Chris Ross

Yes I'm aware of flooding it could also break being installed. You need to be a little careful with o-rings and lubricant. The Nauticam o-rings are silicone I believe and if you apply actual silicone grease to them it can soften them. The Nauticam lube is a universal lube for o-rings, a generic silicone grease will damage the Nauticam o-rings. As I mentioned the Nauticam ones are very long lasting and I never did anything other than soak the whole housing after a dive, never added any type of lube. I don't believe the o-rings need lube as their function to grip. I recall someone mentioned the spec for the o-rings on here a while back but I don't remember the exact dimensions. Nauticam of course sell theirs but they are expensive.

Hi Roman, if that's indeed your aim then phrases like: " Are you for real? 🤦‍♀️ bathtub or pool vs the real conditions? I guess folks over at Nauticam have no clue on what to recommend to users of their products... They probably have no clue designing their products either... 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️" really don't fit with that aim. If you want readers to decide for themselves seems like it would be better to say: "I actually prefer to see comparison shots taken on dives of real subjects, Pool tests don't mean a lot to me"

To clarify is this the main o-ring or the o-ring on one of the balls mounts? I've found the o-rings on the balls very durable my previous housing they lasted 6 years so far.

You do know that Nauticam decides which extension to recommend by testing in a tank? Thye also use photos taken with their equipment for advertising. There is a valid reason for doing testing in the pool, mainly being that you can shoot a flat surface to check the corners more readily. In the real world the corners might be much closer to you than the subject and you don't know if the blur is due falling out of the depth of field, the optics or both. Different people have different ways they like to use to evaluate which lenses to use, some are happy saying that the photo they just saw looked great, others want the sharpest field across the frame and have the time and patience to do their own tests and the mathematical bent to do the calculations. Both are equally valid as it is up to the individual to decide what is good enough for them.

Nauticam no doubt knows exactly what they are doing, however most port choices are compromises. They won't for example usually recommend a port combination that vignettes. They have a standard procedure to decide which port/ring combination to suggest, I understand this is using a slide with test port setup. You only have to look at the large number of options listed in just the Sony port chart to see how many combinations they would need to test all of which takes time and money to do. Don't forget also that the number of people doing UW photography at this level is quite small and they are spread out across 6 or 7 main systems, more if you count the mirrorless systems of Canon/Nikon. So a niche lens like the 14mm f1.8 might be used by a handful of people. What Massimo is doing is applying dome port theory which states the entrance pupil should be placed at the dome centre of curvature. Many of the ports sold are also compromises, many are not full hemispheres which means that centre of curvature is placed down inside the extension ring. Many wide angle lenses have the entrance pupil right up front. The port geometry often means that the lens needs to be pushed forward of the ideal position to stop vignetting. This means that the positioning is not ideal. I've done calculations and measurements of some of my combinations out of interest, for example the Panasonic 7-14 lens sits the exit pupil about 20mm or so ahead of the centre of curvature of the Zen 170mm dome to avoid vignetting. There is no doubt the non-ideal combinations work and many people are happy with the results, that doesn't mean they can't be improved upon. the effects reported are real if the entrance pupil isn't positioned right. This is after all why Nauticam only applies a * to one combination and the reason is due to the dome port theory as discussed here. Some people can relate very well to the maths needed to do these calculations, others prefer to look at an image and say that's good enough, both ways are actually valid ways of coming up with a combination that the individual is happy with.

perhaps, but you are at the mercy of the volcano while wind remains from the north, once it switches to the south it tends to stay there for some time and ash is a lot less likely to be an issue.

It will depend on two things, first being volcanic activity, how much ash the volcano puts out and second wind direction. In May wind is generally from NW-NE switching to SE generally in June sometime. If wind blows ash towards the Manado airport they will close it. You can forecast what the wind might do, but the volcano will do what it wants. Up until monsoon winds switch a risk of ashfall remains. The volcano is down from alert level 4 to level 3. So it's basically a roll of the dice, whether or not the Lembeh is impacted. A NNE wind will direct any ash fall towards Manado airport.

I think the main thing is getting good travel insurance. You are stuck with the arrival and departure dates for your liveaboard. I assume this is the one where you have booked the whole boat? If so the boat will wait for you I would imagine. If you build in an overnight at Sorong on both legs it might leave you some flexibility. But by all accounts not much to do in Sorong. With Garuda you are perhaps more likely to get on the flights you book and the important one is getting on the flight to meet your international connection. Looks like you can fly Garuda from Amsterdam so if you went the whole way with them you'd get your dive gear allowance and they should re-book you if you miss connections because of them

the usual suggestion is to apply a strap wrench for additional leverage. Once you get it loose a little silicone grease on threads should help keep them workable.

you would need to take the Retra ball to a fastener place to find a nut that fits it to determine what the thread is. You will need to know this to work out which ball to purchase. For example Isotta sell balls with 1/4-20 Whitworth and M8 threads, which from eye balling might match what Retra uses. M8 is 7.97 OD and 1/4-20 W is 6.35mm OD, while the M10 bolt should be 10mm dia.

On the Retra connection, Nauticam has an M5 and and an M10 threaded mounting ball. Have you determined what thread the Retra is attached with? On the Nauticam connections - are the clamps of different ages? perhaps there is more wear on some clamps? Did you try using a Nauticam o-ring and the Retra ball? that might help if it fits?

I have found the Nauticam arms/clamps mix well with INON and Isotta float arms, so you could look at Isotta and INON for a ball as well. Are the Retra balls actually detachable - if so how do they connect to the strobe body?

Use one of the aggregator sites like Kayak to find options and connections, pick one that looks good and then book directly with the airline. CGK-SOG flight is 00:10 arriving 06:10 You would need to travel on wings air to Kaimana. 10:30am - 11:50 SOQ-CGK flight is 08:15 - 10:10 You won't get bags checked through to Kaimana so you will need to check in in Sorong. If I was doing it I would get a return flight on Garuda and one- way SOQ - Kaimana. You get the diving gear allowance and they are quite reasonable to fly on. One issue might be your arrival time in Sorong to make the 8:15 flight.

You could also look at Sea and Sea and Isotta ports, you can change them to Nauticam with just a change of lug ring, but of course domensions are hard to come by. But if you want a cheap acrylic dome from Ali express they come fully dimensioned. 😂 Ali express dome

I have a friend who had tri-focals done a while back, I believe he had them changed to mono-focals, apparently a common side effect is visual disturbances at night, some people get used to them and some don't. There is also an enhanced depth of field option which keeps a wider range in focus.

Yes that's right and it would also mean losing some of the advantages as lenses would on average be bigger and the larger sensor would mean the image stabilisation for which Olympus bodies are renowned would be less effective. The smaller sensor has less mass and is easier to accelerate and decelerate to cancel out camera movement.

I think all of the sensors are plateauing now and they are all really quite good these days. For me the m43 provides very small compact lenses and a complete lineup of them. Canon/Nikon/Sony APS-C don't have a lot of choice in lenses in comparison and are somewhat neglected. The reality as I see it is that m43 is good enough for most people given what they use the images for. I use an OM-1 on land and it has lots of neat features in computational photography and is a macro machine with the 90mm macro, focus stacking is super easy and using the 90mm macro on it is unmatched for shooting small bugs handheld. Admittedly not much applicable for UW, but it does a fine job there as well and can shoot macro of small critters without needing to resort to a closeup lens.

Just to clarify on the option of the 10-17 adapted with a metabones 0,7x speed booster this replaces the 8mm fisheye and it's port and this port could carry over eventually to an APS-C setup and be used there so you would have a 4.33"/140mm dome and a macro port on your travels only. The items that would not carry over would be the metabones speed booster and the n85-n120 adapter which you could probably sell quite easily.

It's possible it does that - you could check by comparing the red channel histogram between the two options. Be easist to do on land shooting in daylight through something like a Wratten 80A filter. Shoot identical exposures one manual WB and one UW WB. It's probably not perfect but might be enough red removal to see if there is a noticable difference in the red channel.

There's a few options you could look at perhaps a Tokina 10-17 and Metabones 0.7x behind a small dome. If I recall correctly you would need an N85-N120 adapter and a 140mm or 4.33"N120 dome. You aren't specific about which Canon MIL you are looking at but the Tokina could cross over to an APS-C MIL camera and the N120 domes could move across as well. Potentially little loss on an upgrade path. I would also suggest don't assume you need full frame. If you are worried about the expense of an MWL, then the costs for full frame may be an issue as well. The Canon 8-15 Tokina 10-17 on m43 or 10-17 on APS-C is a really versatile setup which just isn't available of full frame unless you fork over the big $$ for a fisheye conversion port. The smaller formats are easier to travel with, cheaper and good enough for a great many people.

Don't confuse what is used to sell equipment with what actually works best or what is actually needed, plenty of examples of that around like 100 MP phone cameras. I believe there is some use in high nit ratings for example punching specular highlights above the screen average brightness to make them closer resemble what you actually see in the real world. But you don't want large areas of the screen punching that high as it will dazzle you. Good TVs can distinguish between specular highlights and large bright areas to achieve that. But a lot is driven by marketing and also OLEDs are more limited in brightness output than traditional screens and traditional screen makers push brightness numbers they know OLED makers can't and don't need to match to try to compete.

It could be due to colour temp limitation or could be due to technique of WB reading, from what I understand the exposure used for WB needs to be a "good" exposure and it should be taken in same light as your subject. Same light means in this context at about the same distance. I assume you are shooting ambient light as you didn't mention lights so the effect may not be as big, but if you take a WB image of a slate on your wrist you could be shading the slate with the camera and your body. The fact that you get UW auto to work tends to indicate an issue with the way WB is being done, normally I wouldn't expect the colour temperature range to be significantly greater in auto compared to what can be set manually. Perhaps a white patch on your fin could be used - it would be closer to subject distance and could be oriented to get a shot in same light as subject. I'm assuming UW auto is an option available for WB from the camera menu.

I will add that the Tokina is currently a no go on Z series cameras as it's screw drive lens, so even on an APS-C Z series and the ZF adapter it can't AF. I wouldn't worry about spares, housings tend to use the same hardware for all of their buttons so I would expect them to be around for a while. My EM-1 MkII Nauticam housing has not been serviced and was purchased in 2017. If you want something more future proof you could also look at Isotta housings as well, a good housing but the internals are a bit simpler to the point they can be serviced yourself.

Welcome on board Tess, great to have another Aussie and a temperate water diver at that onboard.

We are not at all interested in who started it, I made it clear this was directed at both of you. It is OK to disagree with other viewpoints and there is no requirement for you to agree or disagree with what Massimo posts or vice versa - it's called robust discussion. If you disagree state your arguments as to why you disagree, back it up with logic and examples and leave it there. No name calling or insults. Feel free to continue to discuss respectfully, however cross the line and as Tim says the thread is locked.