Mark H

I was lucky enough to find them when you started. Great work Alex and Matt - I can honestly say I love everyone of the videos. I have particularly enjoyed you both discussing your photos - a UW photography show and tell 🙂

Yes, however the failure was the external zoom/focus wheel came off. I don't know why and hadn't noticed any failure with it before. Sadly I'd put a macro lens on so the housing gears weren't engaged with anything. Pressure pushed the rod with the gears on in losing seal with the hole and causing a catastrophic failure. I wasn't paying any attention to the sentinel flashing LED as I descended either. I was just task loaded descending a shot in a slight current and busy sorting out my descent and checking on my buddy. I started switching my strobes on but the housing felt heavy and that was when I realised I'd got half a housing full of water . Would I do anything different? I don't know. I was diving in the UK with quite a lots of equipment and had a shot in current to get to (jump in and swim to the shot). Jumping in is just part of UK diving - I really haven't found a solution that means I can have the camera handed to me!!!! The camera was ok on the surface, I'd sealed it up about an hour before and the light was flashing green on vacuum before jumping in so I thought all was go. Underwater I will probably do more of a check once on the shot and then maybe I'd catch it before too much damage was done??? Thanks for the interest.

Thanks Tim. Yes I've already started the process of buying a 2nd hand D500 and contacted Sea&Sea about parts and servicing of the housing. I think that is the easiest route but wondered if there was a housing and maybe camera out there, so I thought I'd ask. I was really quite low when it happened and couldn't bring myself to even look at it for a week (obviously I flushed it out on the day and retrieved my memory cards). However, I didn't notice the broken external zoom wheel until I started to put details together for my insurance. I really don't know why it happened. Not very nice but at least I don't feel bad that it was my fault on o rings or similar. That was what was worrying me, as I didn't know how I could have had such a major flood.

Hi All Just suffered a catastrophic failure of my housing, killing my D500, 60mm macro, strobe controller N1 and vacuum sentinel V. The failure was zoom wheel failing causing a full flood of the housing. While I've lost a my current system, I'm still wedded to my collection of F mount lenses and my D850 which I use topside. At the moment it is in for assessment by the insurers. However, the D500 and the housing are both obsolete. My preferred solution is a working housing for the D500 and I'll pick up a 2nd hand good quality (hardly used - we know people buy cameras and never use them right). OR If there is a D850 housing out there I could swap to taking that underwater - though that isn't my preference (I loved my D500 underwater). As I have port, zoom gear, 45degree viewfinder etc for Sea&Sea, I'm kind of wedded to them. Just asking just in case anyone is only just moving to mirrorless, though I'm guessing it is a vain hope. Cheers Mark

I love Ireland, just back from diving down in Baltimore with Aquaventures. Great diving, U260, Kowloon Bridge and Fastnet were all fantastic. Sadly the visit wasn't at it's best but that is the way it is! Still I managed to take some lovely pictures of Jewel Anemone walls with Crawfish and a few Portuguese Blennys. Where do you usually dive Mike? Or do you prefer the warmer waters around the world?

Who doesn't love Mandarin fish? Great shot. In addition, I love the blue lighting on the frogfish shots. Amazing.

Great video. Like others, I loved the lumpsuckers and the octopuses.

Sounds fantastic - I've not been back to Sipadan since 1999. We could stay on the island at that time - we spent a week doing 3 dives a day + night dives. We loved it. Enjoy!

When do you get the rig wet for the first time Johno? Hope you are going somewhere nice.

My personal experience is different, it seems. I better say, I'm not a mega super photographer 😃, just a dabbler. I bought a number of arms and clamps from Aliexpress and tried them out. I've found them to be just as good as the Sea&Sea arms I had previously. I wash them the same as any other bits of my camera gear, I've not sprayed the clamp screws with WD40 (interesting) and they still look like new 4 years later. Whether they will get much worse over time I don't know! I'd been using Sea&Sea since 2007 and they worked well enough. The newer arms and clamps work just as well but cost an absolute fraction of the cost of the Sea&Sea ones or the ULCS. This all said, I operate my diving and photography on a budget far below what others in the hobby do. I'm still using a D500 and two YS-D1 s. If you can afford the ULCS why not, everyone I've met likes them. I've never seen them perform better than my arms but hey, people with greater experience and knowledge say they do. I guess I'm a tesco wine person and others are much more discerning. I'm happy with my budget range and while I understand the points being made, I've not found that buying cheaper is always the worst option. All the arms I bought came with spare O-rings but as of yet they haven't needed replacing. Maybe they will in another 5 years but then O-rings are cheap enough. Maybe it is I just don't dive the as much as others. I only managed just over 100 sea dives last year. Most of that was in the UK and some out of rhibs. Things get very bashed up on rhibs unless one is very careful and many times on UK hardboats no-one will hand dive gear down. So my kit doesn't get easy use. Just a different view. Others know much more about all this than I do.

Amazing landscapes on your website Jake. I've been to those waterfalls in Dartmoor, I thought it was a lovely and tranquil site 😃.

Having only just started down this road, I've gone for the wet lens options, as it allows me to use different magnifications or to flip out all magnification and just shoot with my either my nikon 60mm or 105mm, whichever is fitted. I'm very happy with the results with a wet lens paired with either lens. I'm also a little confused why Alex championed the 5T; maybe it is just additional extra zoom if you know you are going to be photographing macro? 105 + 5T (+ multiple wet lenses for the very smallest stuff) on a definite macro dive?? May be great in say Lembeh but I don't think it is the right option for me at the moment.

My wife and I have been using LiitoKala Lii-600 battery chargers for over a year now and have been really happy with them for both 18700, 21700, 26650, AAA and AA batteries. I really like ours and have recommended them to other diving friends.

Great photos. I've not been there for a while and mostly dived the Liberty - seems I missed out 😞

What great shots Dave. I can see what you are setting out to and achieving with your lighting combination. Love the nudi shot. I think initially I'll go for just the snoot as everyone says it is a big learning curve. I hope I can get it work the way everyone else does.🤞

Thank you so much Tim, that is very helpful. I've ordered my snoot - I went with the Marelux in the end. I'd sort of guessed that as the diameter of the beam reduced more power would be required. It was why I was less sure about the MF2 as a solution. Another question, clearly there is the need to get the snoot the correct distance from the object to get sharp edges to the light, do people play with the idea of the edge lighting being more diffuse or is it imperative to get crisp edges for the best shots?

Hi Johno Yay another Brit! I'm no expert so I'm not going to be able to give a huge amount of advice. I recently started using wet lenses though and found this video to be really useful. In the end I bought a couple of lenses from Backscatter (+5 and +10), which I'm using with my 60mm and 105mm macro lenses. I've been getting results that I'm happy with, I found it really easy to switch to super macro using my old D500. I run on a budget so I don't have the latest kit in the world or the top of the range. I've built my rig up over the years very slowly. I have a Sea & Sea housing that I guess is middle of the road in terms of cost, I've not found anything it can't do, it is my third Sea & Sea housing (I had a D80 and then D7000 before my current camera), I've not had any problem with any of them. My thoughts were that you buy into a system and then you have all the ports etc if and when you change camera. I'm sure all the housing are great - I've never heard of anyone complaining about any housing to be honest. I mostly dive in and around the UK so robust kit is important to me, as mostly I have to just jump/roll in with my kit, none of the lovely being handed your camera once you are in the water like on the exotic trips 😀. Cheers Mark

Thanks for the input, it is good to hear someone else is using the SOFT snoot. Sounds like I'm in for another learning curve. That is good to know as it means my expectation won't be very high to start with. I've got a week of diving in Southern Ireland and then two weeks in Scilly. I should get plenty of time to take it and spend time learning. How long did it take you to get results that regularly started to please you? 5 dives doesn't seem that many to be honest.

Amazing photos Mike. Way beyond my level, they are lovely. Inspirational his how I'm looking at all the amazing photos you super photographers achieve. I'm just a joe blogs snapper really, who maybe has ideas above his ability. The Wolf setup looks robust! However, I'll be initially trying with just the standard arms as Tim mentioned. I'll try that but if I'm not getting the stability needed then I can always try the Wolf configuration, we all carry spare arms etc don't we 😀. Great suggestion.

That is a good point. I'm hoping that good maintenance will help!?!?! I really like the idea of the SOFT snoot, so I think I'm going to go with it. Thanks for the input though - I'd not heard anything and it will be good to keep an eye on it from the start.

Thanks Tim. Yes, while I'm not the poorest person in the world, I do limit my spending on UW photography. It is a hobby and not a way of life for me🤪. I try and do photography on most of my diving but I also have to keep in mind that my wife or other buddies just aren't as interested and I'm not a solo diver. Still it is sound advice. I think my first two options in my post aren't viable options. The D1s just don't have good enough focusing lights. I could replace my strobes but as I don't need to, I really can't justify the cost of £1500 - £2000. At the moment I'm tending towards the Marelux SOFT lite as a solution. I'm waiting to hear back from the manufacture as there is some concern with single linear tube flashes as used in my strobes. There is an alternative variant SOFT lite XW that is supposed to be better for my strobes but then it loses a feature or two of the standard model. What the standard model does have is both a white and red focusing light. This sounds of little use for nudibranchs but other things like small fish shouldn't be as spooked by it as they might by a bright white focus light. Do you or anyone else think that this is really worth having or just a gimmick? Do creature get spooked by bright focusing lights?

Thanks for the suggestion Sarthur1. These look very good as an alternative to the Retra LSD but I think they will suffer from the same issue - I'll have to use the D1's pathetic focusing light. I think my solutions are either: Marelux SOFT lite Backscatter MF2 These seem to be about the same price point for me at the moment. I'm tending towards the SOFT lite as I then don't need to much about with changing strobes etc as much, and the D1s with the SOFT lite should be brighter than the MF2. The thing is it is a gamble though. The MF2 is a proven solutions and I'm just going on reviews that the SOFT lite is a valid approach. I do prefer the idea of a truly adjustable beam width like the Scubalamp OSD and Marelux SOFT lite appear to give.

Thanks for all the input everyone, I really appreciate the help and advice. More research suggested the Marelux SOFT lite. I'm seriously considering this option as my first choice now. The focusing light is bright and through the snoot, it has an adjustable iris to dynamically change the size of the light and it has what looks like a very good attachment system. The few reviews (3 pro reviews) I have found have all been very positive. I totally get the only shoot snoot on a given dive 😀. As you have all said, I can imagine it is a mind set. At the moment I do dives where I'm only looking for macro so I can imagine that a dive just focusing on snoot photography will be the best approach. I did wonder about do I just take one strobe on such dives, then I wondered about playing with other back lighting or even low fill in light with focus on a specific subject etc etc. I think that is all well beyond me at the moment so I think I'll be just a single snoot/single strobe for a group of dives. I've a trip to the Isles of Scilly coming up and jewel anemones, sunset coral and nudis are relatively abundant, which all sound like ideal candidates 🤩. As I said in my intro to Waterpixels, I'm a happy novice who pootles about on dives. I'd like to play more with my lighting, though, as I think a number of my pictures, eg attached nudi, could have been even better with snoot lighting.

Amazing photos Giancarlo - I'd love to produce something like those 😄

Hi All I'm a big fan of nudibranchs and macro photography and have been thinking about adding a snoot to my old rig. I've got a D500 in a Sea & Sea housing with two YS-D1 strobes. I'm not looking to spend a huge amount, ie I don't want to go out and buy a full new strobe set up like Retras. My possible solutions so far are: 1) A 10bar snoot with laser aiming 2)Retra LSD for D1/D2 3)Backscatter MF2 with snoot With 1) I'm worried that I'll have difficulty aiming the snoot and there is little if any control of the size of the beam, 2) will rely on the focusing light of the D1 for aiming and beam size selection and I've never been that impressed with the D1 focus light, 3) is the most expensive but probably the best solution in terms of aiming and beam control visualisation but would mean carrying a third strobe on a dive, which just makes for more clutter and complication. I mostly dive in the UK from relatively small boats and RHIBs. Equipment has to be relatively robust and there is no chance of someone nicely handing me my rig when in the water, it jump in with it or don't take it 😀. Is there anyone out there who could pass on some experience or recommendations? Cheers Mark