ScubaBC

I have an Aquatica housing for my A7SIII and have over 600+ dives with it. A few little quirks with the buttons sticking but switching to the deep water spring kit seems to have solved my issues. Overall I am happy with it.

I shoot 60fps for most things and will switch to 120 for macro dives and/or where I have a lot of light. Shooting in 120 cuts out a lot of available light and increases file sizes substantially.

That really depends on the conditions, here in the pacific northwest we can have a nice sunny day where it's bright down to 100 feet or it could be cloudy with an algae bloom and it's pretty much pitch black at 60 feet. For wide angle I'll typically go with the native ISO of 12,800 which gives a nice clean image and I have my aperture set to 6 to 8 and it looks pretty good. If it's a darker day I have cranked it up to 32,000 with minimal noise and it can be corrected in post.

Thank you! Yes, I use 3 lights. I attached a photo of me with my camera rig. The 3rd light is positioned in the center and pointed either straight or slightly angled upward or down if the water is fairly clear... I find it works really well as a fill light with my two primary lights angled slightly outward to decrease backscatter. I am shooting in SLOG3 and using the lowest ISO possible so I need a lot of light to get the exposure right.

I've made 7 trips to Browning Passage over the last 4 years and have done about 70 dives in the area. This video is a compilation of the scenery and marine life at the different dive sites. Some quick timestamps if you want to see specific dive sites. 0:00 - Intro and Aerial Footage Of Browning Passage 0:53 - World Famous Browning Wall 32:22 - Hardy Bay Hooded Nudibranchs 40:00 - Barry Islet and Gorgonian Corals 52:09 - 5 Fathom Rock Schools Of Fish 01:00:55 - The Grotto 01:18:18 - Coolio's Dream 01:26:06 - Gangsta's Paradise 01:33:28 - Rock Of Life 01:40:55 - 7 Tree Island Filmed with a Sony A7SIII + Sony 16-35mm f/4 lens in an Aquatica Digital housing with 3x18,000 lumen kraken video lights. Shot in SLOG3 (10 bit 4:2:2) and graded in Davinci Resolve.

Thank you very much! Glad you liked it. Thank you Maria! Yes, you are more than welcome to share and play it anywhere you like!

Thank you! Yes, that's the full video, the teaser is on reddit, I just copied my post from there.

Filmed over hundreds of dives around Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea, this is a 1-minute teaser for my full 2-hour film featuring wild Pacific octopus and Ruby octopus. From babies the size of a pea to full-grown giants. No narration, no captions—just octopuses doing octopus things in the cold, emerald waters of British Columbia. You’ll see them hunt, change color, fight, crawl, vanish, and interact with their environment in ways that might leave you with a new appreciation for these incredible creatures. Great to play in the background—or just zone out and watch them move.

This video is a collection of footage from hundreds of dives over the past 3 years around Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Dive sites include Nanaimo, Nanoose, Gabriola Island, Campbell River, Barkley Sound, Port Hardy, and Browning Passage. It’s set to relaxing music—no narration, no captions, no divers—just marine life and cold water scenery. Perfect for background viewing or whenever you need a moment of calm. Hope you enjoy it!

This footage was captured over four dives at Orlebar Point, Gabriola Island, British Columbia—two in August and two in January. Orlebar Point is a spectacular cold-water dive featuring a deep wall covered in fields of plumose anemones, colorful crimson anemones, boot sponges, cloud sponges, and plenty of rockfish. If you're lucky, you might even get a visit from curious sea lions, which make the experience even more unforgettable! This dive is definitely for advanced divers, as the area can experience strong currents if the tides aren’t perfectly timed. However, with proper planning, it's a short swim out to the wall, where it dramatically drops into the depths, creating an awe-inspiring underwater landscape. The diversity of marine life here is incredible, making it a must-dive location for anyone exploring British Columbia’s coast.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, the diving here is world-class!

This is a highlight reel from over 230 dives off Vancouver Island, British Columbia in 2024. Locations include Nanaimo/Nanoose, Barkley Sound, and Browning Passage (Port Hardy).

Thanks! I am running my Sony in an Aquatica housing and using their Super Macro port. I do have an extension with a manual focus knob for a different lens but think it would push the end of the port out too far from the lens. I want to buy the lens, but might have to settle for just fixing the magnification and the aperture and using my existing focus ring to work the focus. I currently run the Sony 90mm but it's too much macro for a lot of the critters we have around here. I do have a 3D printer and will be able to print a focus ring. Thank you for the reply!

I am looking for a new macro lens that offers a bit more field of view than my Sony 90mm. I've been looking at this https://www.laowalenses.ca/product/laowa-60mm-f2-8-21-ultra-macro-lens/ has anyone used this underwater? It's a fully manual lens, meaning the focus, the aperture, and the zoom are all manual. I am shooting an Aquatica housing with the Aquatica macro port setup. I can 3D print a focus ring no problem but will not be able to adjust aperture or zoom once in the housing. I am assuming, I can just fix these to whatever I want and then control exposure using ISO and my lights. Has anyone used this lens?

I just got back from a trip to Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island with Rendezvous Dive Adventures and used the Laowa 10mm again. Blake at Aquatica was kind enough to ship me their prototype dome port for this specific lens, so I gave it a try too. This is a very challenging lens to use without excellent ambient lighting. With very poor viz in the first 30 feet it made for some really dark diving, which makes the ultra-wide angle even more challenging. I am using two Kraken 18,000 lumen lights, it's tough to avoid backscatter, even with the lights angled way out because of the ultrawide angle of the lens. With good ambient lighting though, this lens is pretty cool to use!

I went for a dive this evening using the Laowa 10mm. I was using my 8" Aquatica Acrylic dome port and a 29mm extension (#48453) from the mini-macro port. I left the dome shades ON. I definitely need to put some black tape over the letters as they were reflecting into the footage. I am pretty impressed with this lens! There are certainly some soft corners and a slight bit of distortion on the outer edges, but I love the wide angle! The autofocus works quite well but it needs a lot of light, when we got deeper I really had to crank the ISO. I pretty much shot F8 to F11 the entire time and the ISO ranged from as low as 640 to as high as 64,000 for some shots. I try and stay 3200 or 12800 if possible as it seems to be the cleanest. The A7Siii does handle high ISO pretty well.

I have the Sony auto focus version but I can still toggle manual focus through the camera and then use the focus wheel when I want to manually focus.

I received my Laowa 10mm yesterday, so I spent a few hours and designed and 3D printed a manual focus ring to work with my Aquatica housing and it's working perfectly. Hopefully I'll get to give it a try today or tomorrow!

From a recent trip to Port Hardy at the Northern tip of Vancouver Island. The visibility was terrible the first few days of the trip making video all but impossible. On the final day things had cleared slightly and we had to go deep but I still managed to get a bit of footage. 7 Tree Island is a small island in Browning Passage and is a very beautiful wall dive. Depending on which end you start from you could be in an amazing kelp forest or some nice sand flats with a ton of life. The wall itself cascades down into the depths with endless invertebrate life and lots of wonderful color. Truly an amazing dive!

Thank you! I appreciate it. Lumpsuckers are a local diver favorite when the season is right! They can be pretty tough to find.

Filmed on a Sony A7Siii in an Aquatica Digital housing using a Sony 90mm F2.8 Macro lens and 2 x 18,000 lumen Kraken video lights. Also using an Anglerfish external monitor.

The Aquatica 8" acrylic dome seems to be in between those two as it's 8" or 203 mm. When I get the lens or even right now with just my camera in the housing, what measurements would be helpful for other Aquatica users who may also stumble upon this thread looking for how to best utilize this lens?