Mark H

Wow, and thanks to everyone. I'm edging toward the 24-50mm with WWL-C for starters. I'm going to be going through quite a learning curve and I don't think I want two solutions for my first venture. It sounds like this option and then the z 105mm macro will give me most of the things I want from my first venture in the Red Sea in February. I'll miss the tokina though, I think. But the FCP isn't a sensible solution for me, it is too expensive AND too heavy. A bigger dome for the 8-15mm will probably be next purchase but only used for specific projects. Again, thank you all so much for providing so much help. I do love the community!

Hi All As some will have read, I had a housing failure that killed my beloved D500 set up. As a result of good insurance I had money to burn and bought myself a Z8. I'm choosing to go with Nauticam this time as Sea&Sea don't have a housing at the moment (and the housing that failed on me was Sea&Sea). I've used Sea&Sea since 2007 but I know nothing of Nauticam and almost as little about Nikon Z full frame cameras. I'm sorted on macro (that is easy - f mount 60mm and z mount 105mm). What I can't work out is wide angle. There isn't anything that replaces my favorite Tokina fisheye and that won't auto focus on the Z8 (nor is it FF). I have a F mount 14-24 f2.8 that I use above water, and a Nikon 8-15mm which is also f mount. Both are very heavy lenses. I'm guessing that these would give me close to what I had and would need the 230mm glass dome (though there are lots and lots of dome options and I'm hedging at glass but as to size 180mm, 230mm and 250mm, I'm thinking the 180mm is too small and the 250mm is too heavy!)? I could buy the Z mount 24-50mm and put it behind a WWL-1B, WWL-C, WACP-1, WACP-1B, WACP-C but not the FCP-1 as I don't have the money nor want the weight of that. On cost the WACP-2 is also way too expensive and heavy. I will be taking this diving all around the world as well as the UK and weight is a major problem, isn't it? Hoping for some advice before contacting vendors as I prefer to vaguely have an idea before being guided down an expensive route. I know good shops don't really do that but it makes me feel a bit better 😆. I hope someone has already trod this path and can shed some light on the optimum route. Cheers Mark

I'm new to Nauticam having always used Sea&Sea (S&S) before. I'm fine working out what I want to do with the macro lenses but I'm stuck on the wide angle. Previously I used a tokina fisheye which I loved. I don't even know what lens to use now never mind what port to use. And some of the nauticam options are eyewateringly expensive like £5k. So I don't really know what works and what doesn't. As a result I'm just going off the charts at the moment. 😞

Ahh, I see it is a WWL-1 not the WWL-1B. Sorry not what I'm after. From nauticams chart I need the B variant.

How much are you asking for it?

Not a million miles away then! We should meet up 🙂

So Feb and March have the best visibility?

Cool. I'm based in Salisbury so if you ever fancy getting together etc. I dive all around the UK and also try and get a holiday or two in abroad. Sadly my d500 housing flooded in August and I've just got the insurance money so have bought a Z8 and now considering my housing options - although Nauticam looks the favourite. End of my diving season so no real rush but can't wait to get the camera so I can become familiar with it topside before taking it into the water.

Are the temps the same in March as Feb? At 24-26 is my 3mm to 5mm cross over point🤪. Thank you for the really useful info so far. I has been really helpful.

It's funny isn't it. Some people run warm and some cold. In the uk I dive a neoprene drysuit and undersuit thermals from 4°C to 18/19°C (that we get in the hottest parts of the summer), my wife has two different weights of undersuit and a thermal battery powered heater vest for anything below 12°C. In warmer water I still need a 5mm in the 20-25°C range and can get away with a 3mm for 24°C and above. Some of my friends get away with just rash vests and suits at +24°C but my wife is in 7mm in 20°C and 5mm up to at least 27/28°C😂. Always be comfortable, as what business is it of anyone else😂.

Great to see another Brit come out of the woodwork 🤩. Are you a UK diver or do you mostly dive abroad?

Again, more useful information, thanks. I've never done blackwater diving. While we have travelled a fair bit it has typically been on liveaboards or UK diving. I'm hoping that retirement means I can get approval to do more obscure types of diving rather than making the best compromise decisions for a week or two week holiday.

That sounds amazing but our holidays mean that it is going to be sometime after January but before mid March. In 2026 I'm hoping to retire in May so I think I'll have to be working in April and the beginning of May. Thank you so much for the kind offer 💗 as it would have been great to meet up with other waterpixelers. I think we are thinking about Raja Ampt in late 2026 if anyone is doing anything then. Then in 2027 we should both me retired and our plan is 3 months a year in Asia diving at our ease as much as we can afford 🤪. Should be able to meet up with others and chance for me to actually learn to take half decent pictures 😂.

Again, another thank you all - especially @Troporobo for a very detailed set of suggestions. I'm so glad I asked. I knew people would have useful information but was nervous about asking such a noob question. The help is really appreciated. I'm more than ever fixed on going to the Philippines. Great pictures from @jlaity and @Luko. Totally envious guys. I think my attempts won't come close to your lovely photos. My wife is now fixated on a "house reef" with ideally a chance to see Mandarin fish at some stage. I'm more take of leave on that - they are pretty but they aren't my first criteria. How difficult is that going to be to achieve? I could be she just want to see Mandarin fish but any house reef will do as long as we get a decent chance to see these colour fish😂.

This sounds a great idea!

No - I didn't even know this was a thing. We typically do liveaboards or stay in given locations. I'll look into it - sounds interesting.

Thanks guys really useful I totally agree that getting the correct ports is the way to go. I'm just thinking at the moment that I don't want to spend more thousands on getting every port and every lens along with my new camera and housing. I've no experience of Isotta either and they seem to use the same port bayonet fitting as Sea&Sea. I don't mind the red colour housing but the curvy grips look hard to use. If only one could try out a load of housing and see what they are like before spending ~£10k on a new system! But life isn't that simple. Thanks again for all the ideas and suggestions. The group is really friendly - I love it!💗

@Luko Thank you for your suggestions and what an amazing set of photos. Hmm time to do more of my own research. Is it ok to contact you to check a few things when I've looked into it more?

I'm not sure that I'm going to go back to a D500 - second hand cameras just always concern me! The insurance money would take me towards low pain transfer into mirrorless. I can sell my lenses and top side photo gear and move over with out having to worry about the cost of the new housing or camera as I have enough money to do that from what I've been paid out.

That was my thoughts. The zoom/focus knob broke off as the failure but this appeared to damage the whole of that rod. It seems that the rod (not the knob) is unique to each housing and Sea&Sea don't have spares of them?? I guess the D500 housing is quite old! Anyway I've been told it is unrepairable! I also had to send the housing off to the insurance company to prove it was damaged etc. They have paid out the full new price but I'd have to buy it back at £1500 if I wanted to mend it. This is just a risk - I'm told it can't be fixed and then I've spent £1500 that could go to a new housing on something that is useless. That is a good idea and one I intended to follow - I just thought that with all the expertise here I'd maybe find out some of the silly things before contacting Alex. I've obviously done my own research and found out that the standard strobe control is manual but in review didn't work well up to the 1/200s max sync. So I wondered if others had seen things like that. Personally I shoot in manual all the time so TTL I thought was a waste but if I need to get that to see higher sync speeds then maybe it is worth it. I also thought people would know what ports are used and if it was still possible to use my dome port at least - buying a load of ports and especially an new glass dome seems a waste. I'm looking at at Z8 as I'm not keen on the performance of the Z6 and it would only be a few hundred pounds to go from Z6 prices to Z8 given the money I've got from the insurance. Thanks for the suggestion all. Any more knowledge and support is appreciated!

Sadly I had a major housing failure a few weeks back that completely flooded my housing and camera. My beloved D500 is dead and it seems I can't repair my Sea&Sea housing. Fortunately my insurance are offering a fair recompense. However, while not wishing to moan, it leaves me with quite a quandary: I can't get another Sea&Sea D500 housing, and only second hand D500 s are available. I didn't want to switch over to mirrorless but it seems that getting a nikon dSLR housing is quite a challenge. So it looks like I'm going mirrorless - whether I like it or not 😞. I'm wondering about getting a Z8. I'll need some new lenses but at least my above water lenses can be made to work with this body - as opposed to switching to say Canon or Sony. However, Sea&Sea don't have a housing out - and I did have that failure, which has knocked my confidence. Nauticam do have a housing but I'm just not familiar with them. I seem to remember something about it being possible to get Sea&Sea ports to work with Nauticam housings. Is this still true and if so how good is it really? What are peoples thoughts? Wait for a Sea&Sea housing or switch to Nauticam. Everyone seems to use them but I'm not sure why people believe they are better than Sea&Sea. I apologise for asking these noob questions but I'm completely thrown by not being able to fix my existing housing but with a good pay out by the insurance. I loved my D500 and up until this point had no intentions of moving to mirrorless! I'd love to hear your views. Mark

Thanks Tim. We were hoping to fly to Cebu as that seemed easier for us but I'll look into your suggestion. At the moment I'm trying to build up more understanding hence my question.

Great photos, really nice - thank you for sharing. I think you are right - 2 or three sites sounds reasonable given only two weeks. I'm hoping that this is a fact finding tour for later on when retired, as we plan to spend 3 months limited bits of the Philippines and some Indonesian sites. Then different sites the year after and so on!

Hi All We have travelled to a number of sites around the world, and now my wife and I are currently considering the Phillipines for a trip in March either next year or the year after. We have done the standard trawl of websites but to be honest I've found that there are too many possibilities for our first two weeks visit to the islands. Our preferences for diving are fairly broad. We love muck diving, scenic, specific creature sites or wreck diving. That said we would always want to visit some sites that had some macro interest as that is my preference 😃. As we are planning to be there for two weeks and are considering moving about, maybe visiting 2 or 3 locations. Cebu features as a starting point and seeing thresher sharks in Malapascua sounds interesting, as do bait balls at Moalboal and muck diving at Dumaguete. However, there are also the wrecks Coron and muck diving in Anilao, but these seem a distance away and therefore and internal flight which I assume would waste a number of days and cost more. What would people recommend? A number of site for 3 or 4 days with a few hours travel seems ideal and it seems like we could visit many of the different locations around Cebu and maybe as far as Dumaguete, leaving Coron and Anilao for another visit when we are retired (only a couple of years away). Or is it a must to do other sites and not focus on Cebu? Any help will be much appreciated. Mark

While I can appreciate the skill with either shot, I personally don't like the combined image. It just doesn't look like a single real photograph, the scale just seems wrong for a start. I'd prefer just the octopus picture on its own. I can imagine that for none divers and possible sales of the image (assuming it is being sold) the composite image is better. Are many out there in the group doing these double shot combinations? They seem wrong to me, but I like to get as much right in a single shot in camera. Is that an old fashion (purest?) view? There has always been room for creativity and "collage" images.