Architeuthis

My personal experience with strobe service is extremely bad with Sea&Sea (Europe; located in Netherlands), time span was approx. 2-4 years ago: I had four total losses (YS-D2) and it was not possible to contact them or get any response from them, nether by telephone nor by EMail. The service is(was?) practically non existing... Completely different situation with Backscatter (just now): Two HF-1 had their electrodes corroded. Very fast response, quick and kind handling (although at present there are problems in sending items between US and Europe and the repaired flashes are, at present, delayed in the customs; this is, however, not Backscatters fault)... Wolfgang

I did not test for FF, but made comparisons between Nauticam 140mm and Zen DP100 for MFT (the tread is in the old forum). If existing, the differences were minor. Maybe for FF there is some improvement with 140mm domeport. More important for sharpness in the corners is probably the correct extension and stopping down,.. A clear advantage of the 140mm dome is, that one can put the lens together with the hood into the domport, while with DP100 one has to remove the hood. I believe this can improve IQ substantially, as this minimizes the stray light from the flashes falling into the optics (together with the hood on the domeport)... Wolfgang

Eizo coloredge is probably the best, but also the most expensive... I cannot compare to other high quality monitors for photographers since this is my first monitor of this kind, but my BenQ SW270c does what is expected from a monitor in this class. Approx. 1 year ago the monitor failed and I had to send it in for repair. It turned out repair is too elaborated (more or less a total loss), but they send me a refurbished replacement monitor (same model) for free on goodwill basis, although the warranty was already over since > 3 years. I can recommend this brand... Wolfgang

With the 2x TC the 8-15mm fisheye will become a 16-30mm fisheye (not 50mm)... According to calculations for equisolid fisheye, 16-30mm will be 170° - 85° diagonal angle of view (AOV). According to Nauticam's portcharts, the FCP-1 with Sony 28-60mm will give 170° - 74°, i.e. pretty similar AOVs... => I would say that the Canon 8-15mm & 2x Sony TC is some kind of "poor mans FCP" (it does not seem from the reviews, however, that FCP provides better IQ) Wolfgang

Interesting that both are nominally 4500K. In your side by side photo the Retra looks clearly cooler (but maybe the Kelvin designation refers to the output at the end and the spectrum of the Retra strobe is different to the HF-1)...

The flat diffuser from Backscatter that is on the Retra strobe seems to be the 4500K one. What color temperature does the Retra dome diffuser, mounted to the HF-1, have?

Can you please give a link to the second review/comparison of the retra Maxi strobe (I cannot find it via google)? Thanks, Wolfgang

Did someone test out the maximum possible, blackout free, fps rate when the HF-1 is in HSS mode? Thanks, Wolfgang

I have a naive question on HSS generally: When camera and flash are operating in HSS mode, but one selects a shutter speed slower than the fastest flash sync. speed possible, is the maximal flash output still reduced, compared to manual mode?

Hi Michi, I normally use the Nauticam 35.5mm N100/N120 adapter plus the 25mm&35mm N120 extensions (totally 60mm) for the Nauticam 140mm domeport. When 8-15mm fisheye alone, I take just the 30mm N120 extension... User Dreifish made careful testing for ideal positioning with regard to entrance pupil and recommends 5mm more. I tested this also, but did not find a noticeable difference in IQ and often the raw files showed vignetting, probably due to sensor IS and unstable holding of the setup...

Hi Michael, I used Sony 1.4x, 2x, Kenko 1.4x HD Pro and Kenko 2x TCs with the Canon 8-15mm. One can use them all... It is difficult to predict how a WA fisheye lens will perform with a TC, as all TC were not designed for this use... I got best results, regarding IQ, with Sony 2x and Kenko 1.4x HD Pro, the other two TCs performed less good. Surprisingly, Sony 1.4x performed not better (maybe even a bit worse) compared to Sony 2x... With Kenko 1.4x HD Pro the extension is the same as with Sony 2x, so you can use the same zoomgear (at least one can use the same 3D printed extension ring for the "regular" Nauticam zoom gear, that I am using)... Wolfgang P.S.: I have both WACP-C/28-60mm and Canon 8-15mm with and w/o Sony 2xTC. On my last two trips WACP-C was left at home (Subjectively, I find IQ pretty comparable and prefer the 180° diagonal over the 130° of WACP-C (the Canon 8-15mm w/o TC can also be used on some dives and clearly performs optically better than both WACP-C or 8-15mm&2xTC variants (but is, of course, less flexible)))

A sachet of baking soda is easy to include in an emergency kit...

Thank you all again for this great advice...👍 I will take the fiberglass stick plus isopropylalcohol as first treatment and, if this is not enough, antioxidant cleaner and even coca cola... (I should add that Backscatter definitely does not recommend to use contacts cleaner and/ore coke, but what can we do when the milder treatments fail (Sevag from BS service department writes: "...I would strongly advise against using Coca Cola or anything other than either pure fresh water or isopropyl alcohol on any strobe equipment...")?)... The DeOxid Gold, recommended by Dave, is very expensive here in Europe (about 50 Euros), I found a cheaper product (produced in EU), I hope that it will work equally well: https://www.amazon.de/Kontakt-Chemie-KONTAKT-70004-AA-Kontaktreiniger/dp/B004SGL2T0/ref=ast_sto_dp_puis

It seems to be a great lens, but it will remain a "nice" product, useful only for Canon mirrorless users... It is really a pity that it comes in the mirrorless RF mount. The old Canon EF mount was, besides beeing the mount for Canon, some kind of "universal" mount, easily adaptaple to RF, Sony FE, MFT and even to Nikon Z. One could see a lot of EF lenses on camera bodies other than Canon... (beeing a user of Canon 8-15mm f/4 EF on Sony, I have no urge to switch, at present, to another lens with similar properties, even if it would be compatible (RF is certainly not))...

Hi Warmuth, Is this observed decrease in IQ, when you compare the lens behind flatport to the lens in air? Or does IQ decrease when using domeport and compare to IQ with planport? Or is it MFO-1 & planport vs. plain planport? Thanks, Wolfgang