adamhanlon

Expose for the highlight of the sunball...and if need be, pull the shadows back in post. To get clean light rays, get as shallow as possible. A fast shutter speed helps here too. Some of the newer strobes offer high speed sync, which is worth experimenting with for this. Ideally, low sun in either early morning or late afternoon as the sun loses its power, together with as flat a sea as possible. Waves break up the sun rays... When shooting silhouettes, switch strobes off. I actually meter on the brightest part of the scene again. When the opportunity for a great sunball presents itself I will often set the shot up without a subject and just wait for a suitable subject to swim into the frame!

I used a Suunto DX for many years with air integration. I mount my computer on my float arms, which makes it easy to keep track on depth/deco status and air supply without needing to lift my eye too far from the viewfinder. I found that the Suunto was great for travel as it is "watch" sized, but my eyesight was starting to struggle to see its small digits. (I do not wear glasses-so my eyesight is not that bad!) I also found that the Suunto model has an annoying quirk that severely limits repetitive dives when the surface interval is less than an hour. On the stroke of 60 minutes, you suddenly get a bunch more available dive time. As far as I know my body does not off gas like this! Just over two years and about a 1000 dives ago, I switched to a Shearwater Perdix AI, and am really happy with it. The bigger screen is much easier on my eyes, and the interface is intuitive and straightforward. I have the wireless senders and they work seamlessly too. I have used it with all manner of diving configurations (rebreather, side-mount, doubles, single tank etc.) Highly recommended! Adam

The key point to understand here is that focal length is not a reliable indicator as to whether a lens will work well behind a dome or not. The position of the elements within the lens body, the actual combination of lens elements used and probably a bunch of other factors in the individual lens' design are the factors that make one lens better behind a dome than any other. The Nikon 16-35mm f/4 with a 240mm dome provide acceptable corner performance at apertures of f11 or so. (Acceptable is a personal and subjective criteria!) By comparison, the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8, which is a much better lens, performs badly behind a dome port in general. So you will get better results from the cheaper lens. Fisheye lenses like your Sigma 15mm create a "curved" image that tend to not show the optical flaws in the lens/dome system. Rectilinear lenses, by comparison, particularly with high resolution cameras, tend to be much more challenging optically. Will the 20mm or 24mm work behind a 210mm dome...I did test the 20mm behind a 240mm dome (http://wetpixel.com/articles/review-nikon-fx-wide-angle-lenses) and it was not great, so I would expect it to be worse behind a smaller dome. I have not shot the 24mm, but my instinct is that it will probably suffer from similar (or worse) problems. The best solution I have found is the Nauticam WACP with the Nikon 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 D. This gives an effective underwater zoom range of 130° to 57°, which gives an ideal option when you need more reach. It is also corner to corner sharp at f/5.6! There is no dome port/lens combination that offers anything like this. The downside is weight/price although when you factor in the cost of the lens, a large dome and and a big extension, the latter is less of an issue! Adam

I am selling a lightly used (by me!) SEACAM Silver D810 housing. It is fitted with Seacam's Vacuum leak detection system and will ship with a Seacam pump (not pictured). The housing is in excellent condition and ready to shoot lots more images. PayPal and worldwide shipping (at buyer's expense) are both fine. $3250 or near offer Please PM me for more details.

Happy world turtle day! Black and white study of a green turtle (Chelonia mydas) poses in the sunbeams on the very lovely fringing reefs in the Red Sea around Port Ghalib, Egypt. I had a great time diving there with Emperor Divers. Nikon D500, Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, SEACAM CP port, INON global Z330 strobes. 1/25@f/14, ISO250 Super close up shallow depth of field image of a rough snout ghost pipefish (Solenostomus paegnius). Taken in the Lembeh Straits, Indonesia while diving with Critters at Lembeh Resort.Nikon D500, Nikon 60mm f/2.8, SEACAM 60D strobes. 1/160@f/4.5, ISO100.

Hi Account anonymized as per GDPR. Adam

I think it is very new, and since its release late last year, very few people have actually managed to get one underwater so far. I am sure that as people manage to get out diving more, they will be sharing their findings

Hi, If you click the report post icon (top left in each reply), this will report the reply as spam to the moderators by email. Interestingly these spammers all seem to have joined early in 2019 and all the IP addresses are Russian origin. Of course, they could be using VPNs... Thank you

Hi all, For some reason, our community is currently being targeted for spam from a bunch of IP addresses based in Russia. Many many thanks to those that are reporting these posts. I am busy deleting and banning the individual accounts. If you find any, please report them and I will get on to them as quickly as I can. I am sure that this will pass soon. In the interim, my apologies. Adam

(I've moved this thread to the editing forum!) Actually Chris, if you stop paying your subscription, you retain everything except the edit module in Lightroom. You will still have a fully functional image browser indefinitely (or as long a your OS supports it). Any edits you have made up until the subscription lapses are available indefinitely via this browser and can still be exported as JPEGs. TIFFs etc. Obviously, you will no longer be able to access the edit pane to do any more... There are lots of ways of extracting Lightroom catalogs into other programs if required (Capture One have just refined theirs). Economically, the Adobe photography subscription plan at just under $10/month compares favorably with other options. Capture One is $299, so about 30 months of Lightroom + Photoshop. Its monthly plan is $20/month.. Adam

Well said Tim. I have deleted the post. Adam

So I have posted two more articles: https://wetpixel.com/articles/planning-your-next-trip-how-to-get-the-images-you-want And an excellent, thoughful response to planning travel post COVID-19 by Stephen Frink: https://wetpixel.com/articles/trip-planning-in-an-age-of-covid-19-by-stephen-frink

There are some good resources on back up strategy here: https://wetpixel.com/articles/wetpixel-asks-the-pros-backup-strategies Field workflow is here: https://wetpixel.com/articles/tutorial-lightroom-field-workflow My own strategy is to back up all my files to multiple drives daily. I use an app called Chronosync (I'm on a Mac) that runs automatically every evening. Adam

Hi all, As a possible antidote to COVID-19 induced depression, we are posting a series of trip planning and travel tip articles over the next few weeks on the front page.. The introduction is here: https://wetpixel.com/articles/new-series-travel-planning-for-amazing-imagery We are very privileged to host Allison Vitsky Sallmon's article (with her and Andy Sallmon's lovely images) about trip planning: https://wetpixel.com/articles/chasing-the-dream-by-allison-vitsky-sallmon It would be great if our community can share tip share in the forum too! We will share them via a front page article too.

A mototi octopus (Poison occelate Octopus, Amphioctopus siamensis) emerges from its adopted home in a discarded glass bottle. While cleaning up the oceans is rightly an important priority, we also need to be aware that some animals have adopted the junk that we have discarded. Taken in the Lembeh Straits, Indonesia, while diving with the amazing Critters at Lembeh Resort Nikon D500, Nikon 60mm f/2.8, SEACAM Seaflash 60D strobes. 1/25@f/18, ISO100 Photographer Chris Boardman poses in the sunbeams in the very photogenic Cenote Tajma Ha, Mexico. Nikon D500, Nikon 10-24 f/3.5-4.5, SEACAM Superdome. 1/250@f/4, ISO400