Chris Ross

If you wanting improved AF, and spending to get it, I would think the AF in EM1-MkII/OM-1 would be better than the EM-10. I don't know how patient you are but you could probably pick up an EM-1 II or III Nauticam housing for around the price of the AOI housing secondhand. I'd certainly do that before getting an AOI housing as you get a proper viewfinder rather than the back screen. Buying new I think perhaps an OM-5/EM-5 III might be a better compromise as it has the AF from the OM-1. You could also look into Isotta and Aquatica housings as they are quite a bit cheaper than Nauticam these days. As others have said the 9-18 and Pany 7-14 are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. I have the 7-14 and rarely use it and the 12-40 and the fisheye get more use. Look into what port system you have and how well it accommodates these lenses, some of the bigger ones have to be fitted from the front. I now use the Canon 8-15 with a metabones on my system, not exactly cheap but amazing flexible as it covers a fisheye and a 7-14 lens in one package with excellent image quality all the way. Wet lenses on the other hand use kit lenses. By all reports the m43 14-42 lenses are quite good at the wide end with the WWL for example but the quality drops off at the long end. You mention the UWL-400 wet lens, the ad blurb for this is talking about using it on TG-6/7, the price of these tends to scale with sensor size as the task for the optics gets more demanding with bigger sensors. The difference in size from a TG7 to m43 sensor is significant so I expect the corners may be a bit wanting with m43. The Sony fisheye adapter has a pretty poor reputation for optics even on land - you say you are not much of a fisheye guy - why is that? Generally fisheyes are the lens of choice for reef scenics and CFWA and if you can use a fisheye zoom all the better. The Tokina 10-17 with metabones speed booster is also reported to be an excellent very flexible option to use on m43 and works well in a 4"dome so very compact. The choice of lens has a fair bit to do with what sort of subjects you are looking at CFWA for example needs to focus very close and rectilinear zooms are not up for that in general.

I understand that the SMC-3 does basically the same thing as the SMC-1, pretty much the same diopter power of around +15 or so. Someone did some tests measuring working distances with MFO1 SMC1 and SMC3 recently in this post: This is the post on the SMC3 :

Welcome Terry, hope you continue to enjoy the forum. You will be able to post your response on the monitor in the forum now, Thanks for posting your experience, though the original poster may not see what you have replied here and it would be great if you copied it there.

If you want something large like this the large Matty Smith domes can be purchased they are rated only for use down to 2m and a very specific for splits. The price is around $AU1770 or about $US1100 for a 12"dome - a 17"is also available,

Maybe trying to create a Leica vibe, make it expensive enough to become a status symbol. It's probably inevitable prices will go up if sales volumes are not there, outside of enthusiasts or perhaps hipsters who buy retro models most people just use their phones and are not interested in cameras. Couple that with sensor development topping out at least IMO, sensitivity, noise and dynamic range improvements are really only incremental today and its going into readout speed and computational photography.

I've ordered one, for me the attraction was having a 60mm and a 30mm macro on the same dive. In Sydney we have on the same dive Pygmy pipehorses which are about a 1/3- 1/2 life size+ subject for m43 and weedy sea dragons which are 300-400mm long so having a wider view with me seems worthwhile and there's quite a few other examples both small and large. That to me seems to be the so called "use-case" for m43 shooters. I actually have the Panasonic 30mm macro and use it a little, the AF I feel is better and snappier than the 60mm, but the limited working distance is a problem for the subjects I have so it only gets occasional use. I'll post some examples once it arrives, but with the advised delivery time and my schedule it'll be a few months before I get it UW. If you are shooting blackwater I would think that the 30mm lens should be good enough provided you have the working distance as 1:1 is is only a cm or two beyond the port glass and the practical limit is around 1/2 life size for me at any rate. On the MFO-1 I think it was not communicated very well, the image quality benefit was small and mainly seen on full frame systems and the AF benefit seems to be only on certain lens/camera combinations. Really it should be thought of as a high quality low power diopter.

Again I should mention read the fine print, insurance products differ in every market and exclusions and limitations will be different depending on your home country. If you read the fine print for DAN they specifically state it it is add on insurance which makes up the difference over what your travel insurance pays for. As I recall DAN membership provides evacuation insurance and the actual Insurance pays for DCI treatments if they are required. The price is quite reasonable.

DAN insurance for emergency evacuation cover plus cover for dive injuries. However read the fine print: you really need to have general travel insurance as well if you want cover for delays, missed connections, cover of your gear if you want cover for these items as well. Some dive operations I recall offer DAN on site as well. The fine print also says you need to stay within your qualifications for cover to apply - such as depth limits.

They appear to be exactly the same apart from the TTL support, they list 3 different models with the same general specs as well as black and white variations of each model on their website.

Alex Mustard has tried many strobes recently and seems he likes the light quality from circular tube strobes but also uses the HF-1. Seems he has tried a number of the Chinese manufactured strobes and lumps them together, but doesn't specifically mention the AOI. This post I thought was quite informative I thought. He clearly likes the Retras. You don't state your setup and whether you really need the power of the HF-1. In Alex's video review of the PRO Max he mentions one problem with very powerful strobes is turning them down enough and the Pro Max has more turndown as I recall.

First thing I would try is getting a new hotshoe cable assembly, I would guess they are the weakest link. If I recall they plug onto the UWT board.

I think the devil is in the detail, if you look to the port chart the RX100VII fills the frame with a 16 x 10.7mm object and the SMC-3 diopter but it focuses only between between 91 and 103mm Which means the magnification range will be quite small and you'll probably need a pocket full of diopters to cover normal working ranges of a macro lens. The RX100V on the other hand covers the 35 x 23mm frame with CMC-1 and focuses between 35 and 75mm, so will give a wider range at a more reasonable magnification. (equivalent to 100mm macro lens on full frame at 1:1 at max. With the VII you are stuck up closer to 2x full frame equivalent. I think that is because the min focus distance for the VII is very long at max zoom and becomes somewhat impractical unless you shoot everything at super macro. Zooming out you will soon vignette I guess. I seem to recall reading somewhere the the VII ended up being impractical for macro.

The other part of the equation is the Hotshoe cable. You could try on land to see if joggling the cable a little can reproduce the issue or not. Check and clean the hotshoe contacts on the camera as well.

For my local diving I usually do a single 70-80 minute dive. On macro I can get 3 of these dives in with capacity to spare. I'm diving with the Retra Pure which suits my m43 system quite well. When I travel I'll probably use the boosters. As Alex pointed out it keeps the strobes compact to get them in close to the port. I agree the battery change is super easy and light quality an excellent step up from my Z240s.

Max magnification is hard to find, but eventually found a reviews that said you could fill the frame with a subject about 10cm wide at the long end of the zoom range which is about 0.2x mgnification on the 1.4" sensor. You would need quite a powerful diopter as the focal length of the lens is quite short.

Have to agree, though the examples provided are relatively low stress as magnification is very low and whole frame is close to being in focus. Shift to low depth of field macro (or a long tele lenses for that matter) and it's a different story. It's obvious from the video that it's a Leica wannabe rangefinder imitation, the language used, the pricepoint - it's all about style and selling to a very specific crowd that has the income to blow on items like this. Like a it's a $5k plus camera and they don't include a lens hood and they charge $200 for it.

believe it was update of apache server software which broke it.

Well technically RC mode allows HSS I believe. But in any case the headline on the website includes "under development" and the footnote: "Additional newly developed features for professional use will be revealed progressively", so who knows what the feature list might include. We will certainly be spoiled for choice I think.

Combination strobe/video tend to max out at about 5000 lumens which is not all that powerful in terms of a video light and often have restricted beam angles. The most powerful combo seems to be the Backscatter HF-1 currently. It depends on what your video expectations are of course, the HF-1 I expect could do macro video quite readily, but would expect it to be limited to do video with your main camera. Basically the video light needs to out power ambient light or close to it. As a flash it's very powerful, though I saw Alex mustard comment it sometimes doesn't turn down enough for macro. The downside I see is that it quite a heavy lump even UW, you can counteract that of course but it's more weight you need to cart around. We have quite a few people on the site who use it now.

Nice shots, I agree on the background, I've never been a huge fan of black backgrounds, comes from land based macros for many years where black BG was reserved for night shots and getting a pleasing out of focus BG was highly regarded.

that will get you the capacitance, but I think there's probably some other parameters to get a capacitor which does what it is supposed to and lasts. I found this site, I expect if you find the capacitance, ordering replacements from here might be a good bet. Perhaps you could contact them with the capacitance and dimensions and see if they are able to assist: https://www.xenonflashtubes.com/photo-flash-capacitors_21 Also I assume you are aware of the hazards these capacitors present, they store a lot of energy at hazardous voltages and need to be discharged before working on them. The limiting factor is likely to be the external dimensions, it has to fit in the space available.

To BJS, the OP I should add, we are in the same city if you want to see the Equipment in person feel free to contact me.

IMO dynamic range is nice, but rarely critical UW, If you look at ambient images the histogram is squashed into the middle and needs to be stretched to get a decently contrasty image. The sole exception might be sunballs, but It seems that high sync speed is your biggest requirement there. and the dynamic range progressively goes away as you increase ISO. I don't doubt the images look great, but for me the the m43 sensor is more than adequate for what I do. If you like to look at sensor data plots you'll see that The Nikon D800 and the A7RV are very very close with mainly slightly more dynamic range at a given ISO. In fact the EM-1 MkII matches the D800 ISO400 dynamic range at ISO200 and it hardly drops at 400. It's a similar story for noise. Where full frame really comes into play is at much higher ISOs which are not that commonly needed UW. I have seen remarkable shots at high ISO out of the OM-1 though. This shot at ISO6400 I found quite nice, the shadows are blocked but FF and infinite dynamic range won't help the feathers have microstructure that makes them close to the blackest object known, they just don't reflect light. https://500px.com/photo/1111734237/magnificent-riflebird-or-papua-by-petr-bambousek

Either the Panasonic or Olympus 8mm fisheye is very light and affordable and they work well in a 4"dome. Agree though the AF in the OM1 and EM5 is way better than the old series like EM-5II - mainly a benefit when using the 60mm macro lens which was relatively sluggish on the EM-5 II. I upgraded to the EM-1 mKII 8 years ago it was way better than the old EM-5 II. If you are concerned about expense a second hand EM-1 MII or III in an aluminium housing would be a great option. The OM-1 and OM-5 are better but not as much of a step up as the EM-5 II to EM-1 II.

I shoot the OM-1 in Nauticam, quite happy with it. I didn't downgrade from full frame UW, though I went from using a Canon 1DIV on land to olympus as well . I still have the 1DIV and Canon lenses including a 500mm f4 and 180mm macro , but I've switched over to using the OM-1 for all of that and the Canon gear only gets used very occasionally as the OM-1 is every bit as good and for land based macro using focus stacking among other features easily surpasses the Canon and other full frame options. There are others here who have gone Full frame to APS-C and never regretted it such my fellow moderator @TimG . My feeling these days is APS-C is a bit of an orphan child with lens range a little limited in some ways. I used to try to shoot everything so that I could print big!! but I've found in reality I almost never do. Other advantages include you don't need to stop down so much so you can shoot lower ISO as you are at least 1 stop further open compared to FF, this means smaller cheaper flash units will work for you. The lens lineup is very complete with excellent macro, rectilinear wide (14-28, 16-35 equivalent etc.) and fisheye options. The lenses are cheaper than full frame and a lot smaller as are the ports required. On the full frame question, a lot depends on what you want to use the images for and I can see two main reasons for wanting full frame these days -1. you make your living from the images and clients demand it and 2. You want (and actually do) make large prints - I'm talking A2 size and bigger. The 20 MP sensor in the OM-1 can print A3 natively at 300 dpi and up-ressing to A2 is quite feasible, it's starts to suffer a little beyond that. A third reason might be you can afford it, can put up with size and weight and you want to. Ports and lenses in m43 are quite a bit cheaper as are the housings. I have the 60mm macro, which is my most used, the 12-40 in a 170mm dome and now use the an adapted Canon 8-15 fisheye in the 140mm dome for wide angle - you can't get this so cheaply in any other system. It combines a full diagonal fisheye with a 14-28 equivalent lens and includes much of the range of a WWL setup in one package. Full frame requires either Sony and the same adapted 8-15 lens with a Sony 2x or using the very expensive Fisheye conversion port. Amazing flexibility and image quality and uniquely micro43 allows you the most flexibility. Only downside is it needs lots of flotation to get near neutral. Your two main housing options are Nauticam and Isotta. I started with Nauticam and I'm bought into this system, but Isotta for example would allow you to do the Canon 8-15 significantly cheaper. I can pack my setup including housing, ports, camera, lenses and two strobes into a carry on size photo backpack. Feel free to ask more specific questions about shooting with the OM-1. There's lots of images on my website and most recent ones since about late 2023 are with the OM-1. You can also find my gallery here on Waterpixels.