Barmaglot

If your camera supports it, maybe try using a housed phone as a monitor/remote control? This thread indicates that it works: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/71511-use-smartphone-as-monitor/

Thank you; I guess that rules it out as an option.

True. In my case, the primary drive for upgrade is autofocus performance on blackwater dives. It's effortless in wide-angle, somewhat challenging in macro, but supremely frustrating in blackwater. The Sony 90mm lens I found absolutely unusable for this (I know it works well on newer bodies, but not on mine), and Canon EF-S 60mm on Metabones IV is generally fast enough to work, but has trouble locking focus - I can see it hunt back and forth, with the subject fading in and out of clear view on the screen. That said, recently I found that my adapter is still getting updates from the manufacturer, and updating it from v65 to v71 firmware produced a major improvement in land testing - I'm going to find out next week if it will help out under blackwater conditions.

Just curious, if you don't mind me asking, what is the diameter and length of this viewfinder's mount without the Sea & Sea adapter? I've been wondering about adapting one to a SeaFrogs housing, which has a 30mm diameter x 10mm deep opening for a viewfinder.

Yeah, that fresnel head output does not look good. Godox sells a separate round flash head (H200R), which is not mentioned in the review that you linked, but it probably won't fit the housing.

Understood - that's what I figured was the case; thank you for the confirmation. I guess this mode is only usable with strobes that can do 'dumb' slave TTL.

Thank you. While at it, perhaps you could shine some light on an odd issue I encountered recently. I'm using a UW-Technics converter to trigger my Retra Pro strobes, and it has a mode where you manually set the strobe power in camera menus, while the strobes themselves are in STTL, and the trigger generates light pulses of appropriate length to cause the strobes to flash at required power. I understand that in Canon/Nikon cameras this power can be set directly in the 1/128...1/1 range, but on my Sony a6300, there is no direct manual control of flash power, so it uses flash compensation setting (-3.0...+3.0 EV range) to range between 1/64 to full power. The -3 (1/64), -2 (1/32), -1 (1/16) and 0 (1/8) settings appear to work as expected, but +1 (1/4) and +2 (1/2) positions don't appear to be any brighter than 0, while +3 (full power) is noticeably dimmer. If I set the flash power knob to -3, which gives me the brightest exposure in this mode, I can just about match 1/4 manual power, but no more. I understand that in TTL mode, the strobe expects a pre-flash followed by a main flash - is it possible that there's some bug in v4.5 that causes it to truncate the pre-flash under some circumstances?

Does it have to be this super expensive though? I mean, yeah, you could drop $$$$$ on WACPs, EMWLs, etc, but I'm looking at upgrading from my Sony a6300, which I got back in 2017, and a slightly used a6700 body is going to cost me somewhere around $1000-1100, while a new SeaFrogs housing, once it comes out, if it's priced identical to their a6600 housing, will be slightly under $700 with a basic flat port for use with my 16-50mm and UWL-09F wet lens. Add $150 for a long port and zoom gear for my 90mm macro (also fits Canon 60mm which I use for blackwater), and I'm still under $2k. I can keep the UWT trigger and Leak Sentinel from my current setup, and possibly get a second-hand Tokina 10-17mm, 3D print a port adapter and zoom gear for my 4" mini-dome, and get extra wide-angle capability. Yeah, it wouldn't be the absolute best in terms of either IQ or ergonomics, but it gets most of the way there for a fraction of the cost.

To be fair, those Canon and Nikon strobes that Subal is housing are in the 60-80WS power range, which is substantially less than the 200WS that Godox quotes for the AD200. While no single number tells the whole story, I think WS is a better proxy for a strobe's overall power than GN, as it is subject to fewer variables. In fact the specs on Godox website are impressively detailed; I wish underwater strobe manufacturers were as open with theirs - I don't recall, for example, any of them publishing t.1 or t.5 numbers for their units.

Earlier today I remembered Ultramax strobes that were a reasonably popular budget option some years ago, and wondered what had happened to that product line, as I haven't seen any mention of it in a while. Opened up Google and ended up surprised seeing this: https://www.ultramaxdive.com/products/underwater-strobe-housing-for-godox-ad200-pro-pocket-flash I know that housing some Canon/Nikon strobes used to be a reasonably popular option back in the day (before my time), but this is the first time I see a modern offering of this type. Are there any advantages to it over a dedicated underwater unit? At 200WS it seems to be quite powerful, and the total cost is fairly reasonable, but it's bigger than the old YS-250Pro and much heavier to boot. When it comes to travel weight, I think you could pack a land flash or two, a pair of underwater strobes, and still come out ahead... am I missing anything?

I'm guessing to properly expose the background with very limited natural light. 1/40th is at the limit of reasonable shutter speed, so it's either a wider aperture, or higher ISO. I personally would sacrifice corners and go for something like f/5.6 or f/4 at lower ISO, but it's a matter of personal preference.

Question regarding firmware revisions - I see that the latest version listed for Retra Pro/Prime is v4.3, but my Retra Pro strobes are reporting as running v4.5. Was there a version that got pulled/reverted?

In addition to autofocus improvements, there's also battery life. Early A7 cameras used NP-FW50 batteries; starting from A7 III they switched to NP-FZ100, which took their battery life from anemic to excellent. If the budget is limited, are you dead-set on full-frame? A6700 is reported to have excellent performance.

I've done blackwater diving with The Smiling Seahorse liveaboard in Andaman Sea; they do at least one blackwater dive per trip, and occasionally they do a blackwater-focused trip (I'm going on one in nine days! Hurray!). The way they do it is that they have a large buoy with a line attached to it, and a light shining into the buoy - this makes the whole buoy glow, so it is visible from a ways away on the surface. On the line, there are pairs of Archon 5400 lumen video lights, one pair at three meters pointing up, another pair at five meters pointing down, another pair at ten meters, another pair at fifteen meters, and finally some lead weights to stabilize the whole thing. All the lights are turned on as the divers are getting suited up, and the line is chucked into the water - preferably, this is done in as deep a place as feasible. The boat follows the buoy, the divers jump in, swim over to the buoy and descend near the line. Nobody is tethered - the line is visible from a fairly long way away, and even if you get too far away to see the video lights, you can find your way back to it by homing on the photographers' flashes. During the dive, the boat follows the buoy as it drifts with the current and picks up the divers as they come up.

I think Weefine WFS07 ticks most of these boxes. 700g land weight, powered by 2x18650, circular tube, 5500K color temperature, 100M depth rating, costs $600. Power is a little on the lower end of the scale at 60W/s, but you can't have everything.

Just checking in, coming over from Wetpixel.