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I took a trip aboard the MSY Seahorse in the Banda Sea back in late September/early October. The primary goal of such a trip is to see schooling hammerhead sharks. This was my second attempt and managed to get some good footage of them. It's really quite a challenge to capture them well as you never know when they will show up and how close they'll be. The GH5 has a hard time focusing on such a subject in the water column at a distance. My strategy each dive was to swim off the wall, turn around and focus the lens on a contrasty area on the verge of visibility. Then, I would keep my fingers away from the focus lever for the rest of the dive! When we finally encountered the school, I had to make a few short fin kicks towards them till the focus peaking appeared around them on the monitor, then pressed record! Here is the video of the trip. Comments and critiques are welcomed.

Tim When I look through my wife's wardrobe and find a dress with tags on, she usually replies; "Oh, that old thing." Try that with the lenses. They are all black, round, and look pretty much the same... What could go wrong? ian

Thanks Tim! It's a nice story I think. I know it sounds melodramatic but I was honestly very shaken when I finally got back on the forum and contacted Ian to buy the lens and it was already sold. Very disappointing moment indeed. So for it to end like this is a great feeling. A Nikonos lens on a Seacam housing is about as good as it gets I think. the only way it can be improved at this time is to get a D850 and Seacam housing for it. I am happy to be getting into a D800 for now - plus I picked up a Seacam D2X housing for my D2X so I can use this lens with my D2X. Sure its long in the tooth but still good as a backup in the very remote area that I live in. Rgds (Hope Santa surprises you with a lens you lust for)

The quality of the aerial and land footage is as always great and the clip as usual is well built I continue to have the view that shooting prime is limiting and not enhancing your abilities look for example at the turtle progression and how the 8mm really does not fit that situation. I generally dislike slow mo tricks and in this video this technique is well abused on this clip and I just can't stand watching sharks, banded sea snakes or bumpheads moving like that in the frame but this is personal I guess You can obviously hold a camera and the shots that are dark would have benefited of a lower shutter speed that a normal frame rate would give if you were not shooting 60p systematically. Besides the clips are conformed to 30p so you are trashing 50% of the data you have recorded on your card. If you don't have a fast SD card I would consider shooting 100 mbps 30p to improved the IQ and using VFR for the bits you really want to slow mo All of the above is for your benefit and don't need to agree or disagree the clips are great and could be so much better with some different choices some of that are purely settings Very well done

Just get a micro four thirds and be done with it.

I purchased a Nikkor 16-35mm lens from Mr. Grouper. Transaction was smooth and shipping was quick. Package arrived a day early and lens was well packed. I would purchase from again as well as recommend Mr. Grouper. Thanks Again