Chris Ross

The lack of a battery to replace sounds ideal to me, though for my system I'm quite happy using the little mini flash.

With the 100mm macro you already get 1.4x magnification, double than the best you do with the 28-60 (0.7x) and with more working distance. The question I would be asking is are you able to find subjects that need that sort of magnification? If you dive exclusively with expert guides in macro rich destinations you might get some use out it. Me - I'd be tempted to just crop a little if needed for extra small subjects as I don't find them that often, plus the depth of field won't be quite so diabolically thin. I recall Alex Mustard saying on one his videos that his most used diopter was a +3 or a +5 diopter which gave just a little more than life sized which you already have with the 1.4x available natively, compared to a traditional macro lens with 1:1 magnification

Welcome James, hope you enjoy the forums and sorry to hear you were on that liveaboard, but great that everyone got off!

I noticed a significant reduction in Backscatter first dive with my new Retras fitted with reduction rings. It's not a magic cure all and I can still manage to take a frame filled with Backscatter if I'm not concentrating but it's so much easier now to produce a frame without excessive backscatter.

I would also suggest reviewing airlines baggage policies - Air Niugini I believe offers 15kg excess baggage for divers if you fly into PNG with them. You can fly Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong - POM with them. Not the most reliable service unfortunately but they will get you there I have been advised by people who have dived there a lot.. They also fly POM-NAD direct every other day, so you could fly into POM via SIN/HKG/NAR and then head on to Fiji. It's pretty easy access for me to POM from Sydney, but not the way you want to do it if arriving from Europe. Alternatives to Air Niugini heading south are basically just Qantas who flies into Brisbane and Sydney. You could always do some temperate water diving in Sydney as well.

It's close to the smallest, the backscatter MF-3 is slightly smaller in diameter but longer. The MF-3 is popular for snooting, it is less powerful with a narrower beam than the S220. INON has a reputation for being reliable, the Backscatter strobes less so, but the newer models seem much improved. S&S YS-01 is similar size, reliability - I've seen a few complaints on the forum. The AOI UCS Q1 is also similar size. You could happily upgrade to a RX series or even m43 with the INON. The others perhaps, certainly you could continue with the MF-3 for snooting up to full frame but not for wide angle.

Welcome onboard Paul, good to have you here.

I very much suspect neither of these is rated for UW use, it doesn't mention a thing about using them UW. The first one has LEDs the second features light pipes to take the flash light to the ring around the lens. I would also guess that the strobe light is quite weak after being piped in and spread around the ring on the second model. They state the first model can compromise the waterproof seals A lot of people dive with TG-7s around my dive sites and many of them now have the Weefine or Kraken ring lights. They have a model with a 3000 lumen burst triggered by your strobe. Working with that could prove tricky on the TG-7 as the camera doesn't know what the ring light is going to do, but should be manageable. The link below shows one model, the others are listed on the side bar. https://underwater.com.au/shop/kraken-ring-light-3000-v2-new-version-sale.html?srsltid=AfmBOopsV7rWxEW0QCi4Dqop191F2xrX9GQxMxLnpuUMIBHD-_zhgStD I've seen some shots produced with these lights and they look pretty nice as long as you are in quite close. I'm not sure exactly which model they are using.

Assuming you have a removable shade, the first thing to check might be dome rotation. Set the camera/ lens up so you can see the edge then loosen the screws and try rotating the dome a little so that the edge doesn't appear. Next check the other corners to see if the dome appears in a different corner. Just to be clear the edge appears as you are zooming out towards a circular fisheye image? You mention extenders - the dome should not appear at all with the 2x and appear around 10mm zoom with the 1.4x, is that what you are seeing?

The max magnification varies depending of focal length for the MFO3 with the Sony 90mm reporting 0.8x from the port charts. All lenses focus between 0 and about 1500mm with the MFO3 added . The stated design from Nauticam is that the MFO3 corrects for having a flat port so has better corners than what a 50/60mm macro would have through a flat port and also shifts the the focus range of the so that in common 0.5x to min magnification range corresponds to the lens focusing to infinity and the fact the lens is out in the range where AF is fast and snappy on the bare lens, so AF improves. In my case with the olympus 60mm macro my limit is 0.5x - but for what I use the MFO3 for - it's a non issue. I've certainly found my MFO3 to be snappy when focusing once the lens racks out to the focal range needed after I first attach it, beyond that I don't even think about AF, it just snaps on. Whether or not the corners improve - I have not done any sort of detailed comparison, I'm just very happy with what it does. In terms of sharpness crushing - a lot of people are using the MFO2 now it seems and I don't recall anyone complaining about sharpness. These lenses are being used with Canon/Nikon/Sony top line macro lenses which are as a rule no slouch optically, seems to me it would be a hard ask for a different supplementary lens to claim to be crushing relative sharpness performance when using the add-on lens unless Nauticam is destroying it. As good as the bare lens or a little better - sure seems quite plausible. I haven’t used the Marelux version so don't know how it performs but have no reason to doubt it produces top notch images. Needs someone to spend some pool or test tank time shooting resolution targets to put the question to bed. Me personally - I'd rather go diving - but would certainly review the results with interest if someone was keen enough to produce some images to compare. Any volunteers?😅

It seems there are two Nauticam N120 140mm ports #18811 and # 18816 and the 16 version has 20mm of extension built in. Do you know which port you have?

In m43 terms, the 12-40 and 12-45 lenses sound ideal, they are very sharp and will work in either a 140mm dome or Isotta's 6"dome. I've used the 12-40 quite a lot around Sydney and it produces nice images. Image from Oak Park Cronulla a few years back, 12-40 at f8.

Every one is different , but I do similar regularly but using a 45 ° viewfinder, I just picked up my housing now and I can do it but it's difficult because of the weight and leverage from just using one hand, but I regularly use one hand UW with the left hand stabilising me against surge and/or current and the housing being close to neutral means i don't have the weight trying to pull the housing out of my grip, it's mainly for macro work, but I work similarly for wide angle work depending on whether I am hovering in mid water or doing something more like CFWA work close in where I can use my left to to stabilise myself. Out of curiosity what is your left hand doing that you are operating one handed?

Some great diving in PNG - Walindi resort on New Britian island has excellent diving on seamounts.

The other consideration is that you can get by with smaller cheaper strobes on m43. I used the Z240s a lot till I got Retra pures, but tests on here showed the tiny cheap INON S220 have similar output to the Z240 and I'm sure would be quite enough particularly for macro on m43. You can do this as you don't need to stop way down - f8 is my go to when I shoot with fisheye - both the Panasonic 8mm and the Canon 8-15 and I'll drop back to f5.6 on occasions. On full frame you are shooting f11-13 generally. Macro I shoot at f10 mostly - FF often stops down more than this, but it's not so much an advantage as the strobes are very close to the subject. Opening up means you need less flash power. On the other side of the coin you can mostly shoot at ISO200 making it easier to get sunballs and you also undo some of the gains of FF where you might often use ISO400. on HSS you can use the Nauitcam flash trigger to get 1/400 without needing to resort to HSS. On the rectilinear front I recall seeing a post on shooting the excellent 12-40 lens in a 140mm dome - much more compact if 24mm FF equivalent is wide enough for you if you need a rectilinear. You can go smaller and lighter on the lens side using the excellent 12-45mm f4 lens as well. and the 140mm dome will also suit a fisheye lens well. On the Isotta side you could use their 6"dome for these lenses for a very compact rig.