Chris Ross

Travel insurance got the extra flight expenses, accomodation expenses and the resort gave me a full credit and I booked again in May. Hardest part was getting Air niugini to let me use my flight credit for the domestic leg. The diving there is great., pretty warm and humid topside, made the splash into 30 deg water seem refreshing.

In general yes, but in trying to deal with the virtual image they create in effect a flattened version of it and also increase the field coverage. The net impact likely depends on how the lens in question copes with the new image being fed into it by the wet lens. One example is field curvature in the base lens may cancel out some of the curvature of the virtual image or is the curvature is in the opposite direction may make it worse. The original premise when the WWL was first created was that the dome optics degraded the image to an extent that the properly corrected kit lens could out perform a premium lens like a 16-35 f2.8 optic when it is placed behind a dome. Some of the analysis done on these forums indicates however that this is not always the case it seems. The de-magnification done by the wet lens also shrinks the image scale which also means the aberrations are also shrunk along with the image so become less noticeable. Of course depending on how the lens interacts with the wet lens it may introduce its own abberations.

Some More images: A Square spot Anthia, likely it was at a cleaning station: More Pink anemonefish: A busy scene with Clark's Anemonefish at 30m on Kimbe bommie. Baitfish schooling : A WWI Japanese zero fighter wreck in 17m, quite close to shore:

Travelled to Walindi Plantation resort in May, it is located on the island of New Britain near the town of Kimbe in Papua New Guinea. Getting there was relatively easy with a flight from Sydney to Brisbane (1 hr) and then connecting through to Port Moresby, the PNG capital (3 hrs). A domestic connection through to Hoskins airport followed, about a 1 hr flight. Connections on Air Niugini can be troublesome, but my flight left maybe 1 hour late. The resort then picked up passengers for the 1 hour drive to the resort. The resort has a series of comfortable bungalows and individual rooms on site, there is a central area with the restaurant, a pool and an air conditioned lounge, looking out over the scenic Kimbe Bay. Food was very good and plentiful. The resort is also the base for two liveaboard boats that travel further out to outlying islands. A great many volcanoes can be seen from the resort. This was my second attempt at getting there, the first ended when the Ulawan volcano erupted covering the area in ash the day I flew up. Diving is from smaller boats which travel out into the bay each day doing either two or three dives with lunch served on the boat. The crossings can be a little rough if the wind is up so picking the right season is important, I went in May during the doldrums and had quiet good conditions with mostly 20-30m visibility at the offshore sites. The closer sites has around 10m. A full explanation can be found on Don Silcock's website, this page gives an overview and describes the seasons: Kimbe Bay Diving - An Overview and The Best Sites | Indopacificimages The dive sites are mostly well out in the bay, a feature being the seamounts coming up to within 15-30m from the surface from very deep water and they attract big schools of fish with ach having a school of Chevron barracuda and another of Big-eye Trevally (aka Jacks). Plentiful anemones with their resident anemone fish and many schooling fish. Reef sites feature huge sea fans, giant barrel and elephant ear sponges and red sea whips in some locations and plenty of healthy coral. The walls mainly feature plate corals which maximize light capture, which are, sometimes not so eye catching. One site had a really large school of bottlenose dolphin that we saw playing on the surface and the boat put out nets where you could grab on and travel at slow speed with the dolphins coming in to check you out. I shot wide angle and CFWA for the entire trip though there was another diver on my boat who did mostly macro and was happy with what they found. I used the OM-1 with an adapted Canon 8-15mm fisheye in the 140mm dome. Shooting was relatively easy though there was a lot of particles (which is what attracted the large schools of fish) to deal with and on a cloudy day at 30m, not so much light. I shoot with INON Z-240 and found power a little lacking for the barracuda schools etc. Some images from the trip: Barracuda School at Bradford shoals: Pink Anemone fish Inglis shoals: From Kimbe North Reef Big eye trevally school Bradford Shoals: Not a great many sharks seen and they disappeared quite quickly, this Grey Reef Shark only hung around briefly on Kimbe bommie, shot at about 30m as soon as reached that depth on descent. Reef scene at Kimbe North reef, a great many species milling above the reef:

If you look up land based reviews you will find that the image quality gets an average quality rating and that is not going to get better underwater. The close focus distance is also a little longer than dedicated fisheye lenses. You could always look at an adapted SIgma 15mm fisheye which would be a little cheaper. The Canon 8-15 really does have quite good optical quality.

RRS stuff gear is generally top notch but pricey, I have a Novoflex rail which is really nice but see that the price for that has increased considerably since I bought mine. If you have an tripod with an Arca swiss style clamp you could even use a a long lens plate and slide it in the clamp. Google will find you lots of options at all price ranges if you search for focus rail. I believe what you outline is the method used by the manufacturers or at least some of them to come up with extension recommendations. Should be simple enough to do you would need a plate with a 120mm dia hole cut in in it and smooth enough surface for your o-rings to make a seal and add to to the side of a tank and pop in you port from the inside. Then of course working out a system for measuring camera flange to port flange distance and getting things squared and centred.

The top of the port also needs to be narrow enough to allow the Nauticam bayonet holder to screw on.

that would be this thread: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/70081-worlds-first-isotta-housing-with-nauticam-wwl-1b/&tab=comments#comment-443823 You need to be signed in to see it.

Note I said the lens is at infinity - not the subject. When the lens is focused to infinty the focal plane is 93mm from the front element.

The basic answer is yes, it will come into focus anywhere within the focus range of the lens. The Nauticam quoted distances of 43-95mm, the working distance of 43 mm is at 1:1 and at 95mm working distance the lens is at infinity.

You could test 45mm extension for vignetting alone on land opening the housing back and pulling the camera back 5mm. It proves Massimo's statement that 16mm is the widest the 180mm dome accommodates and you need to put the EP ahead the centre of curvature to avoid vignetting at shorter focal lengths

there are other buy once options around. I use use Capture One Pro and like the way it works, you can do a lot of work prior to it doing the RAW conversion for you. I like I can adjust levels there- to me its the most intuitive tool to do black/white points and colour balance. Seems to me it could replace Lightroom quite readily, though the learning curve can be steep. You can also try Affinity photo, it's a one off price and cheap enough to just try it out, they had a sale a while back and I picked it up for $50. I tried it out, a bit different to Photoshop but quite capable. I never liked the proprietary catalogue system of Lightroom and was never tempted to try it out and never a fan of the subscription model, I still use CS6 for final finishing work, but getting it to activate on Win 11 is a challenge I haven't overcome on my new laptop.

HSS is often setup from the camera menus as the camera is the thing that needs to change sync timing. It should be in the same place where you would select HSS with a land based flash.

Thanks for the update, I couldn't find it anywhere on line, it's not on the extension port data pdf and no photos or specs on the websites.

The 48461 should be about 10mm longer than the 48462 so about a 49-50mm extension. This is based upon the difference in recommended extensions between the acrylic and glass port

In theory this could happen in almost any country, importing things beyond the duty free limits attracts at least GST/VAT the way the laws are written, it's just that someone in Mexico has decided to make a name for themself by rigorously applying the rules - of course assuming the charges go into customs revenue! I see that the Reddit thread mentions that the charges on their card statement didn't seem like an official Government dept so quite likely scamming. If you read the fine print it could be applied in many places and being used or not generally doesn't change things. Again in theory if you have a mega expensive rig you could get a carnet which provides assurance you will re-export the items in question. It's expensive paperwork though. If you have been stung it also should work that you can request a receipt with your items listed including serial numbers so that if you come back you pay the tax only once. Whether this works in practice who knows, but requesting an itemised receipt seems like it is worth doing if you think you may come back at some time. However if it is scamming then they will no doubt find some hole in your evidence and charge you anyway. Of course it discourages tourists and as word gets around will impact revenues but likely the customs department is not concerned as the lack of tourists is another departments problem.

Thanks for the analysis, I think from what Massimo published previously the max field from the centre of curvature is about equivalent to a 14mm rectilinear lens so the 10mm would need to sit forward of the centre of curvature if is not to vignette. You could probably test adding 5mm extension for vignetting by sliding the camera back on it's mounting plate while sitting in the housing.

Seems odd they are talking about making it with no shades - there's no mention of having to remove the shades with a full frame fisheye lens. No extension also doesn't sound right, presumably it must have some built in extension. If you compare the 10mm laowa lens to to the Canon 8-15 with Metabones - both should have the entrance pupil right up front, so the difference in length between the two should be close to the difference in extension requirements. The difference is (83+24) - 73mm = 34 mm The Canon 8-15 takes a 48462 39.5mm extension with the glass dome while it takes the a 48461 with the acrylic dome. The 48461 extension dimension seems to be a state secret, I can't find it! but looking at the port chart the acrylic requires approx 10mm more extension so assume the extension needed is 49.5mm. This gives an an extension of 49.5 - 34 = 15.5mm so very close to the 16.5mm ring and the lens would likely be too far forward to use without extension - just the dome. Seems like it would be worth checking with a 48456 - 16.5mm extension to see if it vignettes. Keep in mind this is a ball park estimate that indicates it's worth trying and it seems to indicate the 20mm might be too long. It also tends to confirm why Aquatica are working on a dedicated dome.

I'm using a Beuchat dive bag at the moment - it's OK, does the job, but the hardware is getting rusty and looking generally beat up. The answer I think depends on whether you are likely to have to pack away wet gear on the return trip. The zippers on the dive bag are still good, but I used another standard carry on bag for my dive camera, including hauling onto dive boats where it was exposed to salt water. Those zippers are in poor shape and have seized up a couple of times and the zips on the outside pockets are totally stuck. So that may be a risk for standard luggage used to haul wet dive gear. On the topic of wheels, I prefer the 2 wheel versions, the 4 wheel bags are nice strolling through the airport, but get onto uneven terrain like the footpaths in many Asian cities and the 2 wheel bags are easier to handle, the wheels are also better protected than the spinner wheels. I'm looking at the Stahlsac bags for my next dive bag seem to get OK reviews, though they are 5 and 6 kg empty.

I finally came across this post: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/68709-domeflat-port-deconstruction/&do=findComment&comment=434535 which outlines the process.

Another option I have seen local divers using and which they swear by is this item, saw it the other day at my local dive shop: https://divediversions.com/products/divevue-mount-glasses-to-your-dive-mask The advantage is you can readily change prescriptions and pull them in and out of the field of vision. Primarily designed for use with cheap readers you could use any prescription you need in an appropriate set of frames. You need a go-pro mount on your mask to attach this clamp to.

There was a post describing this on the old forum as I recall but the search function is not being co-operative. As I recall the process is to push out the old glass, possibly gouging out the old o-ring. Note which side is up! Place new glass in place, grease the new o-ring place in groove and start to work around the port pushing in the o-ring till it is seated, using a blunt soft tool. This is what I recall, but do you think I can find the post ?!?! Did you try asking the supplier for an installation guide?

it says that you take a test shot and it works it out. so as you say nothing to change. assume you took your test shot? try powering down and doing it again? If that doesn't work, see if other camera flash modes work, powering down between each mode you try. Does the S-Turtle instructions recommend anything in the way of camera settings?

This will be because it the strobe thinks the first shot is the pre-flash and it is ignoring that waiting for the real flash to go off. You need to match the camera/trigger combination up to be what the strobe is expecting. The strobe knows nothing about what the camera is set to so you need to change settings so it matches what the camera is putting out. In this case it seems you need the setting on the MF-1 that flashes every time it sees light from the trigger. I'm guessing this as you don't say what you are trying to do - TTL flash or manual flash? Assuming you are trying to shoot manual it seems like it is the flash you need to change settings on.

The flange distance is different for Canon EF and RF as well as Nikon F and Z mount, the housings are designed so the same lens gear is used for DSLR lenses when mounted on the adapter for mirrorless cameras. The distances will be different depending on what camera manufacturer the housing is for.