bvanant

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For Sale is a brand new, never been wet, Aditech Mangrove Housing for the Sony AX700 with the camera. The camera is amazing but the system is just a bit too large for what my wife wants to do with it. Our loss is your gain. New the system is $2300 for the housing and $1900 for the camera. Yours for a significant discount. Bill

It works fine IF you have the right fiber optic cable. You need one of the multi-core versions Bill

We just returned from 10 days of diving with Spice Island Divers. The resort is the previous Maluku Divers and is pretty much the same as before with some staff remaining (the chef had pictures of us from 5 years ago on his phone). The bungalows are quite nice, aircon worked fine and hot water was plentiful. The dive shop hasn't changed but there is a new compressor. Overall we thought Ronny and Benny did a good job with the diving crew (a few guides remain, notably Alan and Semuel) and we will be returning there. Overall I would give them two thumbs up. Bill

Had the same issue on our recent Villa Markisa trip, next dive I taped the flash with some electrical tape. No issues since, BUT I did have 3 or 4 times during the trip an issue where the camera froze up showing a scene in the EVF that wouldn't change and stayed on even after turning the camera off. Only solution was to take the battery out an replace it. Any ideas. BVA

I have always thought he was a Hasselblad guy, as for film I suspect he shot all of the BW films, from Tri-x to exacta Bill

Just to clarify a point. The YSD1 (at least mine) were made in Japan not in China and sourced using mostly Japanese components. As for comparing strobes to cameras, I suspect that there is at least an order of magnitude (probably a factor of 50) in terms of cameras made and strobes made. It is not clear to me that the D1s have major issues. Mine are at least 5 years old, and while there was a firmware upgrade for battery issues, mine are still going strong after more than 600 dives (probably 50k flashes). As for Ikelite, maybe I am an outlier but I do in fact know their service facility quite well. Bill

"Minor correction here, but that wouldn't be anywhere near 300DPI. It would be around half that. The 16MP sensor will do prints that size, but it will start to break down on the quality a bit. I've got the same sized sensor in my E-M5mkII and have printed large, but it definitely doesn't have the same detail as an 11x14 would. " There are a slew of good up-rezzing programs (Topaz for example) that can take your 16MP file and make it into 20x24 x 360 DPI with good results (a lot depends on the photo of course). Bill

Chris: Can you compare the Panasonic 30 macro to the Olympus? Bill

I have all three lenses (the 45 mm Zuiko 1.8 is not a macro lens, max magnification is only 0.11) and I think the IQ of the leica is the best but lately have been putting a lot of mileage on the 30 macro. Fast focus and nice Bokeh. I use the 60 if I am shooting small stuff where the diopter is most useful. Bill

If you really are 50% macro then I think the RX is not the optimal choice. For you, I think the GH-5 option is more useful if you really are doing 30% video. The lens choices are better for the u4/3 than for the Sony. BUT I would avoid the all in one solutions. For macro nothing is as good as a dedicated macro lens and for WA you might use the WWL but it is large, heavy and expensive compared to a tiny dome port and an 8mm Fisheye. I don't think you could tell the EM-1 from the GH-5 in terms of stills but for video the GH-5 is more optimized. Cheers Bill

Interestingly both S&S and Inon both claim their strobes to have GN of 20, the backscatter results show a smaller number. The Inon has GN 17 with the diffuser, the S&S with diffuser is about the same. Bill

The difference while it looks like a lot is less than a stop (a stop is 1.4, square root of 2) relative difference the YS01 is 1.16 GN brighter. nothing to worry about especially for macro. When I shoot mine in macro I am mostly using them at like 1/2 power Bill

Do you mean light i.e. video light or strobe. If you look at Richard Salas's stuff, much of it is shot with a single strobe. If for video, then buy another light seems like good advice. Bill