Chris Ross

Welcome aboard Andrey, good to have you here.

I went from Z240 to a set of Retra pure strobes, which are about maybe a stop and a bit below the Pro-maxII strobes, If I recall the maxi was ahead of the Pro-MaxII by a near a stop. My strobes are certainly brighter than the Z-240s by maybe 0.7-1 stop and Z330 are probably as bright or a little brighter than my Pure strobes. The Maxi is 1.5- 1.7 stops fatter again, so comfortably faster than the Z330. I've only used up to half power with them so far, while I was half a stop below full power withe Z240 a lot of the time. As far as light quality goes the Retra Maxi seems close to the ProMaxII (and my Pures) which is comfortably better than the Inon Z-240 for me. The Z330 I think is on par with the Z240 for light quality. The thing I did find is that with the reduction rings, with reasonable strobe positioning there is a lot less backscatter - instantly noticeable, both shooting in Lembeh and around Sydney in the temperate waters where particulates are a constant problem.

I don't have any specific recommendations, though I recall some posts around the Laowa 10mm, which while it is a very sharp lens has some perspective issues with very close objects looking un-naturally large. There's lots of posts on this lens throughout the forum with sample images and videos.

If you already have a housing for the A7SIII, then I believe you can fit the Sony A1 (version 1 ) in the same housing - not all housings but some they both fit with some minor limitations. You could potentially save buying a new housing at the cost of buying a more expensive body perhaps. This post discusses it a bit: If it's Nauticam they sell a conversion kit: https://www.nauticam.com/products/conversion-kit-to-convert-na-%CE%B11-for-use-with-sony-a7siii-camera

In Ningaloo, you can't scuba dive with whale sharks, they are snorkeling trips. I've seen some really bad examples of the crowds at some sites just totally swamping the sharks, here's just one example: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTk69lrgBQH/ I certainly wouldn't want to participate in something like this.

These days the need to use sRGB is less than it used to be,browsers these days have colour management by default and the blues are so much nicer in Adobe RGB. I think you should at least try it out. I work a different workflow to many by Raw processing in Capture one and then finishing in Photoshop and I do it specifically because I can access levels as I find that the very simplest to way to colour balance a photo. Unfortunately Lightroom doesn't give you levels, you can do something similar with the tone curve though. You don't really go into what processing steps you take - with the wrong steps it's easy to get messed up and become totally lost, You mention Calibration and HSL, I only use these sorts of tools very sparingly. In Raw processing typically you have ability to adjust the colour temperature and Tint. Temperature is blue- yellow balance and tint is green magenta balance. It helps to have a good understanding of colour. basics are adding red reduces Cyan, adding magenta reduces green and adding blue reduces yellow. You should be able to get the balance close there. Typically I find adding some magenta to the image darkens the blues and makes them richer. If you wanted I could try processing one of your raw files assuming of course my copy of Capture one will open it.

You should have a good starting point with 4800K strobes. The idea behind warm strobe light is that to colour balance you shift to cooler colour temperatures. which gives you a deeper blue. I don't use Lightroom so can't offer anything specific there, though I would think any sort of profile designed for land use might be problematic in water. I'm not sure what the adaptive profile does, but I expect if the initial results are good it shouldn't matter - all the profile is doing is providing a starting point. I would suggest a number of things: Work in Adobe RGB, the blues are more extensive there, if publishing to web ensure a colour profile is included so it display properly. Don't convert to sRGB as it will crunch the blues Work in 16 bit colour - it gives you more latitude to work with, you can change to 8 bit when you save if you want to reduce storage space Have you tried camera matching options - it sets the image to what you set in camera. You could also try Neutral as the starting point for your own preset? What sort of display do you have? if it is limited to sRGB, it just can't display the deeper richer blues. I'd also ask what settings you are using in camera any settings are typically recorded and as I understand things applied to your image as a starting point. I'd also mention that ISO400 f8 and half power sounds like you should try to get closer, the Ikelite is quite a powerful strobe and people shoot at f11-13 regularly with similar or less powerful strobes. If you are not close enough the flash on the subject is diluted more with ambient light and the whole image needs to shift warm to get the colours you want on the foreground, but this warms up the blues.

Maybe try here for a reduction ring? Underwater Light and MagicUnderwater Light and Magic

Here's my trip report from Divers Lodge Lembeh - they dont seem to limit dive times, you come up when you're air is down to 50 bar.

It's actually two, one on the front, over mask and reg and one over the mask strap. I find the my strap just peels off - a plain silicone strap.

So that would be hop in positive, get your rig, grab onto RIB and dump your BCD fully and let go when everyone else rolls? I was taught not to make my Mask strap too tight to avoid leaks, I found rolling off boats in Lembeh and other spots the strap would neatly peel off my head, mask would stay suctioned as the water was calm and I'd have to refit it! Attaching your mask somehow is probably a must if you are rolling off. Less so if you don't roll.

Hello and welcome, suggest you post this question in the photo gear & technique forum, along with some more information about what you are trying achieve with UW photography. I had to look your cameras up - they are ancient history and finding an UW housing for them may prove a challenge. If you are set on a film SLR, perhaps try to find a second hand dive housing for any EOS model on Ebay etc. I also had look up G dome, seems like they are mainly around surf photography. Depending on what you want to shoot there are all types of considerations depending on if you want wide angle, split shots, macro, are you scuba diving etc. For starters with a film SLR - how are you going to look through the viewfinder? - there's no facility to allow this and that seems pretty vital. In any case let us know what you are trying to achieve and hopefully we can point you in the right direction.

Apart from a great many people from that site migrating here, the same moderators now running this site and the topic of discussion being underwater photography and videography, no relation to Wetpixel🤣🤣. Seriously though, the wetpixel owner dropped off the face of the earth (after some members lost their payments on a dive trip that was organized by the owner) and eventually the site was only viewable by members and new member applications were not being processed. So some regulars and the mods got together and came up with waterpixels. Wetpixel is still there like a bit of a ghost ship these days.

I only mention Nauticam as they are often the first to publish port recommendations, neither they nor Isotta have the lens in the port charts as yet. Probably better to wait than guessing which extension you need.

Probably no rush, Nauticam haven't got it on their port charts yet - a Zoom gear sounds like it will be useful even if only zooming from 13-14mm.