Chris Ross

I also get the standard option for uploading an image both for a new post and as a reply like this - Win 11 with Firefox: You could always try downloading Firefox to see if a different browser helps. Did you try just clicking the page where you want to paste and just using Ctrl- V?

You probably don't want to do that unless the reduction ring is shaped correctly to concentrate the rays. Reduction rings tighten the beam, but if light is reflected off a white surface it tends to diffuse it a bit which spreads the beam. The reflector looks like it tightens the beam significantly and is relatively tall, the taller it is the tighter the beam. You might not want it that tight for wide angle work. I know I left my reduction rings on shooting grey nurse sharks with a fisheye and it seemed to help quite a bit with backscatter. Also you are trying to recover light from the edge of the beam, looking at some data for the retra strobe at 120°beam angle the light falloff in this region is 5 f stops. Doing some measurements on my Strobe it looks like the reduction rings restrict you to about a 90-100° beam angle. At 90 degrees the the light fall off is about 2 stops compared to the center and at 100° it 3 fstops. What does that mean there is not that much light in the outer portion of the beam to recover with a reflective inside surface to the reduction ring. - but that light is enough still to illuminate very closeby backscatter, which the reduction rings block so stop it being illuminated. so the short version of that is it seems to me there's not enough light in this part of the beam to be worth trying to recover at least on my Retras.

Agree, just because using the wrong lube gives you a problem doesn't mean that silicone is bad for o-rings. A great many housings use Silicone o-rings including Nauticam, Marelux, Sea and Sea, INON strobes - any coloured o-ring is going to be silicone. On the topic of dynamic seals, this is not insert and twist or piston style o-rings where you screw a cap on it refers to parts that are always in motion or regularly in motion, one example might be the shutter lever on Nauticam housing where the shaft rotates to activate, but even that is not really that dynamic, dynamic o-rings examples of dynamic o-rings where silicone might be a problem include hydraulic and pneumatic actuators, pump shaft seals and even scuba regulators that use a piston. On INON o-rings the secret is sufficient lube. Housings it's a mere breath of lube just to get it shiny. On INON o-rings where you are screwing on the lid, I'm a bit more generous, you can feedl the difference once you apply enough.

Wondering how you conclude Silicone o-rings are one of the worst? The only downside you might consider is the low tear strength which they mention, but that is only an issue for dynamic seals - this might include anything that has a rotating shaft on a housing, but if it's lubricated prperly this won't cause an issue. EPDM is probably a better choice than Buna-N as it is more resistant to sunlight. Both EPDM and silicone seem like reasonable choices for o-rings in UW photo gear to me.

I've never seen the need at least with macro, at night you can use max sysnc speed as you are not trying to include any ambient light. For wide angle, if there's some ambient light, a low powered light helps, you usually don't need a bright focus light, mine is 700 lumens and I've used a 350 lumen light quite successfully, that low it's quite unlikely to show up unless your ISO is very high or very long shutter speed.

The point of the MFO3 with 60mm for me is that if a larger subject comes by i can shoot it without backing way up. The 60mm works quite well for small stuff. The MFO3 gives about a 35-37mm macro, the 30mm is not a substitute as even though it is 1:1 this is achieved about 10mm from the port glass. I've used the Pany 30mm and while it's nice particularly with slightly larger subjects the practical limit IMO is about 0.5x as it gets hard to light if you get any closer. On my local dive site the size range is extreme, from the 400mm long weedy sea dragon down to 10mm nudis and tiny pygmy pipe horses. The pipe horses sway in the surge and for me anything shorter than the 60mm is too limiting on approach angles to shoot them with decent magnification. For me the 45mm is a similar argument, it gets 1:1 and working distance is a bit shorter but acceptable, but woerking distance gets too short with a diopter - but for me if I don't need one on the 60mm , I certainly don't on the 45mm. But you can add the MFO3 to the 45mm and get something like a 26mm close focus macro lens for even wider fields.

Thought it might possibly be a little long, the batteries though could probably be adapted as they are about 68mm long and the termination with pins could make attaching a cord to them somewhat easier than a battery pack?

Wondering if this item might be a good solution for extra power in a housing: https://www.rubbermonkey.com.au/SmallRig-3168B-NP-F-Battery-Adapter-Mount-Plate-Advanced-Edition It takes NP-F batteries widely used for video cameras and outputs up to 36W through the USB-C port. One of the smaller NP-F batteries like a 2000 - 3000 mAhr I think would fit in the bulge area above the hotshoe on many housings and would be a lot more future proof than any type of powerbank as the powerbanks appear and disappear regularly, while replacement NP-F batteries are widely available. This is an example of an NP-F battery: https://www.rubbermonkey.com.au/Jupio-NP-F550-Lithium-Ion-Battery-Pack-7-2V-2350mAh?fromCategoryId=271 It would be the ideal battery for a housing manufacturer to provide an extended battery life option I think.

That is a big lump of glass, 90mm diameter. 580 gr and $AUD2800 in round numbers. Keep in mind that very wide rectilinears produce weird perspective effects with the foreground objects looming very large.

Nice, the focus peaking shows it is sharper and the AF will work better with a sharper image - it should not be any better than the bare lens in air, but it shows the level of image degradation of a 60mm FF equiv macro lens through a flat port.

Is this at the wider angles available on the LX-10 zoom? As I understand things the MFO lenses are designed to compensate for diffraction problems of shooting through a flat port and this is deterioration of quality steadily getting worse as the angle of view increases. On 105mm macro lenses the effect is fairly minimal but noticeable on 50-60mm lenses (FF equivalent) and getting worse as you zoom out. It would make sense that macro lenses with a wider field would be helped more. Add to that there is less water to image through and things improve on both fronts.

You'll find a few people on here who are keen to try lenses that are not on the port charts, it's an interesting exercise and some people like the challenge and to try new things. Myself it's an exercise I know a bit about, but for me if it doesn't have AF and auto diaphragm I'm not that interested, apart from Nikonos lenses which are really only readily adaptable to a few specific systems I question if there is any possibility of significantly improved performance, at least as far as lenses behind a regular dome goes. If you search you might find some posts on specific lenses, popular topics include using Nauticam wet optics in other systems and alternative lenses not on the port chart for the wet lenses. There's also a lot of discussion about 3D printing zoom/focus gears for adapted lenses. I recall a classic I think triplet lens being talked about as well.

Welcome Joakim, hope you find the forum useful. Feel free to browse the forums, on you specific question there is a long thread which is likely relevant here: Have a good read and feel free to post follow up question in this topic or for different aspects open a new topic.

165mm port seems a bit small for 7mm lens, I know that I used the Panasonic 7-14 a little in a Zen 170mm dome - there were two issues with it, first to prevent vignetting the entrance pupil was placed a bit forward of the centre of curvature which is down in side the extension it was also established that at least for stills a 170mm dome was a little small at 7mm focal length. I expect though that video it will be less critical, it's hard to pixel peep the corners in a moving image. The 12-35 will be much more forgiving. As for extensions, the 7-14 f4, 7-14 f2.8 and 8-18 all use different extensions with the 180mm dome in Nauticam, The Nauticam 180mm dome has the same problem, anything wider than 8mm (for m43 - 16mm FF equivalent) requires you to place the entrance pupil forward of the optimal point to stop vignetting. For a wider lens I would suggest either the Panasonic 8-18mm or the Olympus 8-25mm f4. Be aware that the 7-14mm f2.8, 8-18 and 8-25 all require you to assemble the camera into the housing then mount the lens then mount the extension/ports as they will not fit through the n85 port ID. This is where Isotta is a better option for m43 as it uses a 102mm port system for m43 and these lenses fit through and can be installed from the back of the housing. Unfortunately they only do a GH5 housing and only have 16mm bulkheads. You also don't need the very pricey N85-N120 adapters.

I don't know, you'd have to test I think. The 69mm is as reported by Nauticam, the 90mm is MFD- lens length - flange distance and doesn't take the port into account. The difference of 20mm seem like a bit much for a change of 1.4 to 1.5x as a typical macro lens increases magnification fairly rapidly with only small changes to working distance. For example my OM 90mm macro focuses at 1x at 250mm and 2x at 224mm. So I'd expect the MFO-1 plus 100mm to focus a little closer at 1.4x compared to the bare lens if you follow my thinking.

Gets you from 1.4 to 1.5x magnification with the 100mm macro at maximum, but the max magnification is in close, min focus is at 69mm compared to about 90mm for the base lens but it only focuses out to just over 1m, which is how it improves the AF by using full focus range rather than the max magnification range when shooting at macro distances.

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?