Larry C

According to the service center, unless you can just clip the ends of the wires to clean it up, it's the whole system. (Mine corroded the battery holder when the battery leaked, after a week in the closed case, this spilled over onto the detection wires and completely corroded them)

Had to finally replace the CR2450 in my NA-D500 after about a year of using every weekend.

I have a snoot with a side mounted laser pointer. It drives me crazy. 1. The distance between the beam and the strobe light changes with the angle of the strobe. 2. Subjects chase the laser, like a cat does. 3. The aim changes constantly with every bump. Unless the aiming beam goes through the snoot, it's pretty useless. A stronger continuous light source through the snoot would be much more helpful.

One downside of the Nauticam leak detection set-up: My D500 housing is currently in the shop getting a new one-don't even want to know yet what this will cost. Two issues came up. First problem and cause of the damage, I maybe got a drop of seawater on the little battery while opening the housing a couple of hours after the dive. Seawater caused the battery to corrode and foul the detector with corrosion. Could not be cleaned adequately to prevent the alarm from going off constantly and the light from flashing red. You can only get the whole assembly. Second issue is that although there is a separate dry cover and two o-rings, one on the cover and one on the release button, I've had some intrusion on the threads around the cap and just enough water vapor inside to slightly corrode the button shaft, causing the button to stick a bit. I have never had any water intrusion into the housing and never had the alarm go off underwater. All this happened either in the rinse tank or between uses. In future, I'll pump it up before soaking it in the sink. I'll also service the o-ring under the cover more regularly. My only complaint is that because you can't rinse under the cover, if you get a little salt in there, it stays. Might have to regularly swab under the button with Nauticam o-ring grease.

In ten years of using them, I've only had one Eneloop ever go bad. I've had the same set in my strobes for about 3 years. I keep one spare set of 8 for recharging between dives on liveaboards if I'm diving more than twice a day. Usually only change them when they start showing signs of corrosion from sea water on my hands.

My outer o-ring sometimes seeps a bit on the vacuum cap. The second seal on the button means it's not a problem, but because you never soak the button itself, it can get a little sticky sometimes. Is the Nauticam o-ring compatible with a little silicone lube? My button stuck in the last time I pulled the camera and I had to pry it out. I'll replace the outer o-ring before my next dive.

I sometimes use this set-up on my Nikon. 10-17 focuses so closely that it works fine with a mini dome and 1.4, nearly touching the dome. I don't know about the Canon 60, but my Nikon extends to focus and requires an 18mm extender behind the port. Don't notice a great difference with the 1.4 on the 60. Hoped I could use a close up lens with it, but you're better off just getting a 105 with the proper port.

Lately I've been playing with AutoTone (look on Tone Adjustments on the Develop module, check the box that says Auto). Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it, sometimes I use some of the settings and eliminate others, sometimes I tone them all down until I like them. It tends to go heavy on black adjustments and white adjustments. If you click on it and you hate it, just go to "Edit" "Undo" and start over. I just checked my LR5.7.1 and it was included. I have the subscription version now, as my new laptop didn't like the old version and shrunk the screen to 1/4 size. (Earlier versions didn't like high def screens). The tone adjustment can do amazing things to the perceived sharpness. Dehaze works nicely as well on pictures that are a little lacking in natural contrast.

Go for the vacuum. When I bought my new Nauticam I resisted, because it seemed like just one more pre-dive thing to do, but it's great for your peace of mind when you drop down and that little green light is still on. No more guessing.

Use the histogram, keep your ISO low for tropical, set shutter speed for the blues you want and set the clipping view on your monitor in the replay settings. I tried turning my screen lower because my pictures were too dark and didn't have much luck. Just made it harder to see underwater.

Probably not condensation. Last time that happened to me, I thought the same thing. Then had a major flood because the recently serviced housing had a sync port that was finger tight and wobbling. Maybe put a weight and a large wad of paper in the housing, toss it in the sink, swish it around and leave it for a couple of hours. Then pull it out and see where the paper is wet.

Use a mask and layer to correct the backscatter, and use content aware spot removal if necessary. This will avoid having to use extreme contrast on the whole background to darken the picture. There's a nice explanation at goaskerin.com. I've also tried AutoTone in Lightroom. Sometimes I like it a lot, sometimes I just hit "edit, undo auto". Same with content aware. If it does a crap job, go back one step and try again. In PS, make sure you save your original and always "save as" with your modified picture under a different file name. I usually just add "PS Large" or "PS Small" to the original file name.

I've found this type of banding when adjusting contrast to darken background after using a noise filter to eliminate large backscatter. Some of the newer tools on PS work better without this kind of remnants.

I have a Nikon original 15 and a Nikon 15a. They seem equal. The bluetooth is a pain. It doesn't follow directions, giving me the on message when I turn off the camera even after I've changed the settings to off. My camera lasts fine underwater but drains the battery when it's off and in my camera bag between dive weekends. Even after update, my Nikon snapbridge doesn't work well with my i-phone. Works fine, then doesn't work at all. Doesn't turn on and off when told.

Strobes should be about same distance from housing as subject. If subject is more than 8", you probably need a double arm. Strobes should be behind housing. Strobes too far forward will cause backscatter or flare. In poor conditions, with silty water or plankton, try increasing ISO and lowering strobe power for less reflection.

Weights are attached on the bottom of the shade ring and pretty much cover it. I haven't had any balance problems for verticals as the weight is still on the front and keeps the air filled dome from tipping upward as it used to do. Tried to put a picture up but I can't find a way to attach it.

Strongly recommend the NA D-500 housing. Easy access to all functions, very ergonomic and Nauticam made it easy for me to switch from my Sea & Sea with very reasonable gear and port adapters. Only weak point I've found in the system is the port removal lever. If you're not careful, you can ratchet the idler gear and then can't re-close the port. Quick fix with the provided allen wrenches. Pull one screw, lift the idler gear and realign. Had to do it once at home with assistance from Backscatter, then knew what to do when it happened a few weeks ago on a boat in the Solomon Islands, out in the middle of nowhere. Just make sure you fully press the release button before lifting or closing the lever and never force it.

I've had wheel weights on the bottom shade ring of my fisheye dome for a couple of years. It used to make the whole rig positive and flip up. Now it's neutral and balanced. I just bought a pack at the auto supply and stuck them on where they fit best. They're designed to stay on mag wheels after car washing so they do really well underwater. (New ones are non lead as well)

Don't get sucked in by the cheap Chinese ones. I tried a set of these and the ball shaft came loose from the CF section after two or three dives.

1920x1080 60p I was able to shoot for the better part of two 45 minute dives when we were continually dive bombed by sea lions without coming close to filling my XQD card. However, I just checked the card to jog my memory and I'm using 128s for both XQD and SDxc, 440 and 150mbs. For a one time investment, I figured spending the extra bucks would save me having to carry extra cards on trips or having to download frequently. I don't do an awful lot of video, so my bigger concern was being able to shoot 3 dives a day for a ten day trip, with 50-60 pics per dive.

If it's out of warranty, they'll repair it for a flat charge (around half of a new one) but the postage can be pricey, or offer a trade in percentage to trade up to a new model. They're very fast and you'll get back a virtually new light depending on the problem. There's also a reset procedure that can often fix the problems. Worked for me on one light, another I had to get repaired. Give them a call or e-mail.

Doesn't appear to. Nauticam makes a SeaCam adapter for their housings, but that's the only one I could find. It's possible you could have one custom made for a price.

I've been very happy with both the Sea & Sea on my D300 and my Nauticam for the D500. They're both well made and sturdy. I had a couple of issues with the Sea & Sea. One was that it had a combination lever for the back focus button. You had to pull and twist it for that function and the little screw came off the end of mine a couple of times, leaving the shaft loose underwater and held by only the o-ring. I had to keep my finger over the end of the lever until I got it out of the water to prevent a flood. Other than that, it was terrific. I find the Nauticam has a little more access to some of the controls I use most, which was why I bought it.

With my D300 and with my D500, I have always used the second card for overflow. In twelve years shooting underwater, I've never needed a backup card and I typically shoot over a hundred shots per dive on at least 100 dives per year. I've found the overflow much more useful for topside shooting, where I might shoot 1000 high speed shots at a motorcycle race or while whale watching and them cull out 900 of them. Video also makes for full cards, although with a 64 gig XQD, I've yet to come close.

Still just OK on wide angle. I'm not getting much boost even at +2.0 and am having to boost the exposure of my shots substantially in Lightroom. Fortunately, the D500 is much less sensitive than my old D300 and doesn't grain up on boosted exposure. It still isn't helping my foreground pop, though. I may try boosting the ISO for my wide angle, as the D500 also does much better with that. Bumping up to 400 or 800 may allow me to keep at least 7.1 or 8.0 on the aperture and keep some sharpness with my smaller dome, but I'd like to be able to get a boost from the flash without having to go full manual on it, as the YSD-1 tends to really flare in green water with even a bit too much flash. I kind of miss my old YS-110's in that respect. Not nearly as powerful, but a much softer and more controllable spread. RIP as they both died and Sea & Sea no longer supports their repair parts. I'll try the old style cables, but I hate spending another couple of hundred bucks unnecessarily and then finding out it didn't help.