality, but on the most recent models it is almost imperceptible - see here for some tests: With this available, aside from lower costs, I don't see any reason to use a Tokina 10-17mm on a full-frame body.

Circular tube strobes tend to have a better beam spread without diffusers than straight tube ones, which leads to a lower GN rating, but better overall usability. For instance, Ikelite DS160s are rated at GN24, but you wouldn't dispute the massive difference in capability between them and S220s - they are, in fact, more powerful than GN33 Z330s.

I was just on a liveaboard with a diver who moved to a pair of Weefine WFS07s after one of his YS-D1s died. They're quite compact and have good power - here is one next to my Retra Pro and a YS-D3: I'm not very convinced by its method of closing the battery compartment though - the entire back panel is a separate unit that is clamped into place by a threaded annular piece of plastic, with about a dozen contact pads facilitating communications. On the upside, it keeps the fairly small back panel from getting cluttered by a battery compartment lid, which is normally just so much dead space, but on the downside, the sealing surface is quite big, and hidden from inspection by the clamping ring. On the gripping hand, the Li-ion cells provide enough charge for several days of diving, so you're not opening that lid too often.

I just looked up IATA guidance for NIMH batteries, and it seems pretty clear: Nickel-metal hydride batteries or nickel-metal hydride battery-powered devices, equipment or vehicles are not subject to these Regulations provided they are prepared for transport so as to prevent: a. a short circuit (e.g. in the case of batteries, by the effective insulation of exposed terminals; or, in the case of equipment, by disconnection of the battery and protection of exposed terminals); and b. unintentional activation. To me this reads that while batteries can be transported inside devices, you have to place insulation between their contacts and equipment terminals, as is common while shipping devices from vendor to consumer.

I thought regulations were to have batteries outside the devices when possible? I always have my batteries in dedicated plastic boxes and the strobes, torches, etc, empty.

Egypt is a very special case. September 2020, Taba crossing, they demanded I leave my entire rig at the customs shack, to be picked up within 30 days. Two years earlier, there was no issue, but now they wouldn't budge for love or money. I had three liveaboard booked back to back and had to turn around and go back to Israel. I will dive out of KSA before I set my foot in Egypt again.

I agree that it's a bit of a pain, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just a couple small (albeit hefty) plastic boxes in the carryon. Well worth the faster recycle time and all-day endurance. The Li-ion cells in the new Maxi are a much better solution, no argument about that, but I'm not dropping the price of a liveaboard trip just on that convenience.

Superchargers in my case, I have a pair of Retra Pros from the first batch that shipped, and a pair of superchargers from very early in their availability. I don't remember last time I dived without them attached. Actually I think at least some of my Eneloop Pros are older than the strobes - I was using them with my previous set of SeaFrogs ST-100 Pros - but I added another set of 16 when I got the superchargers and probably another dozen here and there - I had two instances where they leaked; one when I contracted dengue fever and left the strobes loaded but turned off for two weeks, another during a dive, so those got thrown away. Recently I tested all that I had using LiitoKala Lii-500 chargers, binned those that lost a lot of capacity (some tested below 1000mAh) but kept those that tested good (>2000mAh) and they hadn't given me any issues on a recent liveaboard trip.

I'm still using Eneloop Pros I bought 4-5 years ago.

It's not an issue with the SeaFrogs flash trigger, which is a similar, albeit even more compact and fixed-power flash (not LED).

Confirm this; I just used the Sony 90mm on blackwater with a6700, and it's waaay faster than it used to be with a6300.

Maybe for focus stacking? I just did my first trip with Tokina 10-17mm; couldn't tell any difference AF-wise from my native 10-18mm or 16-50mm. Camera grabbed focus instantly and held it reliably. I have it set to AF-C with expand flexible spot, and it was trivially easy to, for example, grab focus on a subject in the center of the frame, then rotate camera to place the locked focus point in a corner, so as to add some negative space to the composition.

Hugyfot made a big GoPro housing with an integrated monitor a few years ago, and then AOI followed, so I guess there is at least some market for big action camera housings with advanced features, but it probably doesn't overlap with the membership of this forum, as I haven't seen anyone here - or, for that matter, Wetpixel - post about having one. Likewise for the TG series housing with an extra 18650 battery that Weefine made some time ago - I haven't seen any indications of anyone having one in the wild, but market response must've been sufficient for Weefine to approach GoPros with the same idea.

That actually fits into the Nauticam housing? Specs say it's 29.5mm tall - didn't think there is that much open space in there.

I've been using UWT since, I think, 2019, and never had that issue. When it fired, it always synced. A6300 with SeaFrogs ST-100 strobes, then Retra Pro strobes, then A6700. I've had other issues, notably the CR1220 batteries running out quickly (the most recent revision of the board that I have now is using larger cells, so that's not a problem anymore), but not that one.

I have no personal experience with Turtle, but with UWT trigger, my a6700 (and a6300 before it) just goes into HSS mode when I set shutter speed above 1/160s. In this mode, if I don't set my strobes (Retra Pro) to HSS, they will fire, but not sync.

I can't speak for Olympus, but if the Sony A1 menus are anything like my A6700, the setting you're looking for is WL (or wireless) flash on/off. You didn't mention what trigger you're using, but at least with my UWT board, WL flash ON = single flash, WL flash OFF = TTL with pre-flash. If you set flash mode to rear curtain sync and shutter speed to something reasonably slow, you should be able to observe the trigger emitting two flashes in succession upon shutter release. The corresponding strobe mode positions are single lightning bolt (M) for WL flash ON, and DS-TTL for WL flash OFF. You can also use the twin lightning bolt (M) mode with WL flash OFF, but this will just produce unnecessary shutter lag - this mode is meant to be used with cameras where you can't cancel the pre-flash, like the RX100 series and A6000-A6500 pop-up flash.

Get proper multi-core cables. https://www.divervision.com/products/howshot-fiber-optic-cable-613l-for-inon-strobe-4-types-ofl613-in https://www.divervision.com/products/seaandsea-fiber-optic-cable-ii-2-connectors-50128-50133 The Sea & Sea ones are a bit more expensive, but the cladding is somewhat more robust.

The ones I linked at Aliexpress have L-shaped plugs that require only a couple mm of clearance.

Why not just use an adapter? For example https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005996269495.html

Use a long clamp on the joint. Also StiX floats are asymmetrical - if you have them on two adjacent arm segments, orient them with thinner sides towards each other.

I got a pair of those about four years ago, and they've been trouble-free thus far. They're built quite solidly, and the package includes spare o-rings. On the downside, they're quite heavy (approximately 450g each) which is felt when packing for a trip, and in the time that's passed, the price increase considerably - I got mine for $99.80 apiece.

Take a luggage scale, hook your assembled rig up to it, and submerge it in water (the rig, not the scale). The resulting figure will be the amount of buoyancy that you need to add. In saltwater it will be a little bit more buoyant than in fresh water, but the difference is negligible unless you take it somewhere like the Dead Sea.

If it's just under the surface, have you checked whether or not wifi from a smartphone will reach?

Oh yes, now I see it. I suppose, however, that this is something that should, in theory, be possible to use with any housing that has a bulkhead for an HDMI cable, unless it relies on power supplied from inside the housing and uses a custom connection to facilitate that.