Chris Ross

Hi there, I upgraded to Retra a few months back. I got the reduction rings and the white diffusers. Previously using the Z240 strobes. I'm on m43 so I shoot at f10 mostly on macro. I recently did a trip to Lembeh with them. I can offer a few observations. The reduction rings I would suggest are essential. Shooting in Sydney and then in Lembeh I immediately noticed a lot less backscatter using the retra with reduction rings used at a fairly standard 10 and 2 strobe position close to the port. You do need to adjust positioning some more when getting in really close to somewhat non standard positions at least compared to what I used prior. Simplest seemed to turn the strobes in a little. I work fairly close with the olympus 60mm macro , so longer lenses would be less prone until you venture into wet diopters as the working distance is greater. It wasn't backscatter proof as such, just a lot less compared to what I saw with the INON strobes. I also tried some inward lighting and that worked well. The booster is quite useful. Shooting at f10 and one click past 25% power (this is a Retra pure) I got about 600 shots and the the battery test LED was hovering on turning yellow at the end. This was 3 dives a day over two days each dive about 1 hour 5 minutes. So I only pulled batteries and re-charged every other day. More powerful models may go through batteries faster if you use the power. Likewise is you are shooting at f11-16 on full frame you will need more power. This was all macro work. Classic HSS usage for wide angle is a sunball, where you might want to use 1/320 - 1/500 range for shutter speeds. I have not done much wide angle work with mine as yet, only used with 60mm macro and now with the MFO-3 so far. I traveled with the standard battery caps with the boosters separate, basically to improve my packing , with the booster the strobes were too tall for my backpack. Hope that helps, let me know if you have questions.

try this if the link above doesn't work, any boating store would have one: Marine Supplies DirectOutboard Fuel Primer Bulb 3/8&34; 95mm"HI. TECH" primer bulb suitable for outboard engines for any horse power.

I recall seeing a few posts on this possibly on Wetpixel??? most seems to be some kind of sock that is strapped around the assembly. On land the solution would be a blower bulb to blow particles away. If there was someway to attach a tube to the air release ring you could use a large syringe to push water through the opening, and you could presumably rig up a filter for the water. Without seeing the ring in person, it's hard to judge if this is feasible. If you could attach something like this ( a primer for outboard fuel supply) with a filter on the suction it might work: https://www.whitworths.com.au/outboard-fuel-primer-bulb-premium-6mm

In general terms depth of field varies with magnification at the same f stop. Focal length does not impact DOF apart from changes it makes to the magnification achieved. The background blur does change with focal length at the same magnification with shorter focal lengths showing more detail for want of a better word in the out of focus background, while a long focal length produces a smoother backgroud. However when talking about macro lenses with diopters the only real variable if magnification once you have selected your f stop as the focal length doesn't move very much. It appears that some wet optics can produce less depth of field with a specific example being the fisheye conversion port, likley related to how it interacts with the virtual image. A Diopter however basically just allows a lens to focus closer and the SMC lenses have optics to correct distortions caused by the air-water interface, but this is a fairly monor adjustment and I can't see it impacting depth of field.

You would need 7 1/2 Stix jumbo floats at 180 gr each, so if your arms are short you might need 2 each side to fit them. 4 STIX jumbo floats are 57 Euro at one store in Europe I saw while the INON mega float is 70 Euro, You might be up for another arm with STIX potentially but the INON float arm is an arm so you won't need another one, so very little difference in cost.

You should be able to access ISO 50 - it's called extended ISO, by default the camera goes to ISO 100, but enabling extended ISO alllows one stop lower and one stop higher to accessed, you need to menu dive to enable it. This video explains: Going to ISO 50 will reduce dynamic range slightly but it might be worth trying it out - in most cases UW you don't need very wide dynamic range. The MF-2 would also be worth trying out.

I would expect you would need to play every card to try to use this strobe under the conditions you are mentioning, You should be able to to ISO 50 I think and perhaps you need to close down a stop on your lens? You could also try reducing output using the widest angle diffuser on the strobe. This is a downside of using a very powerful strobe, it's harder to turn down. I would guess that what the strobe is doing is running at a set frequency for the duration the shutter is open and probably does that so it can work with any HSS system as the HSS protocols are likely different for each camera manufacturer.

whatever you do read the fine print, you often need to specify high value items as the value of individual items is limited often to a relatively low value and a great many policies will exclude water damage to electronics. Also any advice is country specific, you can only buy insurance for gear in your country of residence and for example credit card based insurance will have different T&Cs in different countries and home insurance may be a good option in the USA but not in the UK, the devil is in the details and unfortunately buried deep within the terms and conditions document.

The other consideration with video is stability, I guess the GoPro has decent stabilisation, but giving it less to do is probably a good thing. So this means getting the trim right as well, having the rig trying to twist up is a problem and it far easier to keep steady if you don't have to resist that torque. I dived one time with a photo rig that was positive and the dome kept wanting to twist upwards, quite difficult to use. Similarly my wide angle rig uses lots of buoyancy in the arms and it's rather difficult to twist it upwards even though the rig itself was near neutral overall. My rig is always clipped off and close to neutral so if I let it go it sinks quite slowly. I think a 1.36 kg rig could definitely benefit from some buoyancy. If 1.36kg is correct two of the INON 650gram mega float arms would be about perfect.

Found it on Camera Pro, mentions it is internal fcous. It does have lots of external switches, hopefully accessing them wont be required UW. The pre-release price is $AUD 2599! Not many specs listed on their page.

The most economical route is often to retain your ports and accesories, probably a number of ways to do this. In Aquatica, would you spend less buying an R5 body than buying all new ports. Alternatively Isotta makes an R6 II housing and they also sell an Isotta housing to Aquatica port adapter, so you can keep our ports and use them with the new housing. You would need to talk to Isotta about confirming if extensions needed are the same for your lenses and you'd probably need new focus/zoom gears. That may the most economical route potentially?

It is a difficult question, sure you could go with a 1" sensor compact like a G7X series or similar, the wide end would probably be better than the TG, but it's still only 24mm behind a flat port so not very wide.. The macro experience would be worse compared to the TG because they don't focus that close and you would be adding a macro diopter which limits the working distance, for example the G7XIII will only focus between 60 and 120mm with a CMC-2 dipoter, It's not like the TG where you start out a bit further back and move in focusing as you go, you have to place it in the range or very close or you won't recognise what you are pointing at. The shots once you get them will be fine of course. As soon as you move away from the TG you face a choice either a zoom with a diopter or a camera with a dedicated macro lens. The battery life will still be an achilles heel till you move up to something at least like a m43 camera. An OM camera with an AOI housing would still be fairly compact but the flexibility is reduced, but you can use the 60mm macro or 30mm macro lens with it.. Some would argue that's a good thing, but I get that people see the attraction of being able to be flexible on a dive. Another option is possibly weefine housing for TG, that has an extra battery and add a wide lens to it. Just don't get the one with the electric vacuum pump, I know someone who has had endless trouble with it.

This thread talks about it a bit, you need to be a wetpixel member signed in to read it unfortunately: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/67326-nauticam-wwl-with-full-frame-canon/&do=findComment&comment=425646 You might be able to find it on the wayback machine??

The limiting factor for wet optics like the WWL is apparently entrance pupil size, so fast lenses often won't work well, i think someone quoted a filter size maximum as a general guide while back, have to wait and see if Nauticam test it or not. This is why a lot of the lenses on port charts are small kit lenses with relatively slow optics. Might be a possibilty with the WACP?

There are quite a few people using that combination on site - there was some discussion a while back I recall that the non pancake Panasonic 14-42 has the best optical quality and i also recall that at the long end the 14-42 lenses were a little soft compared to the wide end. The WWL at 130 degress is about equivalent to coverage of a 7mm rectiliear (14mm FF equivalent) across the horizontal axis and it has mild barrel distortion (fisheye effect), you don't get the strong distortion of a full frame fisheye which bring the subject forward and larger in the image. I considered the WWL but didn't end up going that way. You talk about macro performance, the WWL will focus all the way up to the glass and any degradation when doing that at the long end comes from the performance of the lens at the long end focusing close. Your alternative that is a a single lens solution is an adapted Canon 8-15, it is quite expensive, but has superb optical quality throughout the zoom range. It is doesn't quite have the reach of the WWL at the long end of the zoom range. It can be done with off the shelf parts in Isotta (and would be quite a bit cheaper) or you need a 3D printed adapter ring to use in a Nauticam system to use the zoom gear. In Nauticam the housing is quite heavy and needs a lot of buoyancy added. The downside is less reach at the long end, but if 28mm equivalent is enough it's a great option that gives you a full fisheye and 7-14 lens in a single package. and overlaps the first half of the 14-42/WWL combo. This topic shows some land based shots so you can how the lens performs:

for that specific case the MFO-1 might serve you well, as it basically just gives a small lick of magnification but pulls the focus range in. It would be more compact for sure. Otherwise a +5 diopter like the INON UCL-165, or that +3 diopter Alex Mustard used, which are much cheaper., but maybe not quite the image quality. I would think though that the MFO-3 would be nicely versatile with the 45mm macro giving you a 26mm approx equivalent FF lens.

I think the port placement for the 50mm lens going to be less critical than a wide angle lens, so if it works in the 140mm dome maybe stop there?. On the topic of ports, not sure if you already have the Marelux N120 adapter, the Nauticam N120 4.33" dome may be a good solution if you do, relatively expensive new, but second hand might an option?

Mike, sounds like it's not syncing for some reason. To test sync see if you can put the camera in second curtain sync and take a test shot in dark room so the shutter speed is round 1 second. In second curtain sync the flash fires at the end of the exposure not the beginning, so in doing this you should see the pre-flash followed by the main flash if it is working correctly. The only reason to do this is to separate the pre and main flash so you can see them. When you are doing this also check by looking into the lens that the aperture closes down when the photo is taken and compare the 9-18mm behaviour of when it stops down to your other lenses. You could also ask around to see if someone has one you can borrow to try. Do you have an Olympus flash you put in the hotshoe, even the little accessory one? Or borrow one? Test the OM-5 and 9-18 with that to see if exposes correctly. If it does the same thing with the little accessory flash see if you can find a physical store with the 9-18 in stock and see if they will let you try another copy of the lens. Did you buy the lens new? You can also call the OM service centre and talk to them, I found them quite helpful. For them to help though I suspect the problem would need to reproducible without the housing and your strobes involved.

I think it would only focus very close to the port so defeats the purpose. I guess you could use it in normal mode and also carry a closeup diopter if you want greater than 1:1.

In principle I think it would be an easy adapter to make, an alumium disc about 6-8mm thick On the OD a lip at the top OD about 135mm stepping down to 125mm. In the middle an 85mm hole. The only tricky part working out how to mate with lugs on the housing and the dome ports and index them so that the port stays vertical and the dome shade is correctly aligned. You could potentially forego the lugs and rely on the vacuum to hold the pieces in places- just rotate the dome to the correct position. The pressure force acting to hold a 125mm (5") dome in place with 200 mbar vacuum is about 55 pounds. If it was just for testing you could have a tab you could install from inside the housing to lock it in place if you wanted extra security. If it works out and you want to keep using then you could make lug rings you could bolt on the adapter later, similar to way Nauticam adds the rings to their ports. all this of course assumes you have access to a machine shop to do the need turning and machining.

I believe it was at Tanduk Rusa divesite, black sand slope and it was in a really large patch of the soft corals you can see in the background of the frame. May might be a stretch but you can ask the guides, they normally know if one has been seen recently.

I don't know if that is the way I would look at it. It gives the same field as the 12-40 at the long end but only focuses out to about 1.5m and you don't get the wide end. It has max 0.5x magnification, compared to 0.3x with the 12-40. Also it's not like a 30/45mm with wet lens, the magnification is limited not increased. So basically it's all about being able to shoot larger subjects with a lot less water between you and the subject when on a macro dive. In theory you could use a 30mm macro to do the same job, but in practice the max magnification you can practically use is about 0.5x as you lose working distance and ability to light your subject.

I just put up a new post with my thoughts and some sample images from this week's diving.

Starting a new thread to do a quick review of using the MFO-3 with the Olympus 60mm macro. The 60mm is commonly used on m43 setups as the usual macro lens, it's quite sharp and AF is quite good on later bodies but it's a bot on the long side at 120mm FF equivalent, so larger subjects require backing up a lot with a lot of extra water in the way along with all the particles to make backscatter. The MFO3 reduces the field from that of a 60mm lens to about 37 mm focal length increasing diagonal field from 20 to 33 degrees. I used it for the first time in Lembeh Strait this week, popping it on to shoot things like Lionfish, anemone fish and other larger subjects like big cuttlefish. The extra field of view is significant and allows you to shoot these subjects with a lot less water between you and the subject. I found the field to be quite sharp into the corners when reviewing on my laptop and the subject really was very sharp. AF was pretty snappy as well. In Lembeh where you might be shown a tiny emperor shrimp followed immediately by a 200mm long scorpion fish or cuttlefish it was really very useful, in fact I'd say it was indispensable. I carried in a pocket on a pair of cargo shorts complete with bayonet mount and found it easy to get out but a bit trickier to get back in with one hand. I took the supplied neoprene pouch on the boat and after rinsing stored it in there to stop it drying out. some examples: Weedy Rhinopia - slight crop: A False clown anemone fish, I would normally crop and get in closer but this shows the sharpness across the frame: A Trumpetfish which was about 500mm long : A zebra lionfish, cropped slightly: Hopefully this gives some idea what the lens can do. The only real downside is the bulk of the lens, it a big lump but easy to use with bayonet mount. The pics were chosen to show the versatility I found. Lens supplied by Scubapix, the Australian Nauticam distributor it was from the first batch imported. I paid for the lens my myself. Let me know if you have any questions, hope the review is useful for those considering it.

i have the lens not the port, i expect it will work just as well on any lens that works with it.