BLUEWAVEFILMS

Tnank you! I filmed without lights. Keldan filter on my GH5 an manual WB.

Meanwhile we are back from the Azores... and... We proudly present WIDE WILD OCEAN: Anyone looking to get information about the current shark diving in the Azores will be well served by our short documentary. Mobulas, dolphins and whales also "forced" us to film them. ;-)

Thanks for this valuable information! Electronics that die after a little contact with water sound like a design flaw to me. I would expect the electronics to be completely encapsulated in such a harsh environment. Especially with the not unlikely case of contact with saltwater...

Another strange thing is: Why couldn't the water/vacuum/whatever alarm not be reset in the following days? Even removing the battery for 5 minutes didn't help. It took a whole week before it worked again.

I have done around 250 dives with my GH5 in all kinds of conditions hot humid air and cold water and the other way around, never cared about it... and never had a problem like we had with the R50 and the Nauticam housing. But I remember my old Nauticam housing for Powershot G7X. This little housing also produced a false alarm when diving in the Maldives. Humid air and 28 degrees Celsius in the water... Maybe it is defective... It may be the relativley big camera in a relativley small housing with a heating camera. The cam was recording almost all the time. Not only a few minutes. The sharks performed very well... ;-)

With my GH5 I also use fixed focus a lot, but we haven't found a way to switch the R50 to some kind of focus lock in an instant. Any ideas are very welcome... But if there isn't such a way it doesn`t matter a lot, because the AF of the R50 when the AI ist turned off is much better than the contrast based focus of the GH5.

That is exaclty what we did. 4 more pumps after the light turned green. The "vacuum" was still there after the dive. What triggered the alarm were the little drops of water inside the housing.

I have just returned from the Azores where I used the monitor for the first time in real life with my GH5. I did 10 dives with it. Long story short: The monitor worked perfectly! It was always bright enough, but that may change in bright tropical waters. In the Azores the sunlight ist not too bright most of time. The battery lasted for at least 2 hours of diving. I would say it is a keeper!

First of all, thank you very much for this thread and the thoughts and experiences regarding the new Nauticam housing for the EOS R50. My wife and I were diving in the Azores in mid-July, and for the first time, we brought along the R50 in the Nauticam housing. Here are the experiences my wife had with her new camera while filming in auto mode and auto ISO and taking photos: 1. Autofocus of the R50 underwater During our six dives with Mobula rays at Princess Alice dive site, we noticed that the AI autofocus, which is supposed to recognize animals, performed poorly underwater. Unfortunately, it repeatedly lost focus for a brief second, even though it had recognized and focused on the Mobula rays immediately. The water was not particularly turbid or dark, so it shouldn't have been a significant challenge, but the AF ruined 50% of the shots. Things improved when we deactivated the AI autofocus. With animal and eye detection turned off, the autofocus performed well in 95% of the shots. At least the AF without AI and "subject recognition" worked almost perfectly during our two dives with blue sharks. 2. The standard lens The "low-light capabilities" of the R50's standard lens forces the camera to use high ISO settings quickly. This was expected. Nevertheless, the perceived image noise is weaker compared to my GH5, which also needs to go into high ISO ranges quickly when using the 2+ Keldan filter. However, the GH5 has even worse AF performance and ruins more shots. But that's a different story... What's worse with R50/Nauticam combination is that the Canon standard lens is not dustproof, and the R50 doesn't have internal sensor cleaning. This means all shots are ruined with previously unnoticed sensor spots unless you perform a test with a high aperture setting against a white wall and have the sensor professionally cleaned before diving. At least auto ISO adapted very well to different light situations. 3. Colors, manual white balance Underwater, the R50 delivers the same exceptionally good colors as all other Canon cameras, assuming you set the manual white balance correctly. Unfortunately, this can only be done by taking a prior photo and navigating through the menu, as has been the case for a few years now. Why, Canon? It was much easier with the Powershot G7X back in 2014. 4. Major issues with the Nauticam housing A significant disappointment was the Nauticam housing. During the first dive with sharks, the water alarm went off, indicating supposed vacuum loss and water ingress. However, this wasn't accurate. The "vacuum" was still present, and there were only a few drops of water inside the housing. This was likely due to condensation formed by the camera running and "heating" for an hour during the shark dive, combined with relatively high humidity on our dive boat and cool water temperatures (21 degrees Celsius / 70 degrees Fahrenheit). How can condensation form in a vacuum? When we asked our Nauticam dealer, they confirmed that there's no vacuum in Nauticam housings, just a slight negative pressure of 0.1 to max. 0.2 bar. During the second shark dive, with the alarm deactivated, the front fogged up after half an hour, despite us trying to keep the inside of the housing as dry as possible beforehand. Another problem we encountered was that once the water alarm went off, we couldn't turn it off for the next week. To get rid of the alarm for the next dives, we had to completely deactivate the safety feature. Only a day before the end of our vacation was the inside of the housing dry enough not to trigger the alarm. In summary, the combination of the R50 and the compact Nauticam housing raised high expectations for us, which were unfortunately quite disappointed. Best, Andreas

I have the same problem with the lip of the adapter. I also want to install a flip adapter. Therefore, I am very curious to see if it will work underwater as well. My fingers are crossed! :-)

Thank you! Your experience helps a lot in my decision to bring my video lights. Amazing photos by the way. Now I am even more looking forward to dive with those guys. :-)

I am planning to fly to the Azores in July to film blue sharks. My previous experience with sharks in blue water has been limited to oceanic whitetips, thresher sharks and hammerheads. Oceanic whitetips are known to dislike bright video lights or flashlights, at least that was the case with the ones I encountered in Egypt. What about blue sharks? They are known to be very curious. Does bright video light bother them or even attract them? Most of the videos of blue sharks in the Azores shown on YouTube were made without light. Thanks a lot for any thoughts, ideas, tips and tricks... Andreas

So far I like the small size, the little weight and relatively bright display. I am planing to take it to the Azores in late July, if I ever get the M16 mounted. ;-) I will report how well it performs underwater.

Thank you! I already know this picture. I excepted to get the parts delivered this way but the M24 was preinstalled. So pulling would be the way to go... I will give it another try. Maybe there is some more force or even a wrench needed to unplug the M24.

Hello everyone! I have a question for the group: Does anyone here have experience with Weefine monitors? I recently purchased the small WED-5 monitor from Weefine and I want to connect it to my old Nauticam GH-5 housing. This housing only has one M16 connection, which wouldn't be a problem except that the HDMI cable for the monitor comes with an M24 preinstalled. Apparently, you can replace the M24 with the included M16 adapter yourself. But now comes my embarrassing problem: How do I do that? I can unscrew the bottom end (photo attached), but I can't get the M24 adapter off. The connection between the plug and adapter seems to be permanently fixed. There is no movement or rotation possible by pulling or twisting. Is it supposed to be pulled off or unscrewed as well? The manual doesn't say anything about this. Has anyone had the same issue with a WED-7? I've already contacted Weefine, but haven't received a response so far. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot! Andreas