RomiK

Sail! That! Exactly!🤣 If I may share my way dealing with overexposure... even though A1 has different sensor, also dual gain but maybe different... anyhow - I learned that ISO on A1 doesn't matter. Heck I can go 30000 and as long as I properly (over)expose I see no meaningful effect on noise. So I started to use ISO as gain and with shutter and aperture locked in I mapped (typically shutter) wheel to ISO. I display waveform on my monitor and push it to upper third as high as not to get cutoffs. Sometimes the overexposure is actually 3+ (!). On Nauticam housing that wheel is greatly available for thumb operation which helps me adjust 'gain' on the fly - like when following shark from deep blue to surface background. Not sure how this is going to work for A7S3 sensor but for both A7S3 and A1 all YouTubers were swearing by using base ISO - only for me to find out that it was utter bollock. At least for A1. And of course this wouldn't be possible without external monitor (with HDR conversion switched on). So cheers to sailors 😅

nicely done! we were on Calipso last September and it also was a blast. 3 whale sharks over at Darwin - or one three times on three dives 🤣 Out of curiosity - I see a lot of noise on your footage - especially in the blues. Were you overexposing at all? On my A1 I have to brutally overexpose log footage otherwise I get a lot of noise too. Glad to see somebody else is lugging monitor around too :-) mine is shinobi :-)

I assume you did MENU → (Setup) → [Power Setting Option] → [Auto Power OFF Temp.] and select [High] Not to worry, no damage possible Even then the camera produces a lot of heat at 4k100 and so trapped in housing in warm waters - like 28C+ - will cause it overheat. Yes, using external monitor helps but there is tradeoff in terms of size and travel weight. Still totally worth to me.

I would disagree on a problem - current N100 90mm port doesn't fit the lens with cap so it sits pretty tight. I am estimating worst case scenario with 30mm extension is the gap of like 20mm between the front element and the port glass so it shouldn't even vignette and certainly it won't be able to focus on front glass. The EMWL implications are unclear to me - if any, I just can't picture what kind of woodoo the focus unit does. Canon 100mmRF lists both #2 and #3 for its FOV but what kind of effect the extra 20mm between the lens and the focus unit will have I just can't picture 🤷

Nice! I'd like to think that 30mm N100 extension which I use for WACP-C will work also with existing N100 macro port! New lens is 19mm longer than the old one. And for TC when TC if TC just another extension. Keeping travel light! 😁 The questions is how EMWL will work with this?🤷

They certainly have better taste I choosing monitors for which to make housing. What on earth both Nauticam and Marelux were thinking when making housing for touch only monitors from Atomos ... 🤦(save for recorder)

Yep, from the marine life composition through corrals - we did dive the same location! 😄 Nice pictures!

Excellent pictures Luko, you've captured the essence of Halmahera! We were passing on liveaboard mid July this year and can confirm everything and above from your report as for that place. The only thing I'd add are the humphead parrotfishes, this one from Pokal island next to Sali Bay. Other than that you were spot on with diving and weather conditions. Mostly grey above water and vis so so there. But no wonder - you were staying in middle of river! Imagine the sheer volume of water passing through the strait with unpredictable tide schedule combined with the effect of islands blocking that straight and you easily change your opinion on guides not letting you go when they deemed currents too strong :-) It's not as much about the divers skills but rather about the unpredictability and sheer strength of these currents. On one dive in there a current hit us so strong it almost ripped my A1 rig out of my hands. I bet your R7 setup is not smaller :-) Can't really take pictures in that :-) On another dive our group was split in half with one part making a circle finishing where we started - all the while in big current - and the other half ended a quarter mile down the road... Funny for us but not so much for the dive operations :-) For me Halmahera trip (we started Lembeh, moved across and also explored islands near Halmahera, was terrific. The corrals were so rich I found myself taking one picture after another just to look at the previews on my monitor! I honestly think the best way to enjoy Halmahera for non-photographers is to have like 15K lumen floodlight and enjoy the colours this way :-) True, shoal fish can be seen only at middle of the Molucca sea at Gureda island - Pula Tifore but we've also encountered sardines at that Pokal place I think the hype - if there is any - is that it is so remote and so new for many people. And also perhaps fun in some currents situation. And I think it is well deserved due to combination of colours and variability of marine life - I will skip my macro life pictures as I do not want to hijack this excellent report thread :-)

Interesting question indeed. 2nd gen AKA pro version of I360 housing has larger dome right? So the problem might be in the distance of virtual image perhaps? Perhaps it is unsolvable until someone creates diopter corrected lens either for camera or housing which could play with camera and virtual image better... questions no answers...

Get WACP-C and don't look back. From some reason WWL-1B is a bit soft at the long and while WACP-C is razor sharp. Plus not dealing with bubbles especially when you do freediving is an enormous plus. I lost so many opportunities at Galapagos with sharks present at the drop but I had to burp lens first... I would dismiss adapted 8-15 for your application. You need perfect AF. These pictures are with WACP-C and at 60mm from Indonesia this summer. I got better quality and clarity from WACP than from 90mm (!!). It is one image - the whole frame and the crop. You can't believe this unless you see it!!!

I think both Canon C50 and Nikon ZR are like dream come through for recreational UW videographers. Especially ZR with 24-70 2.8ii paired with WACP-C would be a killer pocket rocket provided that Nauticam makes N100 housing for it and Nikon allows for IBIS focal length definition and there is fast access to manual WB and that WB is actually good. Uff too many conditions :-) For me it is DOA for lack of mechanical shutter (I do like taking stills with flash :-). I absolutely love bigger screens on both. So c'mon Sony, bring FX3 ii with 8k60, mechanical shutter and 5inch screen and my money are yours 😆

Video will be as better as smaller screen to watch will be and as larger portion of 8k footage you can cram on it. I got 360 a bit naive to think it could at least document the dive - and it can if you can bear watching the footage out of it - but now I think its good for like those special effects if you building memories video and nothing much cinematic :-) . Like this instagram bait :-)

I agree, the front element of 130 is bulging out and the light source could have come from literally anywhere... perhaps even caused by the shrimp... it definitely is not camera lens reflection, the construction of EMWL system wouldn't allow it. I have the same system - A1 and 130 - and time to time the reflections appear... rarely but they do. With the shade you won't be able to get this close to shrimp though and anemone would quite suffer. I would say with taking several pictures there would be a good chance to have at least one of them clean. Great example of a good use of 130 btw!👏

I dunno, I've found using rectilinear 14/1.8 challenging UW so 11mm the corners will stretch a lot. And not to put a cold water on this rumour but isn't R7 ii crop camera also coming out with that range perhaps more fitting for it... 😉

They have them made to specs in literally milimeter increments for each housing... that's why...

I've found housing ok. No problem with fogging, good response. Stiching glitches on occasion, definitely avoiding stitch over the subject. So good overall. Just the camera isn't there yet for UW. I also got Osmo360 so waiting for housing for this one...

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!