Chris Ross

I don't know how much stock you place in DXO data, but here is a comparison of the R5 (mk I), R8 and Sony A1, they all seem pretty close in performance to me: DXOMARKSony A1 vs Canon EOS R8 vs Canon EOS R5 | DXOMARKThe Canon 24-50 kit lens is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and there have been several posts about its relatively poor performance. As far as AF performance goes the specs say the AF sensitivity on the R5 II is -6 - 21EV while the min for the A1 is -4EV, seems close but the devil is in the details of how they measure that. Probably best to see if you find some land based reviews to see what that means in real life as there are probably not many who have shot both underwater and with blue water pelagic experience. You could also ask a question on the forum about settings people use for sharks/whales in lower light on your R5 II to compare with what you do. Looking at things like AF mode - single vs continuous, various AF settings and which AF points you use etc. Also faster lenses should generally provide more light for AF assuming that AF occurs with the lens wide open. I see that the EF 28mm f1.8 and f2.8 primes are listed as working with the WACP 1B. Again on these optics there is an entrance pupil limitation, favouring slower lenses and my understanding is that this is why the range of lenses listed in the port charts is limited.

A few considerations on upgrading as you know the widest lens that doesn't vignette for the WACP series is 28mm so both of the 20-50 lenses would need to zoom into 28mm in operation and you can't just get there by turning the dial out you have to look to see you have got to 28mm. I could see this being an issue when trying to work quickly. Also neither 20-50 lens is on the WACP-C port charts as yet and particularly fast lenses might not work with the WACP-C, though the Sony 24-50 f2.8 is on the WACP-C port chart, but there appears to be a typo in the port chart and the line advising the zoom range is 28-50 seems to be missing. I believe they have a limit on entrance pupil size which impacts what lenses work in that system. Assuming you are looking at both lenses behind the WACP-C The WACP-1/1B includes the Sony 20-70 f4 lens, but most of the lenses for that optic are also kit lenses. What exactly is the concern with with the R-5II? I would have thought the sensor capabilities of the A1 and R5 II to be very close, Is there no option to cap maximum ISO when using auto ISO? It might be worth asking the question how Canon shooters handle blue water metering as well, could be a better option than a system switch?

The least reliable advice for anything remotely technical by a large margin is AI, lost count of the number of times it has conflated a few different web pages about different models from the same manufacturer and confidently comes up with an incorrect answer. But honestly, just look at the housing - where would you put a trigger? And the AOI trigger is part of the housing and the LEDs are hard wired in so it's their trigger or no trigger, unless you want to perform surgery on your brand new housing. I would be contacting Backscatter and pointing out those issues with their advice and asking how they came up with it.

They might work but they need an additional load on top of the onboard pulse load. If you get one consider the adjustable load one. I think the PD spec is what is killing this, any low power stay on option assumes you only want to draw a little power. If the camera can last one full dive on a fresh battery the path of least resistance might to plug it into a big power bank PD rated via USB bulkhead. Of course this will compete with using an external monitor and vacuum system unless you can find one of the offset vacuum valves which allow vacuum and bulkhead on one M16 hole. Crazy price of $US590 to manufacture one on demand.

Apparently Anker power banks have a trickle charge mode designed to keep low power devices active, you could try to see if you can activate it on yours perhaps though it says it only last two hours. Most applications for always on power banks seem to be to run low power devices which use less power than the bank cut off level. There are keep alive modules available but they only seem to work with lower power devices and not compatible with PD. It might be possible to plug one into a power bank and draw your PD current through a separate port?

There were some posts on wetpixel a while back, haven't managed to find them , but as I recall they are all correctly called perfluro ether greases and are reported to be universally compatible with all o-rings. I believe that Tribolube and Christolube include some PTFE in the formulation and I found while searching some reference to Christolube eventually leaving some white deposits while Tribolube did not. I never saw any trace in Nauticam lube, it's quite a thin formulation. I also happened across the pricing on some sites which was around 140 $AUD for a 2g tube or about 1/3 the price of gold!🤣

Is this strobe lit or natural light? If it is consistent dialling in exposure comp in some manner - if you are using manual a bit higher ISO or slower shutter than what you would use based upon the whatever you use for feedback. For strobes crank it up as well. To be honest I often find shots a little under exposed (strobes for macro with manual SS/aperture) and the images take quite well to a bit of exposure boost in Raw processing if needed, it's really no different to boosting the ISO the same amount.

I agree with regular cleaning of clamshell o-rings, they need lubricating and things stick to them. You can get away with not lubricating surface o-rings. If you look at them when you open the housing you see small droplets of water clinging and that can transfer inside if you close up again. I would suggest you look at not lubricating your surface o-rings on the new housing and examine it critically each time you open it, checking for water droplets, maybe pull it to see if you are getting grit sticking to it. As for ports, I dive maybe once a week and tend to leave them in place unless I'm changing ports. I run the blower around close to the seam to blow out any water I can. I've been doing it this way for quite a few years and things remain in good shape. As for any threads screwed into m67 ports, I would suggest removing it and blowing it dry. I do that with my Nauticam bayonet adapter regularly Fine threads like that are a classic for seizing up. The need for demin water rinsing is probably debatable. I expect in hard water areas it may be worth doing, but not if the water is soft. Sydney luckily has quite soft water. For post glass keeping it wet till you can soak is my main objective.

The AOI housing has no provision for a viewfinder eyepiece, it's just a plain window to look into the camera viewfinder you can see the image but as Adrian notes you can't see all of it. So effectively the back screen is the only game in town for this housing.

If you are shooting with strobes - typical macro shooting where the exposure is 100% from the strobes and the background is dark to black, then S-OVF is a must as you can't see your subject otherwise take your pick. I tend to leave mine in S-OVF, underwater it is easy to misjudge image brightness on the screen or the viewfinder I find so if you want to judge exposure looking at a histogram is probably better.

If you look at the port charts, they list short port 22 and 25 for both the LX100_II and L10 and they can zoom to either 30 or 40mm respectively on both cameras while the standard port zooms to the full 75mm. You mention your LX100 port is fixed to your housing - presumably that is a type one LX100? - which it seems also had interchangeable ports, so presumably that short port is discontinued You say you can't get your off the LX100 housing? Have you tried a strap wrench? What are you trying to achieve, are you looking to use an M67 wet lens other than a WWL? There is the Nauticam bayonet adapter: https://www.backscatter.com/Nauticam-Bayonet-Mount-Adaptor-for-SMCCMC-Lens which says it works for SMC/CMC/MFO M67 lenses, though it may not end up with the right spacing for other wet lenses. Looking at the M67 short port it mentions there is no zoom, so it may be shorter and not allow you to zoom in or perhaps the L10 lens protrudes a little more at minimum zoom.

If your light still has some charge you should be able to use a multi meter to work out which socket on the light is positive, that then tells you which pin is positive.

A good catch indeed. There is a significant inward force on ports at depth, 1 bar pressure at 10m as we know which is 14.7 psi differential between inside and outside of the housing. A 120mm dia port is 17.5 sq inches and with 14.7 psi differential that gives 257 lb force at 10m depth.

Hi Chip, by removing the mount, you mean the tripod mount attached to the Metabones? Good information that a standard zoom gear works with this setup. Does that mesh with the adapter gear or the housing gear? Not doubting what you observed at all, but it does seems odd that your setup vignettes at 60mm plus 35.5mm adapter but Wolfgang reports he uses 60mm total extension with the 35.5mm adapter, the fact some of the extension is on the other side of the adapter should make no difference.

As I understand only the mKV works if you want to use it with the TC, the ID of the MkV adapter is bigger so the nose of the teleconverter fits through.