Giancarlo M.

I also did similar work on a sample of macro lenses of various brands and with 2 Canon R7 cameras with 60 and 100mm and Sony A1 with 90mm. By March I should complete the article I am writing. I have slightly different values from yours with the SMC3 with the 90 minimum working distance from the lens 50.73mm and max distance 104.73mm, all tests were taken in seawater. I still have difficulties with the calculation of the magnification ratio, I used a sheet of graph paper for the shot. I would like to understand how you performed the calculation. I attach a shot with Sony A1 + 90macro + SMC3 minimum distance

For Inon Z330, I can only recommend the snoo Marelux and Snooty. Or you can consider buying an AOI UCS-Q1 strobe and with an adapter you can use the Backscatter snoot. This configuration will be more compact and have a better autonomy than the Backscatter strobe.

Hi everyone, a good friend of mine has won a 4 week trip to PNG and since I will be accompanying him I wanted to ask if anyone has had any experience of travelling to PNG. We will be staying in 4 resorts, Tufi, Tawali, Lissenung and the Walindi. For our convenience we will be arriving in Port Moresby via Manila with Air Niugini, this will give us a 20kg plus on domestic flights. The resorts as payment accept credit cards and some also accept payment in euros, but I would not want to travel with too much cash. The power sockets are all 220v with Australian-type sockets. As a photography genre I have seen that there is also a lot of macro so I will have to bring both macro and wide. Thank you in advance if you can give me some advice and a brief summary of your experience.

I was able to try the AOI strobe + snot Backscatter MF2 combination on my last trip to Anilao, with the adapter made by Flex-Arm. Everything works perfectly, plus the combination performs better, compared to the original, as Aoi has slightly more power and more battery life.

Curious about this adapter, I got it on Amazon 2 days ago. It works well, although I must report that compared to the Metebones V it is slightly less responsive. Tested with Sony A1 and Canon 8-15, Canon 60 macro and Canon 100 macro L lenses . I will be returning the Tokina today

It was also not on the list last year, but was present on the stand of PanOceanPhoto, their dealer in Germany. Most likely it will be like that again this year, it will be on the stand at some retailer.

Nice works Chris!

To work, it works, but the slowness of the AF is frustrating. For slower subjects it may be fine, but with others it is really challenging For the Nikon 60, I think that the models produced before 2013, we have problems. From those I have tried. The serial numbers that start with 22 or 23 work, those with 20 give problems. For serial numbers 21 or from 24 onwards I have no cases

Hi, I can confirm that the 90's port is compatible with the monster adaptor + Nikon AF-S 60 micro, I recently bought a Sony and have yet to try this combination live and during a blackwater. The recommendation I was given is that the monster adaptor is updated to the latest firmware 6.0. Some Nikon AF-S 60 micro work quite well while others don't, I'm trying to figure out why and am working out a theory. Excuse my ignorance what is the AC-11 adaptor?

With Lion Air, you won't have any problems buying the extra kilos you need, the real problem is the reliability of the airline. Always check well before you leave, flight cancellations unfortunately can happen and Lion Air does this from time to time. In 2023 I risked missing my intercontinental flight because Lion Air cancelled my flight from Sorong to Jakarta

For over a year now I have been using the Canon R7 for photography, mainly Macro and Balckwater. For Macros I recommend the Canon EF-S 60 macro in addition to the 100 you already have. For BW I recommend the Canon EF-S 35 macro AF is very performant if you have equally fast optics. The Tokina 10-17 is not bad, but the Canon 8-15 is another quality and you can also consider in the future the RF-S 18-45 combination with the Nauticam WWL-1 lens. You will have a lot of fun with the R7 underwater, I think it is currently one of the best buys as an ML for underwater photography.

If you are not in a hurry for the purchase, I am starting a new project for an article on the forum, just on wet lenses, in testing I have retrieved, AOI Pro series +12 +18 + 23 , Weefine +6 + 12 +23. I'm going by the Italian distributor Nauticam today to retrieve more lenses to test. The purpose is just to verify the real magnification ratio, and working distances. If I have time even at different apertures. By the end of January everything should be ready

Have you discarded the Sony 30 mm macro? it's not a great lens but it might be the most convenient solution on an APSC. Zeiss works very well for photos, for video I can't give you feedback, a friend of mine used it this year on an A1 and it was very good. We are talking about a Zeiss optic, qualitatively they have few rivals I read on Monster's site that it is not compatible for video, only for photos

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.