Chris Ross

I don't have direct experience, I don't recall many Seacam users among the forum members. It looks like they use an insert in the alloy of the housing for the shaft. It is possible that has a lip on it to prevent it pushing inwards? First thing I would try is replacing the outer knob and rotating while trying to pull it out. If that doesn't work I would try using a pin punch and gently tapping it to push it out from the inside. It may help to have the handle on the shaft on the outside so that you can rotate the handle a little in between taps or have someone rotate as you tap gently. If that doesn't work, try someone like Backscatter to see if they can assist.

The 10-17's main benefit is flexibility, sure you can get a bit better image quality, but the 8-15 is a much bigger lens. I suspect being a Canon mount lens it will work better on the EF-RF adapter compared to Sony-Canon metabones adapter. If you go with this setup you can always upgrade to Canon 8-15 with just an extension tube and zoom gear. It has a limit switch so that it zooms from 10-15 mm only for APS-C. As for the WWL, it is certainly versatile but it's not a fisheye, you would still want a fisheye of some sort if you are a wide angle person. You don't get the extreme central barrel distortion so much on the WWL compared to what you get with a fisheye. If you were using the Sigma 50mm previously. look at the Canon EF-S 60mm lens you would need to get one second hand, but it was extremely popular and should focus OK on an RF-EF adapter. When I upgraded recently I went with the OM-1 Very happy with that and I have the Canon 8-15 with Metabones adapter and it makes a very versatile wide angle solution it covers an 8mm fisheye plus the full range of a 7-14 lens so has more reach than the 10-17 does on APS-C. From what I have seen from test sites it's very close in image quality to the APS-C sensors.

Are you talking about more working distance or are you thinking a different shape to let light get on the subject more easily?

I haven't tried in such a small dome I have used the 7-14 a little in the 170mm Zen dome and it does OK at 7mm but corners are a little soft. I think though that using a 14mm full frame equivalent lens in a 100mm dome would be stretching the friendship quite a bit particularly as the 7-14mm doesn't focus ultra close. I recall seeing people complaining about the image quality in the Nauticam 6"dome back in the past on Wetpixel. I would be cautious about relying on written advice that lens xyz is fine behind dome abc unless there are sample pics to go with the post, people's definition of fine varies from "sharp at 100% in the far corner" to "I shot a shark and I can tell it's a shark and got lots of likes on my post"

Yes definitely, it will depend on what you are shooting, If you are in clear water in the tropics then a fisheye is definitely worth looking into.

It's still not a full fisheye, I seem to recall Alex Mustard saying a WWL/WACP wasn't a substitute for a fisheye. A 130 degree diagonal field sounds a lot but it's basically a very close focusing 14mm rectilinear lens with stretched corners as far as field coverage goes and doesn't have the extreme barrel distortion of the fisheye which brings the subject forward in the centre - the fisheye effect. For someone who does 80% wide angle as quoted by the OP. I'd suggest a fisheye lens would be important.

I think you are running into a problem with the basic physics. Diopters work by allowing the lens to focus closer, so if you want more magnification you lose working distance, yes there is some leeway to design lenses so that they achieve the same magnification with increased working distance, but I think in most cases this is a small improvement. Diopters are more powerful on long focal length lenses so another approach might be to use a different base lens or add a 1.4x to your RF 100mm. This would give you 2.3 x 1.4 = 3.2 x at the same working distance as your SMC-3. Another possibility might be to use the 180mm EF macro lens with the SMC-3. ON the port chart with the SMC-1 it achieves 3.6x and 63mm working distance. To use the RF-100 with a 1.4x you just need an extension tube the same dimension as the Canon 1.4x. You would of course have to research what impact this has on autofocus which will probably slow down a bit.

The SMC-3 has less power than both the CMC-1 and CMC-2, the data is in the port chart. I would consider the CMC-2 before the SMC-3 if you want something with a little less power as the CMC has slightly longer working distance.

The CMC-1 is more powerful compared to the SMC-1, the CMC-2 is similar in power to the SMC-1 with slightly more working distance. The Port chart for the RF-100 has magnifications and working distances for all the Nauticam diopters, the CMC-1 sits between the SMC-1 and SMC-2 in power: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iTINzEby0S-7GndOhEjQZRP-CgyumZx3/view You can see that the CMC-2 has very similar magnification to the SMC-3 with very slightly more working distance. UNless you feel you need a little more power than the SMC-3 It doesn't seem like any of the Nauticam diopters offer anything in the way of improvement. The CMC-1 offers a little more power but almost in the same boat as the SMC-2 for working distance. What are you looking for? a bit more power than the SMC-1 or a bit less with more working distance? It does get hard to compare lenses from different manufacturers as they all use different methods to rate them and there are very few comparison tests between brands out there.

Sounds like you would really benefit from an accessory viewfinder on your housing, the new Nauticam viewfinders are designed for the bigger viewfinders on new mirrorless cameras and make a bigger difference UW than a newer viewfinders makes on land.

It's very hard to beat or match the Tokina 10-17, unfortunately the only way to truly match it on full frame is with the very expensive and heavy FCP. The WWL goes close but it's not a full fisheye with the effect that brings. You can adapt a Canon mount 10-17 to an R7 or Sony A6700. Nothing else goes close to this with the small dome size in full frame or APS-C. If you like small you could look at the OM-1 it's very close to the D500 in sensor performance, the lenses are tiny in comparison to full frame, the 60mm macro and the olympus fisheye are both excellent lenses, If you want flexibility you could use the Adapted Canon 8-15 which gives you the equivalent field of view of a full 180° fisheye through to a 28mm full frame equivalent rectilinear lens in one setup and it can be used behind a 4"dome.

Welcome, good to have you back!

I leave mine assembled. I did though remove all the screws and coat them with grease though, I figure that will help with making sure they don't seize.

Looks like a giant moray, if it is it should have a dark patch on the gill opening which seems to be behind the coral in this shot. DO you have other pics? There doesn't seem to be too many species which look similar to the giant moray you could point to as a maybe.

Some info here on PAL vs NTSC mostly seems to revolve around flicker under mains powered artificial light: https://www.reddit.com/r/videography/comments/s6j8cb/pal_vs_ntsc_for_internet_videos/ As for WB as I understand things colour grading has limited scope to correct colour casts and works best if you are close, unless you are shooting RAW video. In any case getting it right out of camera is probably a lot less work in processing and less likely to cause issues in the final clips.

Seems to be roughly double the energy input calculating the Ws for each full power flash the same way compared to the Retra flash ProMax. I seem to recall Retra used to quote a 130° coverage for the circular tube models, the maxi has 160° so won't be double the light on the subject. Changing the field covered from 130 to 160° decreases illuminance in lux( that is light intesity on the subject) by about 70%.

The logical suggestion is a WWL 1/1B however using a bayonet system with these lenses needs the nauticam bayonet-M67 adapter to fit on the AOI port - it doesn't fit on all ports if the rim is too thick. Seems like it would be better to use this with a 14-42 if mounting arrangements suited you. The WWL-C doesn't give full 130 deg with the 12-50 but you could use it with a Panasonic 12-32, but only way to mount this one is if the Nauticam bayonet adapter fits the AOI port. The AOI is an option as well you and have the choice of a PC or glass front dome and they sell a quick release setup as well as a buoyancy collar - it says the collar makes the PC dome +ve UW.

probably a good idea as long as they provide a decent area to charge everything.

It is established that the Nauticam manual flash trigger will sync at higher shutter speeds than the published sync speed. The key is that the strobe or trigger is triggered by the x-sync contacts which are basically an electro-mechanical switch incorporated into the shutter. There are no electronics that tell the camera that a flash is attached so the camera doesn't lock out the higher shutter speeds, it just flashes when the X-sync contacts close momentarily when the shutter is released. Whether the AOI trigger also allows higher shutter speeds depends upon the triggering circuit used - if the camera recognises it as a flash it will limit the camera to 1/250. It seems the EM-10 MkIV is a special case among Olympus cameras as it has a built in pop up flash and only that will sync at 1/250. Even hot shoe Olympus flash units that happily sync at 1/250 on other models like the EM-5 and EM-1 series will be limited to 1/200 on this model. It's only when you get to the higher end models that 1/250 sync is universal.

Interesting - it seems that the AOI trigger does properly support the RC mode based on what you have said. It would be so much easier if you could use the pop-up flash for triggering as it could do all 3 modes reasonably seamlessly at the cost of a little battery life - in manual setting the flash to 1/64 power triggers things reliably in my experience and uses very little battery power.

The thing with macro lenses behind flat ports is that the aberration increases continuously from center to edges as the angle the light rays are coming in gets progressively greater as the angle of view increases, so it's a progression, only in the very center of the port are the light rays perpendicular. However out at the rule of thirds points where you might place something important to your composition, the rays are at an angle and you are about half way out to the edge. If you photograph a test chart on land you will see something similar a slight degradation in quality that gets progressively worse towards the corners, but it is going to be hard to spot that in a regular photograph - It's only when the aberrations reach a certain level that they are obvious. UW the port and lens aberrations add together. The other thing that is claimed is reduced hunting - apparently due to compressed focal range. I would also think that removing flat port aberrations can only help focus is easier to find on a sharp lens. It sounds interesting for sure, But I think we might need to wait for some high resolution test shots to see if any improvements are enough to convince you that you need one! 😂

The issue with trouble shooting flash operation is that the camera and external strobe have no idea about what each other is doing. The UW strobe merely responds by triggering in repsonse to a light pulse. The issue is that each side needs to be set to the right setting to get results. The Olympus RC control gets around that as the camera communicates with the strobe via light pulses. First of all the Olympus RC protocol can't be used to trigger strobes that are not set up for it. Both the camera and strobe need to be in RC mode. You could use that if you were trying to use TTL with your setup. It sounds like you might be trying to use TTL. If you are prepared to use manual control the X-sync speed is reported to be 1/250 but only with the built in flash it seems. What are you using to trigger the flash? It is reported that using the Nauticam manual trigger bypasses the shutter speed limits. TTL triggers can do this. The built in flash should work in both manual and TTL (not RC) up to the published 1/250 limit. It is 1/200 limit for external flash units which may include a TTL trigger. You should be able to check all of this on the camera alone to establish your max sync speed. Set the camera to manual exposure , the flash to auto and see what SS you can reach in that. Then repeat with camera in manual and flash set to manual to see what SS you can get to with the built in flash.

As I understand things, the issue this deals with is the air-water interface of the flat port, where away from the very centre light rays are refracted through the front port glass which degrades the image. It is already documented that short macro lenses suffer towards the edges due to this, the situation though is a gradual improvement as each light ray is refracted less and less as the centre is approached so it is only the very centre where light rays are not refracted at all that does not suffer some degradation. Longer macro lenses also have this abberation in flat ports, however it is just reduced in magnitude, compared to a short macro lens - not eliminated In air it is certainly true that adding glass degrades images by some amount, however in the case of the MFO it is correcting the issues caused by the air water interface of the flat port. I'm not sure how this is done, perhaps it induces an equal and opposite abberation that is cancelled out as the ray passes through the port glass?? Hopefully this is clearly explained.

Suggest you look at the manual for the R50, From what I can see this is a camera limitation as it only has one control dial - so in Manual, the front dial sets SS and aperture you need to press one button to allow the same front dial to change aperture. You also have to sight and compose using the rear screen as there is no viewfinder. The G7XIII has a control dial and a control for SS/aperture, the Nauticam housing can control both, though they are not quite as ergonomic the big Nauticam housings to access. You can download the housing manual from the Nauticam website, there is a link on each housings page to do this. Likewise you can download camera manuals to check functionality. The Olympus/OM system cameras have all the features you would expect to find in a DSLR or ca-nikon type mirrorless camera. Two programmable dials to control SS/aperture and ISO/exp comp.. The housings are a huge amount smaller but the lenses and domes/ports are significantly smaller than full frame equivalents. You can use the fisheye lens in a 4"dome port and the port for the 60mm macro is quite small. The housings operate the same way that the big DSLR housings do at least for the OM-1 with ergonomic access to SS/aperture, the OM-5 is a bit smaller but the dials for ss/aperture are a little harder to access. Here is a shot showing the OM-1 with it's housing, 60mm macro port and a 4"zen dome and the Panasonic 8mm fisheye plus 12"ruler for scale: The Isotta housing would be slightly smaller. You could probably get away with the very compact light (345 gr) INON S-220s with this rig, they are very close to the same power as my Z-240s. You can do this as you can shoot at f8 for wide maybe f10-11 for macro. What subjects do you typically shoot - macro? a lot of reef scenics?

First thing to check is if the trigger or mini flash is firing at 1/250. Also confirm you are in manual flash on the camera. When you say they won't fire - do you mean they won't fire at all or that they no longer sync?