Davide DB

Since this topic comes up again over time, I am opening a thread to discuss it and gather data and ideas in the future. 👴🏽 Stix foam cubes have always been a very good and solid choice for floating arms. Their big advantages are: They are made in different base cube sizes, which fit into normal aluminum arms. You can get the floatation you want by adding/remove them or even cutting them. Because they are modular, you can easily change them quickly between dives depending on the lenses, ports, or lights you are using. They also look sleek ☺️ They have somehow, some limit too: They are only guaranteed down to 40 meters. This means they cannot be used for technical dives. I tried them myself at 70 meters, they became like marshmallows and the camera was like an anchor. They are specifically thought for arms and not for other special uses, like collars for wet lenses or pads to use as a base for a video housing. Even though compared to the cost of other parts of underwater camera gear, they are cheap, they are not cheap overall. Also, many of us have always been interested in the dark side of DIY 😈 So, let's see what a possible alternative could be. The option most like Stix foam is high density closed-cell PVC foam. High-density PVC foams are very important materials in making strong, light composite products. They are not just light fillers. They are made to be strong inside materials that are key to how well "sandwich structures" work and stay together. These PVC foams have mostly closed cells and a special connected structure. These foams are made to be very strong and last a long time. Important features of these materials include that they soak up very little water, can stand up to chemicals very well, and hardly let any moisture in. The most famous commercial name is Divinycell. Ther are countless types for different markets and uses. I linked directly the most suited and cheap for our use case. From the datasheet you can download, I'll give you a spoiler right away: for recreational diving, the H45 type is good, while for technical diving, the H60 or even H100 type is good. The codes tell you its density in kg/m3 (I'm a metric guy, good luck to those who use Imperial). The only column we care about is its compression strength. I would use the minimum value. So: Unit H45 H60 H100 MPa Minimum 0.5 0.7 1.15 Bar 5 7 11.5 Depth (meters) 50 70 115 Hence, a material with compressive strength of 0.5 MPa (0.1 MPa = 1 Bar) can theoretically withstand the pressure at 50 meters depth in seawater before starting to deform. Someone would like apply a safety factor in real applications. Personally I would use H100 for everything. I used Divinycell as an example because it seems to be an industry standard and the more common. But there are other similar products out there. All of them have a similar chart, so the idea is the same. (Corecell, Klegecell, Airex, Termanto, Nidaplast) It's worth mentioning that there are also partially pre-cut panels of cubes that would be perfect for collars. Where can you get this material? Is it expensive? It depends on where you are in the world. The material itself is very cheap, but if you buy from distributors, it's usually sold in panels as big as doors (1 meter by 2 meters). So, the cost becomes quite high, and it's also too much for what we usually need it for. Again, where you can get it depends on the country you are in. Below, I will share some personal ideas. Maybe you are lucky and you live in a part of the world where you can find this material online or hardware stores or model shops. Distributors are the main place to get it. Try asking for a demo sample, like a piece that is 40x40 cm and 4 or 5 cm thick. In the sea world, this material is very common for building the main parts of boat decks. It gets covered with resin or wood. So, small and large boatyards have a lot of it, including many leftover pieces from cutting. If you are lucky, it's easy to get some for free. High-density PVC is the most used material for fishing floats. Specifically, for deep nets, they use floats that are guaranteed to work at depths over 200 meters. Here in Italy, there's a big company that sent me a box full of floats for free. They said these floats didn't pass their quality tests. But actually, they are perfect; they just have tiny cosmetic flaws that I couldn't even see. I specifically chose the large, cylinder-shaped ones. They don't look good as they are, but they can be cut, painted and used as basic blocks for what we need. You can, of course, also find it through some brands that sell diving and underwater photography gear. But the words "diving/underwater photography," and "cheap" are oxymorons. 😄 Two links: https://www.easydive.it/en/accessories/arms-and-accessories/floats/floating-square-easy-float.25.html https://www.adval.it/_eng/galleggiamento.html One last word on how to work with it: You can easily cut it with a wood saw or a utility knife, and you can sand it just like balsa wood. It can also be spray-painted. 10 years ago I got a demo panel of about 40x40x5 cm. With a pencil, I drew squares the same size as the Jumbo Stix, and the carpenter cut them for me. I also had him make off-center holes, like the Stix, using a hole saw. Hundreds of tech dives with them. I've got these two pieces of THALAGAL for my monitor, and I guard them like precious jewels, considering they cost an arm and a leg! My precious treasure of fishing floats is waiting for the next project. Please feel free to add corrections, links, and suggestions. Ciao

Yes, they are guaranteed up to 40m. First time with the Jumbo Stix at 70m, at the beginning I didn't notice their shape but I felt my camera very heavy, then I realized they were completely crushed. They got back their original shape on the boat, after a couple of hours.

I'll start by saying that I'm not very good at this topic, but generally speaking, the Insta360 X5 has two sensors, one for each lens. This is the normal design for cameras that take 360-degree pictures for people to use, like the Insta360 X-series. Each lens takes a picture of a part of the area (a little more than 180 degrees). Then, the two pictures are put together by the camera to make one round 360-degree picture or video. the overlapped part is used to remove the stick. The X5 has two 1/1.28" inch sensors. Rumors says that the new Osmo could have two 1" sensors. In both cases you get an image as having one sensor. It's difficult to assess how it works exactly Before they launch the camera. Sometimes you have to read the fine prints 😉

If you do tech dives just keep in mind that below 40 m, Stixs will shrink like marshmallow. Been there done that. As Chris pointed out, closed cells pvc foam with a density of 25/30 kg/m3 is the safe choice. EDIT: I correct myself, a density of 45 Kg/M3 is the minimum for rec dives and 60-100 Kg/m3 for tech dives.

The Mediterranean Sea is super hot. From Spain to the Balkans, including Portugal, Italy, and Greece, the first heat waves set new temperature records between late June and early July. In El Granado, Spain, it reached 46 degrees Celsius, which is a new high for June. In many places in Southern Europe and the Balkans, temperatures went over 40 degrees Celsius. These temperatures used to only happen in late July. In Serbia, June 25th was the hottest day ever recorded so far. In Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, it reached 38.8 degrees Celsius, which is the highest ever for that city (BBC). In Paris, part of the Eiffel Tower was closed because of the heat. In Greece, south of Athens and in Crete, the first fires have already started. In Turkey, more than 50,000 people had to leave their homes because of fires. In Italy, the Ministry of Health put 21 out of 27 cities under a "red alert" because of the extreme heat. According to the United Nations group on climate change, heat waves are happening more often, are stronger, and last longer. This is because of climate change caused by people. It's not just the air and land, but also the sea that feels the unusual warming. On June 22, the European Earth observation program, Copernicus, reported a big heat wave in the western Mediterranean Sea. This was especially between the Gulf of Lion and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Surface temperatures there were more than 5 degrees Celsius higher than usual for that time of year. The next day, the Mediterranean Environmental Studies Center found the average temperature of the Mediterranean Sea was 25 degrees Celsius. This high temperature could make extreme weather worse and harm the balance of sea life (Costa Blanca Daily). A few days later, on June 29, Copernicus reported a sea temperature of 26 degrees Celsius. This was the highest ever recorded for June.

I have the single flip holder from Nauticam, and its position must be at 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock. The flip has two parts that fit into two small cuts on the Nauticam flat port. I don't know if it's the same for Nauticam's double flip holder.

It's a little off-topic, but not too much. Many updated versions of lenses are coming out (and honestly, some were not needed). But the fisheye lens is still a missing piece. Also, the old Canon 8-15 mm lens is no longer made. In the good old days of M43 cameras, both Panasonic and Olympus quickly add their fisheye lenses to their catalogs. IIRC, Olympus even had a PRO version. There must be a curse because Panasonic has never made a fisheye lens for its L-mount full frame cameras. It's a conspiracy! 😆

We have an old thread on scootering and taking images. You could open a new thread or just continue here:

Welcome aboard!

Yes, that's true. But not everyone can afford to put an Alexa camera in a housing. So, people make compromises 🤑 And if you look at the monitor table in the pinned thread, the price difference is not small. Ciao

They are very similar. Both have the joystick and N100 port. The only clear difference that comes to my mind is that the A1 housing has an M24 port for HDMI 1.4 and 2.0 while the A7SIII housing has an M16 port which fits only HDMI 1.4. Nauticam has probably decided to make fewer types of housings and now only sells the housing for the A1. Have you tried to contact Nauticam USA or Backscatter?

Welcome aboard, We are happy to have another underwater video fan here. We hope you like the forum. Ciao

That's a great point, and the OG R5s are pretty easy to find used

Amazing quality images and perfect editing. Bravo! I see one of the shrimps goes down to the nudi's feeding mouth. Does it eat the same things? Thanks

Do you know the exact weight of the Fotocore MR6 monitor? I wasn't able to get this info. Their previous model was over 700 gr negative

When I set up my GH5 many years ago, that's exactly what happened. The housing, with a 6" acrylic dome port, was almost neutral, but it kept turning dome-up, and I had to apply a fair amount of force to keep it horizontal. I ended up adding a good 700 grams to the dome's neck, and at that point, I had to start adding flotation arms. It was a never-ending spiral. Unfortunately, a camera's shape is the worst for this. It's the most important detail for a video setup, and that's why video housings are shaped horizontally (more angle to work with) and usually have a lot of air inside.

Okkkk now it's clear. Thanks

Terrific project. Ho do you add the weights? Is it possible to add some legs for macro work without removing everything? Ho do you plan to mount the monitor, behind the housing? Thanks

A question, maybe a silly one. I was looking at the Nauticam N120 Canon Port Chart, specifically for the Canon EF 100 F2.8 macro. The table generally lists SMC/CMC and then (being FF) gives the working distances and magnifications for SMC-1 and 2. It seems like SMC-2 is much more powerful than SMC-1. However, for the CMCs that I use, it's the opposite: the CMC-2 is less powerful than the CMC-1. So, is it not possible to know the magnifications achievable with CMC-1 and 2 by looking at those for the SMC series? P.S. I'm using the EF 100 on a M43 system

I've had several GoPros and I've never had a problem. You probably got a faulty one. For your use case, just grab the best deal you find. DJI's frame distortions can be mitigated by using a smaller FOV.

Absolutely true. Unfortunately, for most "shilltubers," video autofocus (AF) demonstrations boil down to someone just moving back and forth, or in and out of the camera's frame on a tripod. This is one of the rare videos where a camera's AF is explained in detail for both photos and videos. And, as I mentioned, even for a very advanced camera like the A6700 (I read that its AF is the same as the A7R5), the AF sections are different.

Welcome aboard!

For all you blackwater die-hards out there, I stumbled upon a lecture by Linda Iannello for the Florida Oceanographic Society about this kind of diving in Florida. The lecture is over an hour long and it's a true encyclopedia on the subject. Besides photos of tons of species, all the techniques are explained. If you're having trouble sleeping at night, this is a fantastic remedy! 😁

Let's be clear: I'm not fighting against full-frame. My reasoning is purely about video, underwater video, not photography. If you're making professional videos, you don't need to print in A2 or A1 sizes. You need to deliver your work in standard resolutions, which today are 4K or 6K. 8K is still mostly for cropping in editing. Video resolution is tiny compared to photography. 4K: Around 8.3 Megapixels (UHD) or 8.8 Megapixels (DCI). 6K: Around 19-20 Megapixels (depending on the specific resolution). 8K: Around 33.2 Megapixels. These are ridiculous resolutions respect to average current photography needs. In fact, the opposite of photography happens. A video-oriented camera will have a sensor that's as close as possible to the final video resolution. My GH5 has a 20 MP sensor, which is a compromise between video and photos. The GH5S, which is specifically for video, only has a 10 MP sensor. The glorious Sony A7S III only has a 12 MP sensor! But today, almost all cameras are hybrids, meaning they also take photos. If you don't want to crop and lose the original format, manufacturers are forced to do real-time downscaling, which brings its own problems: computing power, overheating, and rolling shutter. Going back to our debate on full frame... The term "full-frame" comes from analog photography, For a long time, this format was the professional standard in photography, offering better image quality than smaller formats. With the start of the digital era, full-frame sensors were initially expensive to make, leading to the use of smaller sensors like APS-C or Micro Four Thirds, even in professional cameras. The "trend" of full-frame in video grew from digital photography technology meeting the increasing demands of video production, especially the desire for an affordable "cinematic look." The real turning point was the Canon 5D Mark II. In 2008, it showed that high-quality video could be made with relatively inexpensive equipment. This started a revolution, leading other manufacturers, especially Sony, to develop full-frame cameras with increasingly advanced video features. These cameras then became a common choice for many productions, from independent to semi-professional. It's important to differentiate between the history of traditional cinema and recent trends in digital video. The history of cinema was not made with "full-frame" in the sense of a 36x24mm sensor. The main formats were: Super 16mm (S16): A smaller format that was used for many famous films, valued for its versatility and unique look. Super 35mm (S35): This was the main format for most of cinema's history. The image area of 35mm film in cinema cameras was closer in size to an APS-C sensor or slightly larger, but much smaller than a full-frame sensor. Most of cinema's magic, from Hollywood to European films, was created using this format. Therefore, the "cinematic look" linked to full-frame in modern digital video is not the same as the historical cinematic look. The full-frame "trend" was fueled by marketing that promoted the idea that a larger sensor was always better. It offered real benefits in low-light performance and dynamic range, but more importantly, it made it easy to achieve a "strong bokeh". For many amateur videomakers, this became a sign of a "professional" and cinematic look, differentiating their work from amateur videos. Finally, it's worth noting that many RED cameras used in high-end productions like "blue chip" wildlife documentaries still use Super 35mm sensors. This is often preferred to maintain a greater depth of field when filming distant subjects. Lions and gazelles are far far away 😀 This shows that "bigger is not always better" for every specific use case in professional filmmaking.

Even though I'm a bit late to the party, I wanted to share my two cents on video 😇 As others have said, there's no "perfect" camera system out there today. Hybrid cameras are incredibly high quality across the board, so it really comes down to personal preference and what you'll be using it for. I'm a pretty practical person. If you've already got a bunch of Canon lenses and you're comfortable with their system, I'd honestly stick with Canon. Then, take the money you save and spend it on travel and diving trips! 😁 Full-Frame vs. APSC: My Take Now, about the full-frame (FF) vs. APSC thing, I'm pretty opinionated and a bit cynical. Sure, the shift from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras brought huge tech changes. But the speed at which companies release new models isn't always because we, the consumers, actually need them – quite the opposite! Companies are always trying to boost sales and profits, and launching new products is a key way to do that. Through marketing and ads, they make you feel like your perfectly good camera is suddenly "old" or not as good as the latest version. Right now, the whole market is obsessed with full-frame. This trend really took off because of home videomakers who used cameras like the Canon 5D Mark II to get that "cinematic look" in their backyards. For them, the entire cinema look concept meant crazy background blur and chasing the perfect bokeh at all costs. Companies saw this and jumped on it headfirst. But, even if the market says otherwise, for underwater video, a cropped sensor actually has some big advantages. Underwater, unless you're going for a specific creative effect, you generally want a good depth of field. And that's much easier to get with APSC or Micro Four Thirds cameras. For macro shots, both video and photo, APSC/M43 formats also give you an edge when it comes to magnification compared to full-frame. The common belief that full-frame sensors are automatically brighter and have less noise than cropped sensors is a tough one to kill. Theoretically, it's true, but in practice, it makes no difference. Technology has come so far that for our kind of use, it has zero impact. For video, almost all modern sensors now have a dual gain circuit, meaning two native ISOs. Canon calls this DGO, and every manufacturer has their own version – it's technology originally developed by Arri. Plus, APSC lenses are generally smaller too. Canon's colors, especially, are really popular for underwater shooting, and Canon cameras usually do a great job with white balance even at depth. The one big drawback with some Canon cameras is how you do the custom white balance – it forces you to take a photo first, then set the white balance from that shot. I'm not sure which models still have that quirk though. Back to Reality If you're sticking with Canon and you're not in a huge rush, I'd personally wait for the new Canon R7 Mark II. Of course, if you always wait for the next big thing, you'll never buy anything because there's always something new coming. But the R7 Mark II has been rumored for over a year now, with hundreds of whispers. It's hard to say exactly what features it'll have, but everyone agrees that Canon will release a true APSC flagship, bringing all their latest innovations to that format. It'll basically be like what the 7D was for DSLRs. Even now, the R7 is an excellent camera, and some people use it specifically for macro. Its video sectionhas some limitation. https://www.canonrumors.com/tag/eos-r7-mark-ii/ Before You Buy Anyway, before you choose, try to borrow some cameras from friends and get a feel for them. You don't even have to go in the water; your backyard is perfectly fine. Or, for mainstream cameras, you can often rent them for a weekend from various camera rental services at pretty reasonable prices. If you're coming from a DSLR, this is a great way to understand what these new hybrid mirrorless cameras can do and get a real idea without getting sucked in by all the "shilltubers" . P.S. I almost forgot: as I mentioned, personally verify that certain features actually work in video mode. Ciaoooo