d2b

Mozaik also sells AOI. They may well buy it from Backscatter, since I think Backscatter is the North American distributor, but sometimes the retail prices are a bit better. My experience with them is that the stuff shows up eventually, but it can be surprisingly frustrating trying to get order tracking information out of them. The main attraction for me is that they also ship from Canada, presumably not an issue for people not in Canada.

I'm only shooting stills, and trying to get better at supermacro, so I wanted to reduce the degrees of freedom of the housing, but still keep flexibility to frame tiny critters. Here is my very simple monopod setup (so far untested). I decided to try this as an alternative to the "perch your housing on a muck stick" technique that a few people have shown me can be quite effective. The housing is an AOI UH-OM1-II, so smaller than some in this thread. As mentioned at the start of the thread, there is an extra 1/4" threaded hole in my ULCS tray, so I just put an Ali-express ball head there, and clamped on an arm section of appropriate length. I removed the o-ring from one end to try to always keep one end in the sand. As you can see it does not add much to the profile. Open it can go fairly high. Hypothetically this pose keeps the center of gravity of the rig (which is roughly 500g negative) above the pivot point. We shall see.

Sorry, I mis-typed the part number (which is pretty bad because the plastic package is sitting on my desk). The actual smaller Nauticam spacer ring is 81222. I got it in order to have a compromise between no spacer and the big spacer that comes with the CMC-1. The 81222 is smaller in outside diameter and in the amount it moves the lens back, so maybe worth a look.

Which Nauticam m67 adapter did you try? Looking at the 81228 on my CMC-1, it doesn't look like it extends further than the rim on the CMC-1 itself. Maybe I misunderstand the problem. I ask because I am considering a dual flip adapter for my 120mm front diameter macro port.

Hmm. I tried my best to trigger the apparent malware but didn't succeed. Who knows what the difference is. I was looking at the gallery, and I guess it's natural for people selling fluo gear, but I did think that the the fluo effect was a bit overused. For some of the subjects where I was familiar with them (e.g. mantis shrimp), I think a reasonable standard spectrum strobe setup would be superior. Of course that is utterly subjective, and someone more experienced than me might be bored of the subjects I still find interesting with standard spectrum.

It would be more work, but also more interesting, to put together a size+weight comparison of housing+body+lens+port.

Unless the OM-3 gets significantly cheaper, I can't really see choosing it over the OM-1 for underwater use. Currently the OM-1 II is listed at CAD100 more than the OM-3. It's supposed to be a midrange model between the OM5 and the OM1, but the pricing does not really reflect that yet. Other than retro style and the jpeg control dial (neither of which seem compelling for underwater), I don't see any advantages of the OM-3 over the OM-1. It is a bit smaller, but once you get a housing (particularly a nauticam) you're not going to benefit much from that.

How well does subject recognition work for underwater subjects? I imagine the subject at least has to have eyes for eye tracking to work. 😉

Sobering numbers for us micro 4/3 types. I wonder why Fuji doesn't have more of a presence underwater (or maybe they do and I just don't know about it).

I don't know if the OM5-II really shares exactly the same AF capabilities, but it does have PDAF, which seems to be the key technical difference between the older EM-5-II and the newer OM-1.

A weak answer, but my OM-1 (I) is a huge upgrade from my EM-5 II. I just use basic C-AF so you may already see a lot of that upgrade in the OM5 II.

It could be. Hard to know how much color variation there is, but the Fishbase photo looks like more contrast between the light and dark bars.

Have you considered a 30mm macro? I had significantly better luck with things like turtles and bigger fish compared to the 60mm macro, but of course you give up working distance (and the ability to use diopters). I have a proper short port for the 30mm on order and will see if that lets me do acceptable macro (if not super-macro) on my next trip. I'm not sure it checks all your boxes, but it would be super compact and light (and potentially cheaper), compared to 60mm+MFO-3. I should mention that I have also used the 12-45 in a semi-dome port. It's not even a slightly scientific comparison, because I mainly shot with the 60mm, but of the the images I took on a recent 2 week trip, only one of the keepers was at the 45mm end. I did keep a couple "close focus wide angle" style shots at 18mm and wider [1]. I think it is possible I may get better at those, but the focus distance at 45mm is just too long for macro (at least if you are used to the 60mm). [1]: https://www.mu-43.com/threads/olympus-12-45mm-f-4-pro.107818/page-19#post-1796213

Does anyone recognize this fish from Sogod Bay? I have the focal distance recorded as 0.2m on the Oly 60mm macro, so it must be fairly little. The shape looks a bit like a triplefin, but the shape dorsal fin isn't very clear to me. Alas, I don't have a picture from the side.

This is not exactly a wide zoom (12-45) but you can see some shots at 12mm in the AOI 4" semi-dome port at https://www.mu-43.com/threads/olympus-12-45mm-f-4-pro.107818/post-1795979 My impression is that this is a lot sharper than my old 12-50 in a flat port, but of course I could be biased. If you don't need to go very wide, this port is not too expensive (around USD300 when I bought it). I think the 9-18 is the only other wide-ish zoom AOI says is compatible. I had the impression the UWL-400A is designed for the smaller sensor TG5/6/7. Before you buy one, make sure it will work with a mu4/3 sensor.