Giancarlo M.

I can talk to you about my experiences at APA. You return to the resort after the first BW, as I had written to you the BW sites are very close to the resort. This helps you to replace the batteries. I always found more subjects in the first BW, in the following BWs the amount of subjects decreased. I went looking for temperatures in the data base of my dive computer, you should expect a temperature of 24 to 26 degrees. I recommend bringing a windproof jacket, even if it's a short trip, wearing it after the dive will help you be less cold when you return to the resort.

February is a great time for Blackwater in Anilao. The water temperature is colder at this time, so a 5 or 7 mm is recommended if you are particularly cold. I have been to the Anilao Photo Academy many times and I can recommend them. They come out practically every night to do BW if there are guests who want to do BW. As for logistics, the dive spot is very close to the resort so when you are done you go back to the resort. The first dive is around 19:00 but if you're alone I doubt you'll be able to make a second dive, so I suggest you contact the resort directly. In January 2023 I was with a group of 5 friends and we asked to do 3 Blackwater per night, APA organised everything perfectly for us.

Hi Alex, you have a good lens for a good start in macro photography. In the beginning, even if the Sony 90 is not quite 1:1 as a ratio, it will be perfect to make your experiences. When you get the hang of it you can move on to additional lenses, and here a whole new world opens up. There are many brands and the users of this forum will be able to give you advice on their own experiences. Subsee is a good compromise to start with add-on lenses. I had the chance to try, on 2 trips to APA in Anilao which is an AOI test centre, all the new AOI UCL Pro series macro lenses. I personally think they are the best I have used to date, both in terms of quality and ease of use. After I was able to try them out thoroughly I bought all 3 lenses, it's a big amount but I fell in love with those lenses after using them. I attach a few shots

what a bad situation, if they were superficial scratches, you could polish the glass with cerium oxide, they use it to polish scratched glass, but if the groove is deeper, the only solution is to contact a Nauticam dealer and ask for a quotation for replacing the glass dome.

Hi Nick welcome to this forum!

If anyone is handy with 3D modeling, here is an example to adapt the Garmin to the MTB, it could be done similarly for divers, or with the sphere or hole for fixing on floating arms such as INON https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5398630

https://www.nauticam.com/pages/port-charts https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C3ooUMe7kn-X2glO9kPfzvdlvV8iNAyU/view?pli=1

On Amazon Prime Day, there is usually always a promotion for the PS and LR package. I just bought it. The price is a one-off payment valid for 12 months, at expiry it resumes the normal monthly price. I have been buying it on this occasion for 3 years now and there is a bit of a discount (€7.50/month)

I use the EF-S 35 macro, but it is APS-C lens. If you use an APS-C camera it is perfect, the only disadvantage is that you have to get very close to the subject, but MFD is only 13 cm. You can use the same lens on the new mirrorless R-series, but the camera will recognise that it is an APS-C lens and you will have a cropped file. On the R5 you will have a file of about 20mb. On Canon DSLRs, with APS-C it will work perfectly, on FF DSLRs you can use it in combination with a Kenko 1.4x multiplier, I tried it on my friend's camera and it is absolutely perfect, like having a 60mm. Another lens you can use is the Canon 100 macro on FF, although it has a small angle of view, it becomes more complex to shoot, but it's not impossible. Sigma 50 and 70 macro for Canon, they are nice lenses, as I wrote in the previous post, but their AF is extremely slow in addition to being stretch lenses, this complicates adapting the port

After years of travelling with soft bags for diving equipment, I switched to classic hard luggage this year. Obviously the weight is extremely important, I found a good solution with the American tourister suitcase that weighs only 3.6 kg. Unfortunately I always travel with 2 suitcases plus camera backpack and housing bag. I can simply tell you that I am very happy with the choice, because during transfers I am much more comfortable with suitcases that have 4 wheels. Also you are more anonymous at the check-in counter than with a diving bag.

I have never seen it in operation, so I trust your experience. But you would have to compare it, in water, with a more powerful torch to be able to make a proper comparison. I am using a torch that I bought in January, adjustable from 3 to 18°, which also does not have a great power output, but it does its job well and has a very clean beam, but comparing it with other torches, the more powerful ones have greater penetration in the water over long distances.

Ever since I discovered blackwater diving, I have fallen madly in love with it. As with underwater photography, you have to be a very good diver first, and perhaps this rule is much more important for blackwater. Diving in the dark, off the coast and in very deep water can be a bit stressful if you don't have a good experience of diving in various contexts. For those who have never tried it, I can tell you that your first blackwater dive will remind you a lot of driving your car at night during a blizzard. At least that was my first dive. Blackwater is mainly macro photography, larger subjects are much rarer to find. The lens par excellence is a 60 mm macro lens with a 1:1 ratio or similar or equivalent. Why this kind of lens? Mainly for the angle of view and the minimum focusing distance As I wrote in the article, unfortunately Sony and Canon owners are at a disadvantage because they do not have similar lenses, and the few that do exist have very slow AF. Although, in May on my last trip, I met an underwater photographer who was using on a Sony A7R3 the Nikon 60 micro lens with the Monster adaptor, updated with the latest firmware. He was enthusiastic about it and did not experience any problems. How best to use strobes? This is a more complex question than it sounds, as it is very personal. I think that the position depends a lot on the lens being used, changing the MFD and consequently the position of the flashes and the subject being photographed, bigger, more distant, smaller, closer, translucent or reflective, are all factors that impose a change in the position of one's strobes. The power should tend to be low, in order to favour a faster strobe recharge time. It is certainly a must to have a focus light mounted on top of the housing, it does not have to be powerful, but it must have a good aperture angle, so as to illuminate even a little far from the dome of your camera. A focus light that is too powerful could be very annoying to the subject you are photographing and will try to move away from you very quickly, making it more difficult for you to shoot. Another negative fact is that you might attract a lot of microplankton which again would make the shot complex. The search torch, on the other hand, must have a very narrow beam (6°-10°) and good power(> 1500 lumen), this will help you locate subjects as they swim through the water column. Blackwater certainly is becoming very popular, and more and more operators are offering this kind of diving. Always rely on dive centers that have good experience, have a good line with powerful flashlights and good guides. Going in the wild will only bring you great frustrations. Ask for information from those who have had experience so that they can direct you to the best dive centers. Certainly there are better times, where you can have a better chance of sightings, but there is no certain rule, the sea is complex and with climate change certainties are jumping. Again always ask those who dive locally, they will be able to give you more accurate information, due to their experience. However prepare to hear all the opposite of everything, there are those who prefer to dive with the waxing moon and those with the waning moon, those who believe that one time of year we are better than another... Perhaps that is also the beauty of it, to have little certainty and to be enchanted by what you will find, for me that is the most beautiful part.

Unfortunately for Blackwater, you have to accumulate the necessary experience, the more you do, the more you will be able to bring home a good result. There are many factors to consider, the moon, the tides, possible currents, surface wind, bathymetry. It is a dive that requires the diver to be a good diver and those who organise such dives to have the appropriate experience and the necessary equipment. Turn to professionals and not improvisers. I have read before about being tied to the boat for this kind of diving... it has been done in the past, but it is very dangerous, I strongly advise against doing such a thing.

Unfortunately it is not a good lens, the AF is very slow and makes you miss many opportunities. I experienced something similar with my R5 and the Sigma 70 macro Art, beautiful lens but terrifying AF, very difficult if you are not used to shooting consistently. You should try, the Nikon 60 macro with the Monster Adapter, to some it works, to others it seems not to work well.