Interceptor121

What are you going on about? Debt is a civil matter at best for a county court not for the police or criminal justice. This is not just in UK is true elsewhere. I am amazed how little people know about real life situations

The reach of light of the strobes does not change it is fixed. However because the sensor size changes the light density increases as the sensor size decreases. Ultimately with equivalence 16/11 or 8/5.6 is the same What many people do not understand see my post on the field of view vs vignetting is that as the target moves further away from your light source this becomes a point It does not matter anymore the shape of the tube etc etc because due to inverse square law light falls at the edges anyway So while at close range you may enjoy a more uniform beam and less hot spots as light travels in water the benefit drops and ultimately sheer power is what matters to illuminate at least some part of the frame I do also topside photography and in order to increase diffusion and homegeneity of light you bring the source close to the subject this is why when you see studio you have massive soft boxes on top of people, when you put them further away there is very little difference between that and a less sophisticated device like an umbrella So light homegenity is more important at close range not far away, there is never going to be a case that you will cover the entire frame with light and in addition your mirrorless lens vignettes and has fall off anyway so check carefully what you are looking for More importantly what strobes have you got now?

Notification of what exactly? If you are owed money you already know. Perhaps what you do not know is what you can do to get your money back. In UK there is a process to follow, this has a number of set steps, there are no other options. The situation here is quite clear 1. Wetpixel is not a tour operator associated to any protection scheme in UK therefore if the operator is insolvent or not responding you need to follow other routes 2. If you paid by credit card you may have some protection there 3. Otherwise you need to follow the standard process https://www.gov.uk/complain-company If a company gets a high number of complaints this gets the interest of the authorities who may want to look into this We are not in US where people get together and do a class act and if you are not a UK resident you need to instruct a solicitor to file those complaints for you. With regards to future process for booking a vacation or similar this does not change anything whenever you go through someone who is not in a protected scheme and don't use a credit card you have a risk. But in many cases some destinations do not even take a credit card. Those are generic thems that this situation does not change. Is up to you the individual to understand the risk you are taking and then make appropriate decisions. If for any reason someone puts their faith into an operator that becomes later on insolvent the story is always the same. Anyway I do not think I am going to be succesful and I see Tim is already taking measures to contain the systematic hijack of the forum that is of no benefit to anyone. So am going to call it a day

It should be. What else do you think you want to accomplish? Get someone here and walk on burning ashes for you? I am sure there are reasons for what happened they could be many together or just one none of this will make a difference if the participants don't get their money back

I think you are not getting the point. The reason why people are not getting their money back for trips that are lapsed or cancelled is unclear. However the fact that they are not getting the money back is pretty clear. Naming and shaming on the forum is going to make zero different to the actual return of the money because most likely the moneis are not there (otherwise they would have already been returned) and therefore you need to trigger a process. As a result it may or not become apparent that a director of the company did not follow the appropriate conduct for example the business continued trading when in fact he should have been wound down. At that point this becomes then a proceeding against the person. In any case reducing the income of funds into wetpixel may result in a quicker more dramatic resolution of the issue. Imagine the following situation. The hosting of this forum is say £30 and there is absolutely zero in the bank next renewal comes the forum is dead. Did this help anyone? I am not saying that all of you don't have the right to complain but this forum cannot do anything to address your complaints. You got the communication with Adam directly you know his email and phone number and he is not replying, on which basis you think he would come here and acknoweldge anything or say this was just a big misunderstanding? I am trying to help you guys by saying follow the institutional path for debt collection in UK it is clear and transparent and don't get involved on why this issue arose. You paid for a service you did not get it as it was not performed you want your money back full stop. Instead now we have a fresh example of a user spamming the entire forum with his request to have his money back. This is not the inbox of Adam Hanlon and none of us can do anything. What's the point of doing anything like that?

As someone who has experience in distressed businesses and insolvency I have to say that you guys are not helping your own cause by bombarding this forum with such messages. To believe that a person that has so far had impeccable attitude and has run multiple trips succesfully is just sitting on your money for the fun of it and everything is there in tact is a bit wishful thinking. There is a a significant possibility that part or all the money required is no longer there otherwise you would have already received it, the reason why this situation has occured is in fact not important. With that in mind your interest is that wetpixel continues to get cash in because otherwise there will be less resource to pay back the creditors. Some people here are suggesting to go and tell people to stop advertising for example this is only going to accelerate a potential wind down of the business. As I have already said get together and instruct a specialist in UK to see what next steps are possible bearing in mind you may only get partially the money you paid. Even if, and I do not wish for one minute this was the case, Adam was physically or mentally incapacitated this does not make a difference at all to the process you need to follow which is one of bad debt recovery. Getting angry and upset is human but does not lead to any conclusion.

That’s the same thing I said Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There are ways around it if someone is interested to buy some parts of the asset. However we need to understand if wetpixel is insolvent or not and if so how this process is handled.

When someone owes you money this is a civil case not a criminal case UK has clear rules about debt and insolvency and Scotland Yard or the police has nothing to do with it. Those cases are dealt by a council court. Neither you can resolve this remotely. Those involved should instruct a lawyer specialised in debt collection perhaps one of the participants to the trips is local and can get the ball rolling. Obviously all attempts should be made to resolve this amicably and there is no guarantee you will see your money in its entirety Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The oneuw weights almost 1.5 kg The retra weights almost 1 kg A strobe made in polycarbonate weights at most 0.75 kg Although in water the difference is much less you are adding some bulk to your system to carry them so make sure you have a case for that And of course there is a material price difference as well What have you got now and what issue you are trying to fix? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you consider a dome port a smaller sensor will have more depth of field at the same f/number. Imagine full frame at f/16 you are looking at f/8 for MFT This means your strobes can be two stops less powerful for the part of the image that your strobes will cover All sounds great however in reality for newer high resolution cameras you don't need to shoot f/16. I have found that in many cases you can get good shots on full frame cameras at f/8 or f/11 so that gap is smaller than the theory In general terms though larger sensor -> higher f/number -> more powerful strobes required

This is a legal matter I am afraid. The participants of those trips bought it from wetpixel limited whose business is to be a tour operator it seems. If the directors or owners of wetpixel do things that are against the interest of the company itself this is a wrong doing however ultimately is the company that is liable to the customers so that company eventually folds. As the company has the liabilities this is worth nothing if it cannot recover the cash. I have been involved in several cases of insolvency, and to be clear the facts here are unknown and I am not suggesting this is similar but I want the people involved to have an idea. In one of such cases a company that was healthy was brought into insolvency and administration because one of the shareholder took cash out of it illegally. Although this person was found guilty the moneys were not fully recovered and the company was wound down. Creditors did not get the money back and employees lost their job. In essence in all those cases money can be given back if you can get hold of it, if you can't other than the satisfaction of having someone sentenced, nothing more is going to happen. Wetpixel is a UK company and UK has very clear insolvency guidelines that can be followed. All interested parties should appoint a specialist to understand what can be done. By coincidence wetpixel accounts are due for filing on the 31 of August. Previously there was already a gap in shareholder funds of c90K (this happens when the company pays more dividends than it can) and I would like to see if I was an impacted party what is the situation of the assets and bank was as of November 2022. So if the shareholders of wetpixel took too much money out of the business and wetpixel becomes insolvent wetpixel dies. Nobody will want to touch the company as it has associated liabilities to the customers so everything comes to an end. Hopefully the moneis have not vanished or been spent and somehow this whole thing survives. I am also feeling sorry for all of those that are associated and worked for wetpixel in various form and are somehow associated with this mess.

It was suggested in the post I quoted Moderators are volunteers and havr nothing to do with the situation nor can resolve it Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You got it completely wrong. Wetpixel goes beyond Adam Hanlon whose tenure started in 2018. What I said is that it would be sad if all of this goes belly up because of this situation with the last owner. That doesn’t mean I am saying people to shut up. However l also think that this has gone past a few complaints on this forum and the affected parties should get legal advice and debt collection support Writing a few posts here is not going to resolve the situation I am afraid. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The mods are just volunteers they have no stake in the wetpixel business that is a UK limited company owned 100% by Adam Hanlon. To expect those guys to adress any issue is a big ask Anyway let's hope the wetpixel brand survives this challenge

It is really sad to see the wetpixel forum that has been running for almost 20 years to become the place to complain about the wetpixel trips which are related but different from this community. I hope this is not going to become the wall of rant for all those that have issues with the trip organisation which would be unfair to the moderators and other participants Alex comments are inside his facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2957927947836312/

He has an APSC camera last time I checked so am not sure about 28-60mm and WWL-1 that is for full frame> try to find someone that has used the set up on full frame

Upgrade the A1 to what exactly? Those wet lenses are precision machined for Nauticam housing sometimes by chance work with something else mostly the close up lenses wide angle more rarely Imagine you buy the WWL-1 and it vignettes to 32mm for example you just spent WWL-1, 28-60mm for suboptimal results. I would double check that the port sea frogs offer is really tight on the 28-60mm to avoid increased risk of vignetting which would make the lens not as useful as you expect

The WWL-1 already vignettes with the Sony 28-60mm on the Nauticam housing once you switch distortion correction off. The set up is really at the limit already, the 28mm instead does not vignette but has a special port. The Nauticam flat port has a few mm excess lenght it was not designed for that lens I would imagine that other 3rd party housing may vignette same or more. The A1 costs new now £6k the Nauticam housing is £3.5k. The seafrog housing I think is $500 I would not for any reason risk my A1 in a polycarbonate housing. I can understand someone using a compact or APSC under $1,500 but for the A1 wow this is a big risk

The light temperature issue is a different one. I believe @Alex_Mustard pioneered this topic and asked Inon at the time to do several filters. In general terms flashlights normally match daylight color temperature this is true topside and to a good extent remains true underwater. Now when you take a photo the light only covers part of the frame mostly the central area and at the edges due to inverse square law the effect drops. This is important from the point of view of the color of the water. The warmer your strobe more color temperature difference there is with the water that is not covered by the strobe. So with a warmer strobe you can get a deeper blue once the white balance is set correctly. Ultimately this difference is around 1000K and using selective masks you can change the color temperature of the water anyway separately from the subject. In my opinion a strobe close to daylight 5200K is ideal and works as the camera auto white balance expects. I know many people are adamant that 4600 or 4900 is better but the difference is minimal anyway. A too cold strobe though say 6000K or colder is however problematic especially in the shallow water where the water is not deep blue. I am very happy with my sea and sea YS-D2J they are there at 5250K and I get the colors I want. This is not something I loose my sleep at night and I have tried all the 4600 4900 5200 options on the Inons too. You also have to consider that as light absorbs warmer colour more than colder ones if you have a light source that is super warm this becomes colder as light travels anyway which is why you rarely see super warm strobes for wide angle. So in short strobe color temperature affects the color of the water not your main subject so if you are not happy about the blues perphaps this is something you want to address. 300K do not change the world but 1000K are hard to manage.

Stretched corners may depend on the lens correction in post or incorrect positioning of the dome. I would try to deactivate lens corrections first

I see many people getting obsessed with strobe field of view and coverage and I thought this post may be useful to relax some of them. Frame coverage with two strobes with each 90 degrees is generally sufficient for wide angle. A fisheye like lens behind a dome will not cover 180 degrees due to the proximity of the focus point. Lens field of view is specified at infinity but when your target is close the field of view can drop significantly. Even at specification level a diagonal fisheye is at best 92 degrees on the vertical axis in the centre of the frame and 142 on the horizontal. A good check is to see shooting a pool wall how good is the cover of the vertical line in the middle of the frame If this test is passed you know that the sides will be covered too. When it comes to the edges of the frame most mirrorless lenses have significant vignetting that is potentially corrected in post processing. This is a diagram from lenstip In the corners the lens is 3 stops less than in the center. That means only 12.5% light intensity makes it there Even after correction you do not get back the full 3 stops because otherwise the image will present severe artefacts and banding. I generally disable vignetting correction underwater anyway as seldom there is something of interest in the edges. It follows that no matter your strobe coverage even at short range your frame will not be lit homoegenously it does not matter how perfect is your strobe. Obviously if your strobe is terrible this will degrade even further however the point is that the strobe is not necessarily to blame for dark corners if you have a mirrorless camera. Vignetting diagrams for fisheye lenses are generally not available on full frame however the vignetting at the edges is of course 100% as it hits the lens border. Some older DSLR lenses like the Nikon 28-70 f3.5-4.5 only have 0.5 Ev vignetting so with those and a water contact optic you generally would see brighter corners however the adapters have light fall off themselves and this is not measured as of today. Strobe power instead is an issue at long range. When you move further away from the target to the point where the light source becomes a point regardless of shape of the tube only power matters. If you are interested in big wide angle scenes you are better off with a strobe that has a lot of power than one that is very smooth and wide but can't cover distance and will dissipate all the light without penetrating in the frame. Of course illumination will not be homogenous across the frame that is indeed impossible due to inverse square law but at least some of the fish in the middle of the frame will have color. Here an example of a significantly large school of snapper shots at more than 2 meters with a pair of sea and sea YS-D2 at full power you can see the red dropping as you go deeper in the frame but still for a decent effect

The grid will show if you have distortion or not If you have distortion you will loose field of view negating the effect of the dome It is the best method to check the dome position is correct Another method is to keep the camera fixed before you fill the tank with water this requires more gear of course A dome works if it preserves the field of view otherwise you are wasting your time it is not just about the picture being sharp However if you want to ignore the suggestions and go down on your path feel free to do so. You may experience that your wide lens is not as wide as you thought. In general terms lenses never offer the nominal field of view underwater because that is measured at infinity while the focus distance of a dome is much closer therefore your starting point is less than the 84 degrees it should be at the outset with this lens and you want to make sure you are not deteriorating it further Well at least I would want that! Good luck Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Very different from what I expected. I’ve used a few Nikon DSLRs, and I was expecting the Z9 to be an iterative improvement, but it’s a paradigm shift. Especially the viewfinder. In underwater photography, like all wildlife photography, it can be tricky to get close to your subject. Sometimes you have to squeeze between rocks and fight with currents, and once you’re in position, you have to take a test shot to see if the framing and lighting is right. With a DSLR, reviewing your photos means taking your eye away from the viewfinder and tilting the camera down, which risks bumping against a rock, kicking up sand, or scaring the subject. But with the electronic live view, the Z9’s viewfinder is always bright enough to compose a shot, and I can check a test image without having to reposition and look at the back of the camera. Is a paradigm shift for him a DSLR user but that is actually a feature of any mirrorless camera quite interesting that this is the main advantage for him.

Very nice piece of testing. He managed to find an underwater light meter. As you can see at 1 meter you can see the shape of the bulbs and multielement produce more hot spots However there are few considerations to be made: 1. While for close up you may use one strobe for wide angle you will use two and when you have two light sources there is a lot of blending of the effects 2. Even a nice circular shape strobe produces a hot spot see Sea and Sea YS-250 3. A diffuser reduces hot spots and improves light fall off at the edges more than coverage angle I shoot my strobes in a pool at a similar wall and I have no issue filling pretty much the whole frame. Take into account lenses have a lot of vignetting of their own so there is light fall off at the edges regardless of how good your strobes are. Some lenses exhibit up to 2 stops light fall off so you get 25% even with the sun let alone strobes. The Ikelite in that report is a good example of a strobe that did not really benefit from a diffuser in the first place. I am always puzzled on how people are sensitive to issues like coverage angle and hot spots in real life the times you have a hot spot is because with a non flat target you had something closer to the strobe and you did not manage to adjust This strobe from Marelux regardless of any other parameter will require a diffuser like the Sea and Sea YS-110 in that example nothing you can do about it but also nothing to particularly worry about it as with 6200K most people will want to take that down to 5000K