TimG

Hi Larry Apologies for the lack of a response. We will pursue.......

There are. But it's just practice. Ditch the stick and just work on buoyancy skills.

Hey Raacerx The system won't let you modify/edit a post once it is more than a few minutes old. Just post, as you did, saying an item is sold.

Good to know, Jim - thanks! Fairly new maybe in Maldives?

I’ve heard of plenty of places that ban gloves but never anywhere that banned muck sticks. I’ve seen folks using muck sticks in Bonaire pre-COVID.

Hi TkdCol Let me add to Chris’ excellent advice. I’ve been using the Tokina for years, It’s great for wide-angle on a crop sensor and is my go-to choice. As long as your subject is not on top of the lens, the fisheye effect is not so distorted. Even on wrecks I rarely find the FE effect is over-whelming. If cost is a major issue the Tokina is ideal. You can certainly use it behind a 100mm dome but you might need a short extension ring to get the lens correctly positioned. Your housing/ dome manufacturer will advise on that and will print details of the best dome/extension ring combination for a given lens. Then you’ll need a zoom ring. The other advantage of the Tokina is that by adding a 1.4 teleconverter (a TC) you can shoot Close Focus Wide Angle (CFWA) with the small dome. This allows for some very dramatic composition of a critter close up shown against its habitat. For this you need the TC (check out the Kenko), an extra extension and zoom rings. This might be all down the road but are worth having in the back of your mind . As Chris explains, a 10-22 is a different lens and not FE. I do find that photographing larger fish that stay further away is not always practical with the Tokina . For that a 10-22 is better. But that then does need the larger, more expensive dome. Maybe something just to bear in mind when shooting say sharks or dolphins etc. I just don’t think you can go far wrong though with the Tokina on a crop sensor camera. For the majority of subjects and for the majority of users, it’s a highly practical and cost effective solution

Good one!

Hey, thanks, Samir! It was really good to meet you. I hope you have great success with the LSD.

Thanks, Elias. I’ve been doing that but was thinking of a neater solution. I’ve ordered a couple of different clips based on the links you guys have kindly provided and I’ll have a play around with them.

Yeah, worth posting. Please do.

Super! Thanks

Some years back I used to use an empty paint pot (honestly!) which was the right diameter and just cut it down a bit for a domeport cover. A short leash meant I could clip it on to my BC. If it got lost, I really would not have cared. I think it cost about .25c It's worth too exploring the kitchen aisle at a supermarket: round food storage boxes, Tupperware... all make cheerful and frugal alternatives

Fascinating and fun walk down Memory Lane, guys. If there's a desire, we can always set up a "Memories" thread. It could be pretty interesting! As Phil suggests, let's get back to WACP-C discussion. fruehaufsteher2 asked what you do with the cover when entering and leaving the water. Too big to handle? Leave it behind? Risk clanging the WACP glass?

Back??? Am I doing it all wrong?!?!? I've got bruises in my palms.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of something like that. Sorted! Thanks, guys

Dann-Oh if you have specific questions, just post them. I know Adam has used the Anglerfish a fair bit; and I've had a few outings with one.

Thanks Elias - yeah, that might do it. Don't know how I missed those. I've spent many a happy hour scouring Amazon pages for them.

I can chip-in a bit: Essentially the Anglerfish can be switched on or off underwater. It has a sensor that detects the flash of a distant strobe which then triggers an initiating LED. A strobe connected to the Anglerfish by fibre optic will then fire. So when your primary strobe fires, the Anglerfish detects that and fires the remote strobe that is connected to it. The response is so fast you cannot distinguish a delay. The Anglerfish is battery operated and compact. They are very good if slightly finicky in working out how to turn them on and off. Essentially you have to slap them into the palm of your hand. A technique that takes a little practice!

All looks good to me, Massimo

Bit late to this party but: I've been humming and hahhing for ages about whether to get a rectilinear for my D500. Since moving back to DX the Tokina 10-18 has been my go-to wide-angle lens. It is very rare indeed that, for me, the fisheye distortion is noticeable and unpleasant. Looking at Wolfgang's table coral examples, it's pretty hard to tell the first one is a fisheye shot. Does it need adjusting? It's in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the Thistlegorm shot exaggerates the perspective slightly. But some would argue that it increases the dramatic effect. As Chris suggests, and the conclusion I have come to, that adding a rectilinear is helpful if you want to shoot subjecs that are a bit more distant (as Chris says, sharks, whales etc) or ,interesting point made by Massimo, if its fast moving subjects that might well end up near the edge of the image and which will need cropping (though this then gets into the soft edge issue) For those reasons I decided recently to buy the Nikkor 10-24 - essentially to have a lens that is better for those bigger, slightly more distant subjects. Lots of sharks here in Sint Maarten! I hope to get it in the water next week.

Nice! If you have LR I'd be tempted to: - use the Dehaze slightly on the whale shark pics. I think that would give them slightly more eight and definition. And maybe cool the pictures a bit - they seem to haver a red tinge to them (the fishball one especially) - reduce the highlights on the fishball. The fish to the right of centre look over exposed and reducing the highlights might sort this out a bit - one the final shot, the wreck with the cables, maybe lighten up the shadows a bit? Both those wreck shots are nicely atmospheric. I hope that helps a little.

Hope springs eternal eh?

Others with more detailed knowledge will, I'm sure chip-in - but 2018 was pretty early days for HSS on the Retras. I'm not sure the strobes at that stage had HSS so the likelihood is that the trigger didn't either. That said, you can't go far wrong just by trying it. I've got a UWT board in my Subal housing that let's me use HSS on Retra ProX. It's a really great feature especially for those heavily backlight or sunball shots.