Hi, I’m a full-time US attorney and part-time diver. I’m also a non-active PADI divemaster - as someone I know said, “diving is a lifestyle, not a career, so go back and finish school then dive on vacation” (I had taken a year off law school to move to the Philippines to get my DM via a long internship and nearly didn’t come back).
Now, I usually work for 9 months in the USA then go diving in SE Asia for the other 3 months each year (since 2016, except during the pandemic). It helps that I don’t have kids or a significant other - I don’t have to worry about whether anyone else but me can I have such a crazy schedule.
I have around 1600 total dives (+/- 100ish) and only recently discovered love for macro photography. I have been shooting photos with a Nikon aw130 for the last 5 years, but it finally died on me earlier this month at the tail end my most recent 3m trip. So, I decided to get a TG-6 with a backscatter air lens as the “next step up”. Although I had taken photos since getting my camera, it wasn’t until this recent trip that I actually really found I enjoyed it, especially nudibranches. By the end of the trip, I was feeling very stifled with my camera, so it’s probably a good thing but it died.
At the moment, I am looking for good flashes to use with my tg6. So far I’ve found the backscatter mf2, s&s ys-03, Olympus ufl-3, and inon s2000. I’m currently looking at the differences between those, and probably will pull the trigger soon. Even though they’re still about another eight or nine months before I have to worry about actually having it… I prefer the shop used on eBay, although maybe the classified section here will be of some help.
