vkalia

Also, you have to be careful about how you position that dumb valve, or the air just burps out (or I am doing it wrong - which wouldn't surprise me). That said, and it's quite handy when you are testing gear and playing around with floats - I always carry this with me, b/c I lend my tray or video lights to divers in our group, and its an easy way to give them a rig that's easier to use when shooting. For the $35-40 or whatever it costs, its excellent value.

Not to come across as "old guy yelling at crowd", but I am really underwhelmed by the direction nature/wildlife photography - both terrestrial and underwater - is taking these days. To me, it has always been about capturing THE moment and making the subject the star of the show. These days, it seems to be all about special effects and post-processing. It's photos like this that make me want to pull out my macro lens again. I dont think I have taken a proper macro lens underwater in almost 8-9 years!

I missed this earlier - really lovely images, Chris. A welcome change from the overly-engineering/heavily-processed "table top photography" style of macro that seems to be in vogue these days - this is nature photography, after all! And what did you have to pay that mantis to look at you? The little %^&#s never stick around long enough for me to get that head-on photo! :)

I know 2 people that use Seafrogs polycarbonate housings for Sony 67xx series, and seem quite satisfied with it (although one has upgraded to Marelux recently). I have a Seafrogs housing for a G7X III which I use as a rental unit for divers looking to try underwater camera setups, and its worked well enough over the past 7-8 months (which isn't a lot, I admit)

Ha, we are Marelux dealers and I got the same response from them a few months when I asked about a housing for the MFT series. So it isn't just you. :)

Speak to the dive shop guys about how far the sharks are going to be. But based on my experience shooting threshers in Malapascua and tiger sharks in Maldives, I feel that a fish eye isn't ideal and a rectilinear wide angle will work better - both for sharks that come close, as well for getting the classic "silhouetted school of hammerheads".

As a matter of principle, I refuse to pay $200 for a piece of machined metal. I still have my old Stix arms (with the hard plastic caps) from 2006 but those are getting a bit wobbly now. So I picked up float arms from Kraken or someone similar for around $200 for a set of 4: 2 buoyancy arms, 2 regular arms and 4 foam inserts that fit onto the regular arms.

I find Lowerpro bags to be excessively heavy - my Think Tank AirPort Express (or Airport something-or-the-other, anyway) backpack is a little over 1kg, and also square, which makes it more space efficient than the rounded Lowepro bags. Like you, my carryon is around 14kg when I travel with my Marelux kit, so I avoid rollers (which add more weight). It's a bit of a pain in the ass when boarding/deboarding but it isn't the end of the world and all that gym time finally has a practical payoff too. :) @Apneagraph you should be able to fit all that kit into a much smaller bag with care. Even something like a ThinkTank shoulder bag, actually. Or consider getting an Osprey backpack and putting a camera insert in there for the stuff that needs protection. That will be lighter and also easier to carry. I'll share some photos of my travel setup for my Nauticam M4/3 shortly, as well.

A bit late for the OP, but maybe of help to others who search for this topic: I have recently switched from a dive bag to an oversized Samsonite Lite Shock XL (or something like that). 2.8kg for the oversized bag, and it easily fits all my dive gear, extras for my camera housing, Quattro XL fins and clothes for a couple of weeks of dive holiday (but i do pack light for my land-based clothes). It’s not crazy expensive but isnt super cheap either - around $400 in this part of the world. But it is very robust despite the light weight, and well worth it. I just did my first trip with this and am very happy with this choice.

This is also the way. :)

I am off to Banda this weekend - will mostly be shooting on my Marelux rig, but i recently got a DiveVolk case for my iPhone and am getting a couple of Marelux video lights for it this weekend, and i plan to use it on some dives. For those of you who are using a DiveVolk with lights - how much flotation are you using? I know this is going to vary from setup to setup - i just want to get a ballpark idea of what you are using with your lights: Will extrapolate from that to a starting point for my setup, and tweak on location. TIA.

Cheers, thank you. Sorted!

Awesome - thank you very much!

If so, can I request a copy of the image (4000 pix across, landscape format) for a video I am doing? Can send you details over messenger. (I am away and wont be back home for a few days, and need to get this video done asap) TIA!

True. Papex, for examples, is something like 2900 euros a week at retail for an on-water bungalow (we saw a walking shark hunting while sitting on our deck!), great food and 4 dives a day for 6 days. Their liveaboard, Coralia, is a LOT more. I like liveaboards for hard to get to places (like Manuk) - but after doing 2 Raja-Ambon crossings, i am off next month for 20 days and will be staying in Banda Niera: I suspect i will get much better dives in, and better photos as well.