humu9679

@Rune Edvin Haldorsen That's beautiful. Well done.

Aloha and welcome @ACHiPo That Olympus kit seems a good one. The strobes are good but big and heavy! You might try Stix floats to balance that weight underwater. They look cheap but they’re durable and flexible.

Aloha and welcome @Bill Hawthorne ! Do you post photos to iNaturalist? Pretty much every photo I make of a creature ends up there. Cheers, Craig

Dunno how you do it with the diopters and all - and no tripod. One day I hope to shoot video as nice as that.

@Bronson FE That's lovely. Nicely done.

Saw that. Interesting. I’m sure the majority here will only use suits made of those materials if they prove to be as reliable and comfortable as what we’ve already got - at a decent price point. But then again it’s hard to beat swimming naked in warm waters.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/7072539149/sony-100mm-f2p8-macro-gm-lens-annoncement #Sony #macro 1.4x without teleconverters (takes them), 148mm long v 131mm (90mm); 646g v 602g (90mm) and list price USD $1499

Another option to try is the Canon R50. The camera body is small, like the M series before it, and it has an APS-c sensor. But as Ben says, these things tend to be bricks when they’re all kitted out, what with lights and all that. I still have an old TG-5 for use when I want to travel light. They are hard to beat for portability, and they are supremely flexible. Your friend may want to add an “air” lens which helps restore the 25mm angle of view underwater. See the example below, which is pretty much the full width of the tiny sensor. And, it can still shoot good macro. Alternatively, you can add a good wet lens, but this adds to the size and weight of the kit. I have a WWL-1, but I’ve never tried it on the Olympus.

It was all pretty magical, wasn't it? I looked forward to seeing every Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.

One other thing to consider is servicing. If the housings can be serviced easily or even Do It Yourself (DIY), that would be a huge plus. The original Seafrogs plastic housings were fine, but a bit chunky and not the best for ergonomics. I never had one long enough to require servicing.

That’s a Nikonos for sure. Like so many firsts in scuba, Jacques Cousteau and his collaborators developed the Calypso which were originally made in France before Nikon came on board, broadening the market. I’m sure there were other one-off creations, especially for film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calypso_(camera)

That reads like a proper trip report! Well done. Nice photos, too!

@Chris Ross That works well! Nice photos, too.

Aloha and welcome @darkmanta I wouldn’t underestimate your action cam. They are amazing tools!

Aloha and welcome @calbear

We haven’t seen any specs on the Sony lens yet. Laowa almost had it exactly. We can always hope the Sony works with existing ports.

The Laowa’s AF focusing is a dream killer. It had great reach, internal focusing. Bummer. On the other hand this may be cool for Sony shooters, but no specs yet: https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/is-the-sony-100mm-f-2-8-gm-macro-coming-on-september-30/ #sony #macro #underwater

There’s probably a better way than cloning, but that’s what I used in the example above. I’d have to explore more. There’s a lot of debris in the water that BS Eliminator did not help.

Great take @Dave_Hicks ! That warbonnet is something!

I typically edit in Lightroom for exposure, shadows, highlights and color balance, then I export the photo as a large jpeg to Photoshop where I can run Backscatter Eliminator. I then spot out the tedious bits that BS Eliminator did not fix, then export as a small file for social media. https://www.goaskerin.com/backscatterxterminator

Aloha and welcome @Diver Mike High school in Europe. Very cool.

Aww man, that’s no fun. I’ve come to appreciate Stix floats because of their flexibility. they’re also durable, though they look like cheap pool floats in photographs. The large floats (which are tiny) displace 82g and the jumbos displace 181g each. You can mix or match to suit your needs, even on the fly. I’m curious how Marelux' Flexibuoy is catching on? https://www.marelux.co/collections/flexibuoy

I would put it on a bayonet mount when I’m entering, and use any manner of pouches, fanny packs, etc, when it’s not mounted. I used a fanny pack for the WWL-1 and that worked okay.

@pdxDiver nice frames!

It seems that the MFO-1 adds just a little magnification and improved edge-to-edge sharpness. So … the question is how much you value that over the bare lens, which would factor into my decision to carry it at all. It’s probably a good to have the MFO-3 on a flip though. I’m also not He Man enough to use a double flip.