Hi all,
Just a short report before it gets too old to show and before going back on dive holidays to the PIs. Maybe interesting for current or future R7 users, I haven't read many of them, although the Canon R7 camera is clearly a success worldwide (it was out of stock in France end in the last months of 2022)
Xmas 2022 and 10 days diving in Bali, 2 days in Padang Bai, 2 days in Amed 6 days in Tulamben trying my brand new rig : Canon R7 in a Nauticam NAR7 housing using the Tok10-17 for wide angle shots and a recently purchased RF100mm macro (which proved to be the ultimate weapon for supermacro) replacing an old EF100 USM lens.
First impressions :
- I am used to the SLR so I had to adapt to the MIL logics especially for the use of the EVF which needed some brain activity for each image in the first dives. I had customized some buttons on the housing (EVF/screen switch, AFON, eye focus, etc.) before the trip and hardly used my camera landside except for a short citybreak in Tallin and Helsinki.
- The AF of the R7 is a big step for the mankind (at least for me), it's incredible, especially the AI eye focus feature which works splendidly with fish and even bright eyed crustacea like crabs or some shrimps (doesn't for nudibranch though).
- probably not new for the MIL users but I think the contarsty EVF viewing brings much more comfort to macro shooters than checking the results on the screen for almost every image. I love the contrasty EVF for macro and supermacro, much easier to view than optical viewfinder.
- that said, I lost the TTL functionnality that I was using with my dSLR triggerred from the builtin camera flash since no external trigger supplier can synch Canon TTL with the original Retra flashes -because of proprietary TTL-... I even had difficulties to synch them on manual mode, solved with the remote of help Nauticam USA which I would like to thank here.
First 2 days in Padang Bai... nuthin' fancy, more divers than mantas at Manta Point low viz around Nusa Penida, lots of errors, skipped the 2nd day where I got cold from Aircon.
Transfer to Amed diving with 2Fish, excellent customer oriented operation from Manado: I wanted to dive the Japanese wreck I hadn't dived the past 8 years, this is a less frequently proposed spot since it lies further from Amed and needs a 25 minutes car ride. Also most of the operations don't know to completely dive it (the wreck itself is not the main interest, there are lots of alternative bommies away from it. That was the spot to use the Tok10-17.
Amed macro spots were clearly a step below Tulamben's, anyway I didn't expect much as I was meeting my good friend and ace dive guide Ajiex the days after.
Tulamben was awakening from the tourist loss of the pandemia, most restaurants had closed, we were only few guests at Tauch Terminal and we met very few divers on Tulamben beaches, nothing to complain about 
... Unfortunately the weather started to get quite grey, not so much wind or big waves though, but a kind of dull and cold rainfall that was creeping over our enthusiasm. Couldn't say that was our best dive campaign ever, I still enjoyed the 70-80minutes dives 3 times a day during which I dealt with the novel features of my R7 and witnessed the RF100 addition was absolutely great. I can say it's the best and sharpest macro lens I have ever used.
