Chris Ross

I use the little accesory flash that comes with my OM-1 and I set it at 1/64 power which seems to be more than adequate to use. Do you have the option to set flash power in the camera menus? Looks like it can be set to manual and as low as 1/128 power which should recycle very quickly. Also if you are looking at manual triggers, these generally only have the center contact and the shoe to complete the circuit, so and any model trigger will work on your hotshoe, the difference being only achieving alignment of the LEDs with the fibre optic ports. There are a few ready built manual triggers sold out there which should work with your 7D, you would be looking for a model with the LEDs on wires to mount in your fibre optic ports. Still pricey at around the $200-250 mark. The circuit itself is simple in principle but finding the right LEDs might be a challenge. This post on th old wetpixel discusses : https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/62410-the-ultimate-diy-led-trigger-olympus/&tab=comments#comment-429772 You may not be able to read it unless you sign in though. It links to this post: https://www.instructables.com/LED-Strobe-Trigger-for-Olympus-OM-D-E-M1-Mark-II/ You would have to adapt it to using circuit board to build and source a hotshoe and the right parts of course. The biggest issue is finding LEDs which will work and not burn out. You need quite high power LEDs to reliably trigger strobes.

The big difference between PS and Lightroom is that Lightroom keeps a record of changes that you make to the image and stores them in a database, rather than storing an edited image. It is effectively a Digital Asset management tool as it has ability to store your files and organise them by libraries, albums and manage metadata with filtering and search tools to find your images. The downside is all of this and the changes you make when developing are stored in a database called the lightroom catalogue, which can get corrupted. To learn there are lots of online resources out there, some free, others paid. Personally I don't see the attraction of lightroom, as PS is more powerful and has the ability to a lot of things with layers which streamline processing for me, plus it has the levels tool which to me is invaluable. PS elements can do much of what PS can do, a big difference being that 16 bit editing is limited. 16 bit editing is quite important for UW images to avoid posterisation when making adjustments to things like blue water. As far as I know you can do levels and curves in 16 bit then convert to 8 bit for the balance of editing with elements. ACR is Adobe Camera Raw, where you develop RAW files. In general UW images are not that demanding of the editor, with exceptions they tend to be a little low on contrast unless you have a sun ball or highly reflective subjects. The main points to adjust are black and white points then colour balance, followed by contrast adjustments if required. Starting on the RAW editor set it to 16 bit output, then adjust exposure, white balance as required and set black and white points, sharpening as required and any adjustments to saturation you want. In elements then you can open levels and tweak it to get a full histogram and maybe open a curves layer to get it looking the way you want. Convert to 8 bit now and do any backscatter work you want to do. Save then crop as required and produce any other files you may want - resize for printing or to produce a jpeg for web display, social media etc. Do note though that PS elements is specifically not supported for Backscatter exterminator. the cloning tools within PS elements though do place you in a better position for dealing with backscatter than the tools available in Lightroom.

Particularly for macro, the little INONS will be quite fine I would expect, you might want to get into snooting later on, which is a different matter but start simple. Even if you find you outgrow the little S220, it will be fine for macro work later on. If you can have a look at them first they are surprisingly small, they now have better controls than their predecessors. The Backscatter video review gives a good idea of the size and control layout. On the Retras they are certainly a good strobe and hove very good quality of light, a lot of well regarded photographers use them and like them for this.

You are spoiled for choice with the current available strobes, a great many recently released. It would help to narrow down your choice with a few considerations: Budget - strobes range a great deal in asking price! Travel limitations - some are more travel friendly than other due to size and weight - a lot of new strobes are big and heavy Depth rating - the vast majority of strobes are rated to 100m There are one or two expensive option rated for 200m Strobe power - again a wide range. Macro requires less power due to the close range compared to lighting up big wide angle scenes. Battery power - AA cell strobes versus Li-ion cells vs Custom (expensive) battery packs Charging - standard battery chargers or USB versus custom chargers Reliability?? Fibre optics is probably indeed the best way to trigger - you can get TTL and manual triggers. Manual stobe work is not that hard, but TTL seems to be getting better. The Nauticam manual trigger is a cheaper option, then you have UWT or Turtle as choices. To give you an idea of the range from budget to high end: INON S220- 469 Euro incl VAT, 463 gr (with batteries - 4 x AA) 140 x 100 deg beam. A very compact and quite capable little strobe, small size means positioning for macro will be easier. Maybe a slightly wanting for power for big wide angle shots, but very capable for macro. You can get around the power somewhat with ISO if ambient light is not included in the mix or if light is very low. OneUW ONE160X, 1930 Euro plus VAT, 1460 gram, 200m depth rating. 130deg beam. Built in TTL circuit for Sony and other brands. A large and rugged strobe with TTL, HSS and other faetures and nic soft even beam. Proprietary battery pack (185 euro) and charger. There is whole range of other strobes in between these price points and a few for a bit less plus some that are pricier.

Nauticam USA might be in Florida, but the parent company is in Hong Kong. The MFO in Australia is advertised at $US382 converted using the current AUD-USD exchange rate (before GST) so it is getting hit pretty hard on import duties a 44% premium on the AU price if I'm not mistaken and assuming $550 is the price before any local sales taxes. The duty would be charged on the wholesale import value before distributor and retailer markups, even so it looks like the full announced 125% has not been passed on as yet but I have no idea what the markup on UW photo equipment by the wholesaler and retailers is. A lot of items like footwear and clothing have really substantial markups. If for example the MFO came in at a retail price of $382 and assume a 100% markup the import landed price is $191 plus 125% would give a landed price of 427.75 with the tariff imposed. Then assume the wholesale and retail margins stay constant the final price is $427 plus 191 = $ 620 So a price ending up at $550 is not out of the ball park assuming the wholesale/retail margins take a bit of a hit. I'm guessing wholesale and retail margins are reasonably high as they have to pay a lot of things out that margin including warranty, staff wages, handling costs to get it out of customs, warehouse costs etc. and it's not like they sell 1000's of these widgets a year.

Just to be clear snoots would be really difficult, the beam limiters similar to the Retra reduction rings still produce something like a 90° beam (as opposed to a 130° beam) with a sharp dropoff, making it easier to contain the light, not too different to regular strobes.

As I recall this is a failure reported in any type of strobe, the circuit that cuts the strobe output has failed but the trigger circuit still works. There was a reset procedure for earlier versions of S&S strobes, but don't recall seeing one for this model. As a workaround try it in TTL to see if it works adjusting power. You could run it in TTL triggering off the duration of your other strobe? In the meantime I would be calling your dealer about warranty - do this first if it has not expired as yet.

The benefit is largely around slowing down the movement of the AF point from target so the AF can lock on, it doesn't work miracles but I find it helpful. Basically the AF is your third axis to counter back and forth movement. I see no reason to turn it off, some of the earlier generations might have caused some issues, but today it is sound technology.

I'm not so sure a snoot would be a recipe for good mental health shooting active fish, probably restrict to anglerfish, scorpion fish and others that won't depart quite so quickly.😂 I'm thinking inward lighting probably should work quite well on fish in mid water once you get the angles dialled in.

There's a number of approaches to this depending upon how far away the fish are and separation from background. If you want to light your subject but avoid the reef behind the classic recommendation is to try using inward lighting - p122 on my copy of Alex Mustard's book. Adding beam limiters can help as well, something like the Retra reduction ring and macro rings. Backscatter can be an issue with this technique and would work best if you were in really close. For distant larger fish, the retra reflectors extend beam range and limit spread, but of course only available to use on Retra strobes. The reduction rings could be easily rigged up - 3D printed perhaps or as simple as finding a pipe or similar which is a snug fit on your strobe.

I think it really depends on whether you need the extra reach. Using a 1.4x with the 8-15 overlaps with about the 24-30mm range on the 24-50 with WWL. This would be about 13-15mm on the 8-15 and the distortion should be fairly similar to what you would get on the WWL in the same range. I'm not sure how important video is for you, if the crop mode is good enough and you are happy with the results maybe that's all you need? If you decide to go with the 1.4x you could use crop for extra video reach as well. The only slight downside of the 8-15 is that on full frame it works better stopped down in comparison to the WWL - but for video perhaps corners aren't so important. Shouldn't be an issue to stop down for stills. on the 24-50 zoom gear email Isotta, they may be able to provide you with one, I've heard they have done this in the past. Otherwise you could design one yourself and have it printed. Alternatively Waterpixels member Ross Gudgeon ( @Gudge ) does 3D printing of gears. You could contact him - his website is here: https://www.bluefishphoto.com.au/3d_printing/

Come diving in Sydney, plenty of macro life and weedy sea dragons as well.

It seems that on occasions it will flash red/blue during a dive but the documentation is not complete enough to tell what it is. My manual says it loss of vacuum, but the website doesn't mention that. In this case changing the battery helped, but the OP said they changed the battery out but it didn't help. So it seems to me to be some sort of fault in the system.

Agree, this applies to every o-ring in the housing - pre-loading them helps prevent leaks on the surface. Even housings like the Nauticam only have two clip points and the clamping force is greater closest to the clamps. They rely on the stiffness of the housing back to evenly apply pressure all over the o-ring - probably a big benefit is the two locking pins which resist the housing back moving sideways. That's why flanges in pipe systems uses multiple symmetrical bolts. Housings are different in that they seal against external pressure, but getting even pressure on the o-ring is still important. Once UW the pressure is totally even but not so in the air unless you have a vacuum pulled. It's not as bad as the old external clip housing like ikelite, but probably still not as good as the clam shell style backs many housing use.

Seems unlikley, the IS system only responds and cancels out whatever movements it detects, if the movements are slower it only makes its job easier. There were reports on the first generation IS that it didn't work well at high shutter speeds on long telephoto lenses, but I think it has moved beyond that now. I just leave IS on all the time, it activates on a half press of the shutter on my system.

Welcome onboard, you'll find many of the same faces have moved over here from Wetpixel, good to have you here.

It seems people are happy to shoot video with the WWL and similar wet optics. The barrel distortion of the WWL is pretty similar to what you get from a fisheye zoomed into about the same angle of view. When zoomed into 15mm with the 1.4x you have something like the field of view of a 16mm rectilinear lens (same horizontal field ). A WWL has about the filed of a 12-13mm rectilnear. You still have some barrel distortion but it is much milder. The barrel distortion of a fisheye lens stretches the corners and the stretch is progressively greater as you move out from the centre. Adding a 1.4x effectively crops that field of view and magnifies it and effectively reduces barrel distortion. The next consideration is that the converter arrangement you have allows video AF. I'm assuming it's probably OK on Canon but may need to check that C-AF works with a third party RF-EF converter if you go the Canon 1.4x path or that the Kenko 1.4x also works well enough with AF. You could also get the same impact by using a 1.4x in camera crop for video if that is an available option. Certainly would be easier on the wallet.

I think IS has a number of uses, the obvious one being hand holding assistance. AN additional consideration is stabilizing against movement from surge or current - I find it seems to help keeping the AF point over the subject. It's a common issue on Sydney dive sites that are subject to surge on occasions. I certainly notice it on land based hand held macro shots and it helps keep the AF point just where I want it.

Reverse pressure won't impact most o-rings. Piston seal o-rings seal equally well both ways, a surface o-ring is generally not so good at reverse pressure, THis is the type which can trap a vacuum in a housing when taken on a flight, particularly if the clamps are not super tight. The force on the flat back plate is quite high and can cause it to lift and let out the internal pressure. When the plane descends it's like taking it for a shallow dive and it will trap the vacuum. See the diagram on this page: https://www.applerubber.com/seal-design-guide/oring-basics/dimensional-considerations/ The top one, the face seal may not do reverse pressure as well depending on clamping force applied, typically used on some housing backs for example which may have only 2-3 clamps around the perimeter. The other two seal both ways.

May be if it was AOW and 40 dives rather than "or" 40 dives, some places will spit out an AOW diver with 8-10 dives. Though even that doesn't guarantee a diver with decent buoyancy control.

It would be interesting to compile all of these reports to look for common threads. I can see no reason why a strobe would leak after some period sitting sealed up with the batteries inside after working on the first dive. O-rings are not that complicated they should just work if they are installed without any grit or hairs present. Pressuring, de-pressuring and re-pressuring should make no difference, we do this all the time to the control o-rings in housings and probably quite often to port o-rings, when we leave the same port in place for multiple dive days. There are several different designs of o-ring installations including a surface groove with a flat plate sealing against it and various variations of piston mounts including screw on caps and variations of push and turn. Each have their own risks, for example it is possibly more likely for a surface o-ring to leak via a hair laying across the ring, especially if a vacuum is not used to seat the plate. Is one type more susceptible than others? O-rings whether they are installed in strobes or camera housings or torches should behave the same way. The only difference these days is that strobes don't have vacuum systems, while a great many housings sold today have one. One possibility is if it's a small leak with only a few drops it may take time to kill the batteries. Quite possibly the o-ring leaked and the batteries kept going but after sitting for hours to days the water has worked its way in and done the damage. As the strobe was not opened after the dive it is not possible to prove or disprove this. Maybe moving the strobe around again after the time it was sitting is enough to get the water to move somewhere it can do damage, or the damage is minor but accelerates when the batteries are loaded?

Just to be clear red/blue flashing is low battery when the system is first turned on, you can pump it down, it will turn to green and continue to function at least initially -eventually the battery will be too low. When you release the vacuum, it then flashes yellow then red. Not red/blue. I tried this just a day or two ago, my battery was due for replacement and it flashed red/blue when switched on, pumped down to green and when released went flashing yellow then red. Flashing red/blue anytime other than than this is something else, either a fault or resetting the system due to loss of power if the battery is low at the time. My manual says flashing red and red/blue is loss of vacuum, the guide linked above only mentions flashing red for loss of vacuum. It's clear from the behavior of my system that red/blue only happens when first switched on.

The red/blue flashing is supposed to be when you first turn it on only. My battery recently started flashing red/blue when I turn it on, I didn't replace the battery immediately. Pulled the vacuum, went for a dive, came back and dried housing to release vacuum and it only flashes red. The red/blue only happens when it first powers up, pulling the vacuum it goes yellow then green and when releasing turns yellow the red. I also note that when vacuum starts to drop when releasing vacuum, the initial response is flashing yellow, then flashing red when the vacuum is nearly gone. SO if you have a slow leak it should start flashing yellow first eventually changing to flashing red. If you are not getting yellow first a slow leak seems unlikely to me. Your water drops sound very much like water clinging to the o-ring, getting rid of them is near impossible, I run my blower along the seam to blow water out, but there's always some clinging to the o-ring and on the housing. I'm resigned to wiping it off then pulling the o-ring to shake dry and drying the groove every time I open up after a dive. What I am not clear about is the difference between flashing red and flashing red/blue in the table - the table says both are an issue with vacuum. I don't get red/blue flashing when releasing vacuum. You could get the red/blue coming on if you momentarily lose power, possibly an issue with the battery holder, the wiring or the switch, that would effectively re-boot the system and it would start red/blue flashing as if it just powered on. That one is a bit hard to test as you would need to be under vacuum and green then play with the wiring. Maybe see if shaking the housing a bit triggers anything??

First I think refer to instructions when diagnosing: Alternating blue and red is saying the vacuum has gone, but you report the the vacuum still present, indicating perhaps a problem with the pressure sensor. The moisture alarm is separate to this and is described on the previous page on my manual. It talks about testing the moisture alarm by shorting the two wires of the probe. The response to this is a loud alarm and a flashing red light - not a red/blue light. You're not mentioning hearing the alarm and not reporting the flashing red light so this says that the moisture alarm has not gone off, only the vacuum alarm. You need more than a drop or two to set it off unless it drops directly onto the little sensor. Basically it needs enough of a flood to cover the two wires and complete the circuit, something like 2-3mm in the housing base. That's not to say the drops of water aren't involved, perhaps the humidity or drops of water have made it onto the pressure sensor somehow? The sensor seems to be within the little black box of the alarm electronics, there is hole on the box which looks to me to be the sensing element. Reading up the sensing element doesn't seem particularly moisture sensitive, but condensation on the electronics may cause issues. Probably the most likely cause for a drop or two of water inside is water beading on the o-ring and stuck behind it when you open the housing. I always see a drop or three clinging to the o-ring and on the sealing surface when I open up. This is water that has beaded on the o-ring - the o-ring needs to be exposed to water pressure to seal and it will bead up the the o-ring and sealing surfaces. It is held inside the groove/joint by capillary forces. I always remove the o-ring and dry it off to make sure it doesn't get pushed into the housing when closing the clam shell type back,. Where exactly in the housing do you see the water drops - in the port, inside the housing itself or only along the o-ring sealing surfaces?

If you are freediving UW weight is likely to be important I would think. The Canon 8-15 is a nice solution, however with a small housing and dome it ends up quite heavy UW. I have an OM-1 in Nauticam and use the adapted 8-15 with 140mm dome and it has an UW weight of nearly 1.8kg. I use two Isotta float arms with 670 gr buoyancy each, they are 70mm dia x 220mm, so quite bulky and I'm still 400 gr negative. The Isotta housings are quite compact, however in certain combinations makes them quite heavy UW. This means large floats if want to get close to neutral.