bvanant

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

Dry suit seal should work as well Bill

Nothing like that yet (about 500 dives on mine) Bill

Terrible news. Photos from the Ventura fire suggest that this was not a simple Li Battery fire, the boat burned down to the waterline. We have been on this boat numerous times and safety was always stressed during briefings. Only the people awake at the time (crew) got off. Our prayers go out to the families Bill

Do it yourself. Single fiber cable is really cheap, the 617 core multi-fiber is like $7/meter and a 2 meter cable with two end plugs from Inon will have about $20 in parts. Coiling is easy, Bill

A seamstress is exactly what you want. Or more appropriately perhaps a tailor. Quality Tailoring in Long Beach is quite good Bill

Larry's will be a whole bunch cheaper than the Saga. Bill

Yes, in the water is fine for up to 3 folks, any more and it would be a nightmare. Fortunately for me we were only shooting macro things (head on portraits) with no wide angle. Me trying to teach wide angle? I would pay money to see that. Glad I could supply giggles. BVA

Aditech says that Saga makes a flip diopter for Nexus. Their reference number is 117 https://sagadive.com/producto/soporte-abatible-para-otras-marcas-simple/ bill

I now have a much better feeling for the difficulties of running workshops. Last week I was cajoled into leading a photo workshop for Blue Water Photo on a Rocio Del Mar trip to the Northern Sea of Cortez. On the trip there were only 4 photographers (2 novices, two relatively accomplished ) and teaching this group was quite challenging. After every dive I would go over the photos with each person and try to get them to change their approaches appropriately. The only thing that really worked was to leave my camera on the boat; give the group a set of extremely explicit instructions (shoot each of the 4 common bennies/gobies head on) and then set up the shot for each of them to get what I was saying. That worked but nothing in the class lectures seemed to have a very big effect. Running such workshops is hard and in spite of the large amount of 1on1 instruction at the end of the week there was a lot less improvement than I would liked to have seen. Of course it was probably my teaching style that was at fault but I have a lot more respect for the folks that run big workshops. Bill

We have some good HD but nothing in 4K BVA

Just don't try it on your plastic ports. Bill

I have both the diving labels ones and the ones from Amazon. While the Amazon ones (from myscubalabelsID) have square corners, not round in my hands they stick better than the diving labels ones. Don't know why and maybe they are made by the same guys but they do stick better Bill

The Underwater Tribe workshops are great in that regard, Mike and Luca are very helpful in the water. The workshops that Mike Bartick runs are very informative when you are topside, Mike teaches a ton about lighting particularly if you are into snoots and such. Bill

certainly there are underwater workshops where you are subsidizing photographers to pad their portfolio. There are others where the workshop leaders are in the water without cameras and teach and show how to set up shots. Ask questions before you go, any workshop where the leader is underwater with a camera should be a red flag. Bill

The 613 core fibers I am using are from Asahi and I can get them by the meter. Couldn't find anywhere else to get them. Coiling them is pretty simple and they fire my S&S YS D1 and D2 using the Nautical LED trigger. Pretty much any end glow fiber can trigger the Z240 (it is very sensitive) but I can not get a single core fiber to reliably trigger the S&S from the LED. From the camera flash no issues with either type of fiber. Bill

for multi-core fiber (like the S&S) the only place that you can get short pieces is industrial fiber optics about $6/meter for the 600+ core stuff BVA

I don't think I have ever washed or rinsed the inner cap of the strobe and I am sure I never have lubed the connectors. Theoretically these should never get wet in any way so never need cleaning. The contacts do occasionally get compressed too much and might need a slight bend to get them back to making contact. Bill