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Hi Davide, it's an export from numbers and has no links, yours does... The flip button is important when shooting with macro 90mm and EMWL when I don't want to use relay lens. The relay lens deteriorate image quality, takes off the light and contribute to even more color cast. And also the whole setup is smaller with no relay. My EMWL is 130 and so when I take it off the housing I still have standard narrow macro 90mm . But no relay lens means the image is flipped. So I need to flip it. And last thing I want to do underwater is to go through menus. And with Nauticam solution and shinobi just forget it. There is no access to settings while Shinobi is in housing. monitors.xlsx

It's tough to suggest as there are various criteria more or less important to anyone. Like do you shoot video? HDR? Need to switch quickly foto/video? Battery life? I shoot A1 and need all of the above so it's really tough and up until now the only solution was $5k+ Nauticam/SmallHD Ultra5. Now there are some viable options in $1k range although more or less bricks. I went Shinobi/Nauticam route as Ultra5 wasn't available at the time. If I accept shooting stills in Slog3 PP I can switch fast. Just disregard ISO reading, it's meaningless on A1 as 100000 in Slog3 is about the same as 10000 with PP off as far as noise goes. I did found some differences in color rendition in shadows topside at 800% but in real world not much to see. But ultimately I will switch as soon as I find something. New Weefine 5Pro looks nice but no HDR seems to me. Also a big question mark about battery life. These nits will consume quite a bit and it only has 5000mA battery. Will not last long and changing batteries between the dives is no highlight... Personally I think 1000 HDR nits on Shinobi is very sufficient and 1500 will be even better. But no need to go higher as the battery life will suffer. I am quite glad Shinobi sips the power and NPF970 lasts whole day 4 dives on a live aboard and then some. The same will be for Shimbol, also HDR with good YouTube reviews. But the SeaFrog housing has truly idiotic cable positioning. If only there would be an L shaped Out. So I would recommend Shinobi and Seafrogs for battery life, buoyancy and screen qualities. Fotocore MR6 and MR5.5 seems to check all/most boxes but don't know about cables qualities. But there is access to all settings underwater at least. Why flip is important to me - so I can use EMWL without relay. Why is HDR important to me - because UW videos look 10x better in HDR on good screens and with overexposing the log you won't see much highlights even on 3000 nits monitor. Without HDR tone mapping highlights will turn to big mess and 709 zebra will not help and you shoot blind. I put some updated table to ultimate monitor thread for reference and inspiration. Cheers.

Great job on the table, love this! 👏 As more information will come along we could perhaps add some other vital information such as HDR mapping, whether it allows Flip image and Lut On/Off underwater and one button shortcuts for these. And also if available which underlying monitor is used in custom enclosures - like Fotocore MR6 includes Feelworld LUT6 older UI version. I took a liberty in demo of this addition and added information known to me - some from product review and some from manuals.

it perhaps used to be... now with all these easy money made on internet and influencing and all it became a trendy destination it seems to me. The bar for diving abilities is so low anyone is coming and if there is current situation they just skip the dive... The diving travel - safaris - are doing just fine as far ecosystem as the guides are doing their best but off course there are many many more surface based activities and day travels which put more stress on the environment but still it's nothing like and far far from the hotspots around the world.

It's totally worth it no matter circumstances and conditions. It's pretty much guaranteed you will get a chance to photograph Galapagos and hammerheads, eagle rays, jacks bowls, sea lions, penguins and iguanas and if you ask nicely 😅you might score whale shark and mola. Just go... 😁

I shoot 120 - when I have reason see below :-) and when water is not too warm 🙈. At 25C it’s fine but I tried to do fuvamullah tiger sharks feeding and both A1 and DJI action 4 were overheating some minutes into the dive at 30C. And once they get hot they not cool down reasonably quickly 🤨. I guess you have Sony (from 24 to 60 🤣) so we in the same boat. I too would prefer 30 mainly for shutter speed and light but no bueno… so I do 60. To try to answer the choppiness - I found 24 is butter smooth when the camera is stationary. As soon as there is panning or flyby movement the 24 gets awful chops. Much worse than skipping frames when putting 60p to 30p timeline. So that’s that. Here is my reason to shoot 120 on occasion :-)

Funny, I too was asking myself this very question! However from some reason it seems to be a thing (50hz, not PAL) as I do not know why Osmo360 ends at 8k50 and not 8k60 - worldwide...

This is very much true, more so in bad lighting environment but then even custom WB on a full frame ambient footage won't do wonders as for red. See below for a good light environment sample. This is also very much true. However the big Q is a kind of footage achievable in poor light environment with any sensor and whether further light penalty stemming from use of red filter is beneficial for such footage overall. Here again, in channel theory all very true except of 10bit importance compared with 8bit. 10bit will allow for some tweaks unavailable to 8bit footage and so the results may surpass footage taken with red filter because with decreasing light the action cam footage is getting mushy (especially in shadows) very quickly. Here is example I found from my recent Halhamera trip. I had my Action 4 Pro running as chase camera for when I took stills but it seems they were running simultaneously with A1 on video too :-) . The depth was 17 meters and the skies were not blue, it was off season Indonesia light overcast at around noon. First is screenshot of unprocessed footage side by side next is footage with tweaks and here is resulting video with settings in description:

Very thorough article 👌 it must have been quite an effort!💪 I would like to have this article extended - to discourage people from using filters especially on action cams and encourage spending their money for cameras with 10bit log profiles - all current models of DJI, GoPro and Insta360 have these. The problem with red filters is that contrary to popular opinion they DO NOT ADD red color. They BLOCK light other than red spectrum. So they take away light so much needed by 4k60 small sensor captures. Which means the footage will brake apart unless 3m under the surface (exaggeration :-) and overall spark is gone. And forget about HLG delivery right there. So I think it would be good to add workflow focusing on 10bit footage, HLG conversion and utilising HUE shift for added color. I found that 25ish degrees (FCPX color wheels) does wonders and doesn't skew colours too much. Perhaps some shift in Hue/Sat curves could be added if water color turns too aqua. Just my 2c... great article otherwise!

Very nice find David! It seems to check all the boxes except for image flip (for EMWL use without relay). This video shows user assignable features for custom buttons they allow to flip screen but its screen on control only it seems... Another wish would be whether it could accept Nauticam cable - I need L shaped output for my configuration.

ressurecting this thread as I am looking at this monitor now... tempting to replace my shinobi and spend only 1200 instead of 5000 for Ultra5. The game changer for me is 1) ability to turn on and off HDR/LUT processing underwater (shoot standard in picture mode, Slog3 in video and 2) rotate the picture for when I am underwater with EMWL without relay lens. These 2 are real sticking points for me. Buoyancy can be easily dealt with using back mounted float cut to dimension and required volume. The flat back is actually very good. As for battery charging inside - not a big deal. Looking at battery spec and consumption it is going to last easily whole day - 4 dives on a liveaboard - which is more then enough and this is the way I operate with Shinobi and NPF970 battery - charging overnight. Now if only there would be any feedback as to how reliable this monitor is.

I had the camera in on the way to Indonesia. 3 Flights, sometimes the housing was in overhead bin. And I then realised that the housing gets moved, gets touched, the levers got touched by forces not controlled by my fingers... Looking at the inside of housing there is like Swiss watch delicate mechanism, for operating buttons on camera. Get is twisted even by a fraction of a fraction of millimetre and then things won't operate or will by random. When there is nothing inside the outside forces don't matter as there is no resistance but when camera is in these pushbuttons and levers connections will get tired... So that's why.

I would loose that Pelican case, with padding it's more like 2.5kg. I bought one too but got checked with it so many times that I no longer use it. These days I am using super light roller similar to https://itluggage.com/products/atmospheric-wide-handle-design-cabin-skyway with each item - flash, ports, etc - using its own bubble wrap padding. Still - all batteries (extra 2kg) - go into my fannypack which gets gently tucked under my oversized tropical motives shirt :-). On my latest trip to Indonesia I tried another hack - an entire underwater camera housing with WACP-C minus handles (6kg by itself) - being my personal item. Fits very nicely underneath the seat and I never had feeling something would be bothering my feet space. At checkin at multiple flights and airlines nobody blinked an eye. Etihad weighed our carry ons and they were 9kg so they only said ' it's 7kg next time ' also because we had checked allowance 30kg and were using only 20kg - they were weighing the carry ons on top of checked in luggage(!). My 'very personal item' :-) was ignored. Note - shouldn't put camera in it as some buttons and levers can be pushed at times and you don't want to get this precise machinery tired anyhow. When it is empty it does not matter.

Canon V1 opinion anyone? We know it's going to provide decent quality WA in a super small package with that small dome but what about macro? I do not shoot wet macro optics and have no idea how it is going to work with that lens ...

In short I sent in a feature request for a shortcut to turning ON and OFF Log/HDR processing of incoming HDMI signal and received a generic answer. Great! They are responsive! So I went ahead with more details and use case: Hello Umair and thank you for quick response. The feature we are asking for is - in fact - independent on camera. It is only an addition to user interface of Atomos OS. Currently this feature is available through touch screen interface and requires several steps - touching the screen at various places. This is unavailable to us when the monitor is in the underwater housing enclosure as all we can access is the bottom row of icons. So the feature request would only comprise of work inside of Atomos OS fully independent on any camera manufacturer and also independent on hardware of Shinobi monitors. It really is only a UI change. Please please... The other option is using SmallHD Ultra5 with its function buttons but apart from the cost it also draws more power. The enclosure available from Nauticam only supports 50Wh battery which is like 2 hours of work which is like 2 dives. Not bad but Shinobi allows for full day of using (4x 1hr dives) without recharging battery which is important factor to us divers. But if there is no will then unfortunately Shinobi is of no good use for underwater and it will have to be SmallHD. So please please... Best regards Roman Insta@romikasan68 And I received less generic answer: Hello Roman, Thank you for explaining your setup in more detail and for highlighting why this feature would be so useful for your underwater work. We have shared your request with our engineering team However, as they handle a large number of feature requests and ongoing developments, we are unable to provide a timeline for when or if this particular feature might be implemented. We genuinely appreciate your input and how clearly you have outlined the use case. Please feel free to reach out anytime if you have further suggestions. Umair Zaki Best Regards Atomos Team It could help if more people would express desire for this feature at [email protected] or by any other suitable means (conventions etc). Thx

Nah... 4kg option is the WACP-1. WACP-C is mere 2.2kg ... compare wet option below...

I think one needs to look at the whole system and not just parameters of separate components. I am just on my way back from Halhamera exploration liveaboard where I took my new WACP-C on a maiden voyage. I don't see many other options - travel friendly- , that would allow me to do pictures below on one dive. Even though size shouldn't matter it's hard to beat 50-60Mpix full frame sensor paired with good optics. Sony A1 28-60 WACP-C. The first image for demo of wide angle, second full frame of the third crop. No AI enhancements, just levels. Would you believe you could shoot pygmy horse - and get publishable results - with wide angle lens?

My initial thoughts would be that because you get to the subject closer with FCP your lens behind it focuses on shorter distance which means that hyperfocal DOF will be shifted towards the camera. Like if a lens DOF is 2m-inf at F11 (which means you are like 60cm from subject with wacpc) then with FCP you need to get closer with that wonderful 180 to have the same size of subject in the frame which means now you are focusing at 1.2m being only 40cm from subject and then you are getting 1.2m-3m DOF at F11. I am taking focus point as a mean point in DOF expression, what is before that doesn’t interests me for this explanation if it makes sense. This would be my take on why DOF is different with FCP from WACP with the same lens. And that’s when we think the magnification is the same 0.36. If it would be different the principle is the same with just another variable. Or I am completely wrong 🤣.

A very personal camera item 🤣

Yes I agree very much. Optically it seems there is no bad apple and the differences are subtle (apart from characteristics given by their nature (diopter vs dome). There is always some CA, some unsharpness but the central part of the image seems to be on par. Where did WACP-C really surprised (compared to WWL1) me was the long end which I considered with WWL1 very soft and I attributed it to the lens. So when I saw what I saw with WACP my jaw dropped. I will have to reshoot WWL with flash as it seems to me that we have to feed these optics (also EMWL) with a lot of light to produce good results. To me WACP even though dedicated it still is a tool and the main benefit would be the use of native AF and its performance. To me the use of native AF trumps all the other cards. Even without video in mind I am experiencing quite a few misses on 8-15 shots including the lab pictures from pool. So much for universally adopted truth right?! :-) I was surprised too! => never trust these internet wisdoms until you see it for yourself :-). I'd say the CA was more pronounced towards the edges as expected but the horizontal lines stayed sharp until the end! Oh god, I could have saved some money perhaps... or we could have swapped my EMWL (just kidding :-) ... I will see how I like WACP-C in Lembeh - Halmahera and also how I like and how it will work my new way of packing presenting housing+WACP+camera-handles-ballmounts as a personal item in addition to my carry-on :-) one note is that MC11 doesn't support video and AF-C either I too love 20-70. For me it's the ultimate lens for where you expect unexpected :-) it's sharp like hell and cropping into 50Mpix at 70mm is like macro. It is less ideal for wrecks caves and big ocean but other that its amazing lens! The attached images of 3 nudis as well as stitched (!!) panorama were taken by it at Cape Verde couple months back. My short experience with 8-15 and DOF is quite opposite - in reality I have to be very very close to the subject for it to have meaningful impact in the frame while shooting at wide angle. Which means that the lens is focusing at its or close to minimum focus distance which means that no matter aperture you throw at it the DOF will be quite shallow (as the hyperfocal distance is like 3m for this lens?). Because behind the dome the focus distance is like 1/3 right? So the subject 1m away - which is like a mile when at 15mm - will focus at 30cm. And subject right at your dome will focus at 15cm. With all implications for DOF. While nauticams diopters will move the focus point like 3x away so the subject 0.5m away will focus at 1.5m which in turn will produce much greater DOF even with mediocre 28-60 sufficiently closed down. I think I demonstrated this in my other post about 8-15 and WWL1. Unless I am missing something these diopters will in reality produce greater FOV - not smaller - than fisheye behind the dome 🤷

just a side note - the pad was not photographed from the same distance for presented scenarios so the number of squares in crops and their size is meaningless in comparisons. the purpose of this comp was sharpness and rendering, perhaps CA, - not distortions or magnifications.

Before leaving for Indonesia tomorrow I was able to do a quick comparison between my new addition WACP-C and adapted 8-15 the photos of which I made back in spring. Disclaimer is that WACP samples were done with the strobe at ISO100 while for 8-15 I was using video light at higher ISO and so the results might not 100% comparable. Will reshoot when I have time. First the costs and weights of both systems (8-15 quoted at used price level): Both systems are kind of neutral-ish buoyant in this configuration: The following screenshots have this system: first Fit view followed by 300% comp view with rectangle at left upper corner showing the part of the frame compared. As I stated earlier I picked up samples which showed good focus for 8-15 as weaker light and also shutter speed without flash sometimes produced unfocused images. But these I think were sharp in the center and so let's get on with these. 8-15 TC2x in 140mm dome 55mm+35.5mm N100/120 vs WACP-C both F11: ... and 8-15 TC2x 55+35.5 in 180mm dome vs. WACP-C 28mm: And finally 8-15 TC2x 55+35.5 in 140mm at 30mm vs WACP-C at 60mm I am very happy with performance of WACP-C especially at 60mm as this is what I would be using for smaller subjects and crop heavily on 50Mpix image. I will leave conclusions to yourselves :-). For me I realized that 180 degrees view is not as important as the DOF and native AF lens performance which doesn't mean I am going to sell 8-15 combo - yet. Cheers :-)

No I wasn't using Pure Video... honestly I forgot about that mode the entire trip, I got it like two days before. I am leaving for Indonesia next week so I will try it there. It didn't look though as there would be dark, this video was like at 18m at Yolanda reef in Red Sea during the clear day. There were other dives ideal for that I guess like Thistlegorm but again ... We will see next week ...

Maybe switching over to YouTube would help? These built in players have their own issues, YT should play fine. Just click.

Still not sure what to think about it. I was expecting a little bit more in terms of sharpness. Weirdly it has kind of distance range where it is so so sharp but too close and it isn't (minimum focus distance obviously) but then it's like anything from 3m on is not sharp either. Judge for yourself, shot in 8k30.