RomiK

Did you ever try to shoot pictures in Slog3 a process them in Lightroom... just go outside, take three shots, one no PP and two with Slog3 at 0EV and +2EV and see it for yourself... use standard Adobe color and report any differences you could spot 🙂 I shot like 6000 images over the past year and half with A1 underwater, with and without profiles, with and without flash so no need to mentor here 🙂 No need for LUTs when developing stills. For video yes, LUTs are essential but that's the point to shoot in log. In a sense there is no avenue to produce HDR footage without recording in LOG format save for HLG which has limited color grading options. But being a professional if you say you shoot talking heads you already know this. As for the benefits of external monitor - "one man's truth is another man's bias" 🙂

Off course you have to compensate for that. Same applies for video although stills you can push a bit more. Video like 1.7 stops. That's like a basic rule but I might add that the correct way of exposing Slog is using waveforms or other tools available (sadly A1 does not have these built in) and external monitor allows just that. HDMI lag is really not an issue, for me like unnoticeable. But switching among the modes - takes ages. I am used to do like getting an eagle ray shot, then switch to movie mode and while the ray sticks around I swim with it in parallel and make a nice movie segment (can't do this with a viewfinder btw). Now I will have to time it better or shoot blind first couple seconds. P.S. For admins - I named this thread wrong, it was supposed to be a Monitor and not Viewfinder in the heading 🙈 - if admin could change this to accommodate forum search function? thx

nullThis setup is 14kg air and 0 underwater. So you might think that by the challenge I meant the back hurt by transporting it topside. Partially truth 🙂 The challenge I had in mind lies in clean HDMI output and HDR capabilities of Shinobi screen. It's 10bit 1000nits HDR display and as such it allows me to preview and tweak exposure of Slog3 footage coming out the camera in PQ mode and really really push it in terms of sunball against the light water surface shots. Can't wait to try it out. Because of that I have to have monitor set accepting Slog3 from the camera and display it in PQ color space. And there is no access to monitor settings underwater when in housing. Which also means that when I am shooting stills I have to shoot them with PP9 (Slog3) profile. Because the monitor treats incoming HDMI like I told it to and when sending signal without PP the result is unwatchable. So far in my research and tests show that it doesn't appear to be a big problem - well lit scenes have almost identical color saturation and underwater I don't care much about shadows in which - topside - I found less color saturation compared to shooting without picture profile. (yes we still talk raw files). Interesting enough Sony A1 produces identical grain for pictures shot ISO 8000 shot without PP and ISO80000 in pictures shot with PP9 Slog3 profile. Also no difference in saturations in these high ISO. It were low ISO like 100 no PP and 800 PP9 where I found those differences. Off course I could not use PP for stills and switch to control display in HDMI output setting but then I would loose benefits of using amazing Shinobi HDR screen... Plus time switching it... Decision decision...

I see you'd like to get a taste the 'free world' 🙂 . I too am tired when I see what's coming out of iPhones underwater 🙂 For now on video side but just a matter of time someone figures out simple flash and synchro 🙂 The truth is that no matter how small ILC you choose when you add handles, even a small dome and flashes the overall size and weight won't make drastic difference re: the quote above. So how about - just to taste that world 🙂 - before spending considerable money just to end up with something marginally smaller than what you currently have - so how about getting TG6-7, single handle and single strobe, perhaps add fish eye conversion if that CFWA is your thing and go explore? Maybe you gonna like it 🙂 https://www.uwphotographyguide.com/olympus-tg6-wide-angle-fcon-t02-fisheye-lens

If I could voice my opinion I would say this - topside we can always see differences between good and - mediocre - lenses. Good example in m43 world Lumix lenses and their counterparts Leica variants. The differences in color rendition, sharpness, micro contrast, all that woodoo which makes the image pop up, especially in challenging light conditions, all these are staggering. Now why would that be different underwater? It's like putting lipstick on the pig. Slapping another piece of optics, no matter how well calculated from geometry standpoint, on a mediocre lens like this Canon 28-70 (or my Sony 28-60) will not make better image than superb 8-15L (or my Sony 14 1.8G) behind the glass dome. It just won't. So kudos to Nauticam they try something new to extend their revenue stream but what is the expertise behind their lens R&D except for mathematical modeling really.... I'd say CaNiSoSig patents are worth something for a reason... glasses, coatings and all that... Not saying that their WACPs FCPs are worthless, not at all, they have their use cases but only people who can really benefit from these use cases should invest there, they definitely are not general public fix them all solution nor holy grails of underwater photography is what I think 🙂

Not really... for wifi there is a need for that extender and it just gets in the way. On alu housing you are supposed to place it over the plexiglass of rear screen which renders it unusable. And there is only one housing with touch interface - divevolk - and that touch is not really that touch friendly underwater believe you me 🙂

What I like on 28-60/WWL1B is flexibility, corner to corner 'sharpness' and angle of view with zoom. It's not going to have sharpness and micro contrast of a good lens in a dome but then there are more variables under water so... In my experience and view as all water contact optics it likes a lot of straight light and doesn't like challenging light conditions like light shooting against contrast edges etc. But 99% the only time you would see differences in the micro contrast and other woodoo parameters would be direct comparison side by side of the identical image so... Here original unprocessed, 100% region, 400% region and final (to me) image shot at 57mm F11 ISO400 on A1. Good luck, still not sure if I am gonna keep it as I switch lenses in the dome plus my favorite all arounder is 20-70F4... so there might be one combo available in Prague. Cheers

WOW! 👏 This is like next level! "I just made my own housing" 🙂 👏 I am still perplexed as why in the age of todays phone screens and battery sizes most hdmi monitors are using bulky NFP batteries... It would be so nice having housing a little bigger than phone but I guess it's a fantasyland...

Yes there is. Just wanted to clarify my post - @Davide DB summed the issues with Chinese really well and exactly to experience I had. Good luck everyone selecting their monitor.

@brightnight summed it up really well. On paper and pictures these Krakens and weefines look good but there is a good reason why there aren’t favorable reviews to be found apart from the paid cheerleaders. Chinese just slap the monitor into waterproof housing and when selling it they even do not bother to remove features such as “usb port for LUT import” or “sd card slot” 😂. Heck Kraken can’t even get dimensions right in their official manual. When I wrote them when they could ship I got answer in next hour. Subsequent question about the sd card is unanswered to this day 😂 I have had terrible experience with WED7 from weefine - software issues, freezing software, screen lamination smears visible in broad light and off course 400 nits is unusable in daylight. And plus it’s a brick in the water and necessary compensations make it cumbersome to use. Angler looks good with good buoyancy and with that huge shade might even be usable in daylight. But for just few dollars more there is Shinobi with 1000nits HDR screen and that’s the route I ultimately chose. I will post picture including compensations soon.

Same experience here. I just like dome images much better than wet optics. 20-70F4 or even 16-35F4PZ produce nicer images than 28-60/WWL1B or EMWL in my experience and opinion. The subject sharpness and more importantly the micro contrast of these images just make them stand out for comparable shots. 20-70F4 is amazing lens for dives expecting unexpected 🙂 Here a quick shot from Maldives 'channel sharks' location. While observing sharks with wide angle this little beauty just popped among us by the reef hooks 🙂 - 20-70F4 at 70mm F4

It’s processed though 🙈🙂

Nice video and setup Alex! Another option is to balance the weight masses independently such as here Retras with superchargers each arm with 900g and EMWL with extra 900g. Completely neutral and offers flexibility of placing strobes independently. Plus shooting upwards is somewhat easier. Beautiful thing on this activity is that each path has it own solutions isn’t it 🙂

Ha-ha, funny, I was toying with the same idea time to time but no, it’s not practical especially for the locations with current you mentioned. I use my EMWL130 with A1 and 90mm and yes, it’s major PITA for anything else than to drop from the boat and exploring nearby. It allows for great non macro shots though as you can stick it where normal dome camera wouldn’t fit and get great shots with that open background. Imagine lionfish next to corral with sun ball etc. But it’s Red Sea with no hostile environment like Indonesia 🙂. For balancing one 900g floatie placed on macro port hot shoe will do but that’s not highlight either and the rig is simply little too big for currents. Another factor to consider - optical quality will suffer, you image travels 3 times through water contact and plus you have 3 times the chance getting a debris there. Aside from debris I found the image not as sharp as from the dome setup. For what you want to do next month on the trip to Maldives I will try WWL1B paired with 28-60 and accompanied with CMC2 as both allow fast switch by bayonet. I am quite happy with WWL so I assume the CMC2 will do simple macro on the same dive. Having said that I just got Shinobi monitor and housing so the next thing is to try EMWL without relay lens using the Flip option on the monitor to see things not upside down. That setup I would try use for macro dives where I wouldn’t want to miss wide angle. Cheers.

As recently as couple days ago I was in the same situation which monitor solution I should give a second go. So it's still in my head and so I might be long on this one 🙂 I actually bought this Divevolk solution after having terrible experience with Weefine's WED7 couple years ago. The problem with workarounds like divevolk is that they do not tend to work when one would need them. Forget about the lag, it's not that bad, the connection and the reliability of establishing it over and over - at least on Sony - is the real issue for me. So when I imagined logistics on a live aboard where most of my dives are with 3-4 dives per day checking the footage in between the dives - it was a real nightmare. Plus the element attached to the housing should be placed on acrylic effectively blocking access to camera monitor... So I swallowed the pill and bought Shinobi with Nauticam housing... I was also researching the other Chinese units, Kraken with their 3000 nits looked promising but all that proved to be a vaporware. For one their negative buoyancy is like 600+ grams (what they say, so double it, I think Wed7 was like 1000g if I remember well) and second they lie in their marketing specs about the size, ability to import LUTs etc... And so the available options for at least 1000nits monitor shrunk quite a bit and since I preferred long battery life over recording capability it was Shinobi. Good luck.

Hi there! Found this forum when tempering my GAS 🙂 . Got my first camera in 1978 (I guess I am old 🙂 ) but I started diving only in 2018 as there was a lot of BS among malawi cichlid keepers and I wanted to know how the fish really lived. So I bought GH5S and Aquatica housing and flew to complete my AOWD to Nkhata Bay, Malawi with altitude diving experience as a bonus 🙂 (did you know lake Malawi lies about 500m above sea level... 🙂 ) Fast forward 5 years and 500 dives with most of it with side mount I switched to Sony A1 in Nauticam eco system, even got me EMWL 🙂 , Retra flash, some 12000l solar flares for video and my hobby lately is to print my pictures in 1x2m wall tiles as my dentist offered me a sweet barter deal if decorating his clinic 🙂 . So A1 would be paid for now if it wasn't for my teeth 😄 . Cheers! 🙂