Chris Ross

The new rules don't seem too onerous, just a ziplock for powerbanks and batteries in cases or bags. Though the practicality of banning them from the overhead compartments is questionable,other than that don't use powerbanks while on board. I also found article stating the US wanted to ban Cameras from checked bags - which could be a positive??

This is difficult, the batteries used are the type of product that appears for a few months and fade away and are replaced by higher capacity ones or slightly different. Also some of them go to sleep and don't wake until until you unplug/replug them. This thread talks about the battery for the A6500 hopefully its the same as the A6400 and has sone dead links, it's on the old wetpixel forum: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/59443-nauticam-battery-pack-problem-a6500/ If you search, start off looking for 2000- 2500 mAhr models. Finding the required short cable with correct plugs may also be a challenge? to start you off this link is to the pack described, not in stock but click on find similar to browse, unfortunately dimensions are not provided, might be a challenge getting one to Europe though? https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ultra-Slim-Ultra-Portable-Ultra-Safe-2500mAh-Wallet-Pocket-Power-Card-Bank-ONE-for-All-External-Mini-Battery-Most-Smart-Phone-Digital-Devices-White-L/217372674

Look at pages 298-299 of the OM-1 pdf manual, sequence is set flash/camera to RC mode, open super control panel (OK button) then select flash mode. You can change to FP there. Tried it with my Olympus flash attached and the response time was quite OK with camera in manual expsoure mode.

The only way I could see to achieve that would be to use a different lens, which is quite restrictive with the R50 housing. I think the only one that would fit is the 50mm f1.8 which would give you a fraction more reach at 80mm equivalent.

This seems very odd, the difference between 1/200@f11 ISO400 and 1/125@f8 ISO1600 is 3 2/3 stops, this is quite a significant difference in light. Cameras might be up to one ISO number out from true ISO, but it is very difficult to see how this could work out to be such a difference in exposure. I'm assuming you were framing the subject the same way for example a dark subject filling the frame will have a different exposure reading to the same subject much smaller in the frame against a white background. Also you were shooting from the same spot and had the same sheets in the background so had the same reflected light? Additionally were they using the same or different cameras to you? Was anyone for example the same lens as you but behind a WACP instead? This review mentions a slight greenish cast and also talks about the more limited depth of field seen with this lens: review on scubaboard some commentary in the comments as well. There is speculation that the aperture when it reads f13 might optically be wider open, but it seems this is the opposite to what you are experiencing.

@Aquatica are you able to answer this question please?

Seems to be an astro-photo oriented lens - giveaway is the lens heater thing it lists in the specs. The min focusing distance is 30cm which is relatively long and generally a sign the lens won't work so well UW and the lens only stops down to f16. Another issue is the lens diameter at 101.9mm, which won't fit through the Nauticam N100 mount and may be tight on some N120 ports - this means the lens would need to be installed after the camera is in the housing and the port placed over the top. I suspect it would perform poorly in a smaller port - Nauticam recommends the monster 250mm for best performance. The other issue for astro orientated lenses is that they are generally optimised for infinity focus. The SIgma 15mm Sony mount fisheye was a non -starter for UW due mediocre close focus performance among other issues. I would suggest checking reviews about its close focus performance first. There's a whole post on 14mm lenses and in particular this post : The point being a 16-35 or 14-30 range zoom is likely a better option, being easier to shoot and more flexible. not to mention smaller cheaper and working better behind a dome and some work quite well behind the 180mm dome. You don't say which camera this is for but there a lot of wide angle zooms about. You could always consider a fisheye lens as well. BTW I'm moving this post to the Photogear & technique forum.

Yes according to the people who use them, I was speaking to one person yesterday and they said they used a pair of generic readers a few diopters stronger than they use on land . If you hold your readers forward on your face you'll see the power slowly decrease with distance but they still focus for you. A few offering them for sale: https://divediversions.com/products/divevue-mount-glasses-to-your-dive-mask https://www.fotosub-shop.com/3600-10bar-maschera-subaquea-con-lenti-diottriche-flippabili.html https://www.see-deep.com/

You are not setting the strobe to pre-flash cancel, the instructions are to set to the correct custom mode in the flash. This is covered in detail on page e-31 of the YS-D3 duo manual, you should get feedback that you have completed the steps per this page. Blue light to say you are in setting mode and then a buzzer and blue light when it has accepted the input. The UWT instructions appear to be saying you want mode C. The instructions also mention setting the light intensity input, but say that factory default is required , so if you haven't touched this you should be fine. You switch to manual mode 2 when shooting in manual and to TTL on the strobe when shooting TTL on the strobe. I assume you have set your strobe type on the trigger , appears to be 9 for TS-D3 duo strobes. Also that you have quality optical fibre cables . Suggest you confirm all this and get back if you are still having problems.

Definitely, you need good closeup vision to see what's going on on a monitor, particularly if you want to confirm focus etc. The best idea I have seen is a pair of readers on a flip frame attached to a go pro mount, just flip them in and out as needed.

I would guess the same performance on Olympus but the black strip appears after about 1/400 as reported my many here for the Nauticam trigger. The main thing is the camera has no clue the trigger is there so won't restrict shutter speed.

Yes there is no ideal solution, particularly if you want to stay small on port size. You could replace the 14-30 with a 24-50 lens plus a WWL-C which is relatively compact, requiring a rather small macro port, the lens and the wet lens. It's doesn't have the bold barrel distortion of the fisheye lens and is sort of equivalent to what you get on the long end of the 8-15 plus 1.4x when the 24-50 is zoomed out fully. A couple of reports on here report they are happy with optical quality. The WWL-C is about the same size as the 140mm dome but a bit more squat and weighs 1kg. it gives horizontal fields between that for a 13mm and a 31mm rectilnear , but with better corners. basically a slightly expanded 14-30 as far as reach goes with some amount of barrel distortion and better corners in a smaller package. It comes close but won't give you that subject pop that fisheye distortion does for your subject.

Sorry about that I missed this earlier - Google drive can be a pain.. I've changed it now here is the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A68BVmZkVNM9kuGnOIkqE4qp7WKQXkLa/view?usp=sharing

The little S220s are great value little strobes they really are tiny and they have improved them significantly over the prior model. I hope we get as good an improvement out of the eventual Z330 replacement when it finally appears.

The main thing is whether the trigger registers as a flash. If it does the camera takes over and says no setting SS over 1/250. Then the Trigger has to pretend to be a flash to allow include high speed sync as an option and let you raise the shutter speed.

Again in wide angle depth of field is not the issue, the corners are soft due to dome port optics often combining with corners from the lens that are a little soft even on land. The WWL lens corner is soft due to the optics, it's not depth of field. Less depth of field in fullframe is a concern in macro, CFWA and shooting wider open than about f8. A fisheye as Tim says is generally not noticeable UW, there are exceptions which you learn to avoid. A big advantage of fisheyes is they pretty much force you to get closer. Water between you and your subject is a problem. The first rule of UW photography is get close. The second rule is if you think you are close enough, get closer. Sounds like you are determined to go full frame - if you are concerned about travel weight the A7C would be a good option and as you have seen produces nice images. Just be sure you check the downsides of the A7C, like slower sync speeds etc. there are posts about it on site. Remember rectilinears are difficult to deal with, some of the Sony lenses work quite well in the 180mm dome, others not so well, once you go ultra wide beyond about 16mm perspective can start to be an issue. this is distortion and stretching of foreground objects. An extreme example is the 10mm laowa lens. See this post: https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1313-14mm-rectilinear-lens-guide-the-true-must-have-uw-lens-more-important-than-fe-lenses-or-wcap-wwl-fcp-etc/#findComment-9553 Also the Nauticam 180mm dome geometry is such that with a lens correctly positioned at the centre of curvature will vignette if it is wider than 16mm. So the entrance pupil of a 14mm rectilinear wide needs to be placed forward of the centre of curvature otherwise it vignettes. Most people find 16mm easier to deal with and the eligibility of the 16-35 lenses helps. With a fisheye you can be more compact using the 140mm dome and get better image quality.

The right answer I think is it depends, the rectilinears have their place if you need the reach for example sharks that don't get quite close enough, wrecks etc. The all purpose solution might be a WWL but you don't get the full fisheye effect it's like a zoomed in fisheye as you would get with the Tokina 10-17. This is partially taste and also partially wanting subject a decent size in frame. Also it depends if you are talking full frame or smaller formats. You're on full frame so the tokina is out, so it's an 8-15 using either 8mm for a circular 180° image or 15mm for a classic diagonal fisheye or the 8-15 with 1.4x for a limited fisheye zoom which goes from 180° diagonal fisheye to about 97° across the horizontal frame which is about the reach of a 16mm lens. A good solution if that is enough reach for you. The 10-17 gets you out to a 21-22mm rectilinear in terms of reach (same horizontal field cover). In m43 an 8-15 gets you out to about a 28mm rectilinear. You can also use a 2x but it seems that takes a hit on image quality. Sony users have an advantage of using the Sony 2x with the Canon 8-15 which seems like a slightly sharper lens to get decent results, this goes: Sony camera-sony2x-metabones-Canon8-15. I seem to recall people testing the Kenko 2x were a little disappointed. There's posts on that floating around on site. There is also of course the very expensive FCP, though there seems to be reports of limited depth of field for CFWA in that optic, again posts are on site.

Some nice looking pics, one question as I recall that Nauticam recommended shooting at f16, what apertures were you using and assuming f14-16 range, did you find this a limitation?

Can't help with the question of which monitor but I would say the choice between the two is probably quite personal and depends a lot on what you issue with vision is. My closeup up vision is my issue and the dioptric adjustment on the viewfinder is what makes UW pleasant for me. That and as I get older the idea of adding another piece of gear to lug around doesn't thrill me - especially doing stills for me.

I believe the ability to give you faster shutter speeds is limited to triggers that utilise the X-sync mechanical contacts and basically only use the centre contact and ground, more importantly they are not recognised by the camera as an external strobe so bypass the logic that prevents exceeding the sync speed by dialling up a faster shutter speed. If you scroll across you can see the hotshoe of the Nauticam Olympus manual trigger - it has the cehtre contact and the outer metal contact which connects with the hot shoe ground. https://fotografit.eu/products/164-underwater-flash-triggers-and-ttl-converters/2589-mini-flash-trigger-for-olympus-compatible-with-na-em1em5iiem1ii/

I usually travel with one set in the strobes. An extra plastic case is a cheap insurance if someone gets picky. However the NiMH doc I found seemed to centred around air cargo shipments. The passenger regs don't seem to even mention NiMH batteries inside devices, though I might have skipped over that ?? They go into a fair bit of detail about Li-ion batteries and devices containing them For general batteries they only talk about prevention of short circuit and I suspect demonstrating that accidental turning it on is difficult impossible would be enough - for example most strobes require turning a knob. This is the passenger document date Jan this year. https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd5788561d6e/dgr-66-en-2.3.a.pdf

It's well established that GN is a poor metric for strobes, it gives you a general idea, but the beam size and light distribution has a big bearing, A beam size changing from 100° to 130° doesn't sound like a huge change but it requires 1.7x as much light and hence at least 1.7x as much power to fill that cone. Similarly light falloff means an easier time as you don't need as much light to fill the cone. If you look at the test results from Backscatter as plots of light intensity such as this: You can see the circular flash tubes are 1 - 1.5 stops brighter in zones 2-3 which is the area that overlaps between two strobes and the main light being recorded in your shots. This means you can down a circular tube flash such as these 1- 1.5 stops compared to a flash with poorer fill of the cone that has the same guide number in the centre. More of the light is pushed into the area where you want and incidentally the tube pushes out more light overall to fill the larger cone. Having said all that various reports have come in come in that I recall indicating that the S220 has a nice full beam and seems like it would easily compete with the old Z240 and certainly seems good enough for something like a m43 rig for wide angle.

There is a solution to this to have the vacuum valve and bulkhead on the same m16 port, and offset extension valve from Nauticam, here, but sit down before you click on the link: https://www.backscatter.com/Nauticam-M16-Offset-Extension-with-Dual-Activation

I believe the WWL-1 is m67 attachment while the WWL-1B has a built in Nauticam boyonet.

Doesn't surprise me that this happened, which is why I never signed up for it.