New rig! w00t! w00t!

[stuartv]

I got a new camera back in November. It took me until now to save up enough more to get the housing for it.

Finally all together and I'm taking it to Utila next week. Can't wait!!

I already had the WWL-1 (which is dirty as crap right now!). It will have to get me by until I can afford a WACP. So, no macro for now. But, I should be able to get some nice WA shots (talent permitting).

 

[tursiops]

You are gonna have some serious fun!

 

[stuartv]

Tested and working. Really ready now!

 

[Nemrod]

Got my new rig back in the pool for the second time for testing today. First go around I did not have my strobes because I had sent them out for service. It is nearly neutral in the water as rigged. Sony A6400 and Nauticam NA6400 with WWL-1 in front of the Sigma 19mm f2.8 and Sony kit 15-50mm. Also have the Nauticam CMC2 (semi-macro) and an Inon UWL100/dome:

A step down from your beautiful setup. I had $X and decided to utilize $X/2 and save the other half for future proofing for another mid-level rig several years hence and possibly next year new Retra strobes or whatever type of strobe provides HSS capability. In the meantime my trusty old D-2000s will need to carry onward. I do have the UW Technics 11073HSS trigger. Everything fits into the Pelican 1535 carryon case but for the arms which will go in my checked bags.

James

 

[stuartv]

Got my new rig back in the pool for the second time for testing today. First go around I did not have my strobes because I had sent them out for service. It is nearly neutral in the water as rigged. Sony A6400 and Nauticam NA6400 with WWL-1 in front of the Sigma 19mm f2.8 and Sony kit 15-50mm. Also have the Nauticam CMC2 (semi-macro) and an Inon UWL100/dome:

View attachment 574225

A step down from your beautiful setup. I had $X and decided to utilize $X/2 and save the other half for future proofing for another mid-level rig several years hence and possibly next year new Retra strobes or whatever type of strobe provides HSS capability. In the meantime my trusty old D-2000s will need to carry onward. I do have the UW Technics 11073HSS trigger. Everything fits into the Pelican 1535 carryon case but for the arms which will go in my checked bags.

James

That looks like a really nice setup! My previous setup was a step below your new rig. An Olympus OM-D E-M10 with the my same WWL-1 and Inon strobes. Whenever I contemplated upgrading, I just knew I would not be happy if I went anything less than full frame. I figured I may as well just stick with Olympus until I went full frame. The Olympus served me very well. I still have it and am debating whether to keep it and use it for dive trips where I don't want to deal with the bulk of taking the FF rig. I am hoping that now that I've anted up, the ongoing expense won't be SO bad. If I new camera comes out in a year or two or three that I really want, I can keep the lenses and ports and everything else. Sell just the housing and camera body and upgrade to a new housing and body for a lot less out of pocket than what I had to shell out for this first FF setup. I have a buddy that has been doing that and been pretty successful at having minimal out of pocket to go from an a7r III to an a9 to an a7r IV and now an a9 II.

I took my new Sony setup to Utila for a week and it was pretty much of a bust. I got the UW Technics TTL optical trigger to trigger my strobes. It turned out to be defective. It seemed to work fine when I took a few test shots at home. But, when used in earnest, sometimes it would work, but a lot of the time it didn't fire. Reef Photo has since verified that UWT had a bad batch of triggers and it seems that I was lucky enough to get one. I am still waiting on a replacement... :-\

And besides having my strobes not fire a lot of the time, I was setup only for wide angle. Utila turns out to really be MUCH more of a venue for shooting macro. So, even the few pictures where everything worked correctly, it's a lot of tiny stuff show with a wide angle lens. Thank goodness for 61MP, or I would have had nothing to show except for pictures of my dive buddies. LOL

 

[CanadaDan]

Looks good! Enjoy the new UW hobby!!

One thing... I would rejig your carry strap. Those float arms are not as strong as either the case or the girder arms. I had mine set up just that way and I ripped the balls right off the floats.

Try to attach it to the handles directly.

 

[Nemrod]

Stuart, your plan is solid, you have absorbed the big cost to jump up, next upgrade time will not be so painful. Me, I am 66 yo so I probably only need one more upgrade (maybe).

I apparently had a bad trigger as well. The new trigger is behaving much different from the get go than my first. I was having problems with the first trigger much like yours, I could not get sync or it would start flashing continuously or not at all. This new trigger seems solid, fingers crossed. I get sync and it fires every time. I have not pushed it to fire right after sleep or at camera boot up, I have let it have a few seconds to initialize. Not sure it needs that or not. But right now, I am going to say the trigger is working. I will have to try sTTL on my next test.

I like to test things before a trip and with the current craziness going on, I may not get to use my camera in real world for a while yet. . If I had known all of this was going to happen I might have delayed until next year.

How does the WWL-1 do for you, both with your previous Olympus and now with your new Sony A7?

James

 

[Nemrod]

Looks good! Enjoy the new UW hobby!!

One thing... I would rejig your carry strap. Those float arms are not as strong as either the case or the girder arms. I had mine set up just that way and I ripped the balls right off the floats.

Try to attach it to the handles directly.

I agree I would not completely trust the ball joints/clamps. But, notice mine are tied across. I popped a ball while on a wall and watched my strobe and arm heading for 7,000 feet. Good thing I swim fast and caught it before exceeding limits! But, on another trip a Tiger shark munched it and did not pull the balls out!

Edit to add, Stuart has the Nauticam float arms which have a continuous connection from end to end internally unlike the lesser expensive CF arms which are just aluminum cups glued into the end of a CF tube.

James

 

[stuartv]

@Nemrod my trigger seems to generally work correctly after first turning the camera on. The problems seemed to come after swimming for long enough without shooting that the camera would go to sleep. I was able to reproduce bad behavior at home by turning it all on and then letting it sit for 5 or 10 minutes. Part of my "testing" was also to start shooting to wake the camera up from power save mode. I.e. hit the back button AF and pull the shutter release trigger and just hold it until the camera wakes up and starts firing. That would often produce incorrect trigger behavior.

I am hoping the new trigger fixes all that. I have changed my camera settings so it shouldn't go to sleep on me, but if it does and I start shooting, I want it to work right!

Unfortunately, I got my new rig so close before my trip to Utila that I did not have a chance to test it. Such is life...

I did try some shooting in TTL mode. When the strobes were working, I thought the results were pretty darn good exposures. I am looking forward to spending some more time playing with that. If I can put the camera in Manual mode, with AutoISO and use TTL to control the strobes, I think that could really step up my game.

That is assuming that my setting on the camera that has it do spot metering, where the metered spot follows the AF spot, works as intended.

On my Olympus, I started with the cheap wet dome from Meikon. I got decent pictures. A year or so(?) ago I got the WWL-1 to replace the Meikon dome (thanks again for the advice, @tursiops!). That made a very noticeable improvement in the image quality I was getting. Very noticeable. And the WWL-1 was nice, on my Olympus, because it supported my ability to zoom that lens from 14 - 42mm (28 - 84mm FF equivalent). So, I could shoot wide angle and shoot some small things all on the same dive just by zooming the camera lens in or out.

On the Sony, the only lens that works with the WWL-1 is the 28mm f/2 prime. So, I can only shoot wide angle. The quality is good. But, I am already missing the ability to zoom in and out. So, the Nauticam WACP is on my shopping list. That will work with the Sony 28-70 lens. That will give me better image quality AND restore my ability to zoom in and out. The only problem is the WACP is $4500...

And that reminds me. I need to email Reef and find out if there is any possibility that one of the newer non-Sony zoom lens could work with the WWL-1. Like the Sigma or Tamron 24-70. That would be WAY cheaper than having to buy the WACP just to be able to zoom in and out. Not AS good image quality, but would still be pretty darn good, if it works.

 

[Nemrod]

@Nemrod my trigger seems to generally work correctly after first turning the camera on. The problems seemed to come after swimming for long enough without shooting that the camera would go to sleep. I was able to reproduce bad behavior at home by turning it all on and then letting it sit for 5 or 10 minutes. Part of my "testing" was also to start shooting to wake the camera up from power save mode. I.e. hit the back button AF and pull the shutter release trigger and just hold it until the camera wakes up and starts firing. That would often produce incorrect trigger behavior.

Stuart,

That is the same behavior mine did. The new trigger does not act that way thus far. I have let the camera go to sleep, half pressed to wake the camera, gave the trigger a few seconds to initialize (like I said, not sure that is needed which is the time it takes for me to hit back button focus) and fired away. It has not missed a shot and a moment ago, just to test something on the table, I hit the camera to ON, as soon as it booted up I hit the back focus and then hit the trigger and the LEDs and strobes fired. I let it go to sleep and repeated, the trigger fired reliably. I sure hope it works because I do like the concept. During my pool dive I let the camera go to sleep several times with no issues and I have simulated that on the table as well. So far, so good.

Just to say, it may be needed to give the trigger a second or two to wake up after the camera wakes up, I do not know this as fact and nothing I have done proves or disproves that.

I have pretty big hopes for the WWL-1, I can zoom through with my kit lens or shoot wide(est) with the Sigma 19. I own a Canon mount NIB Tokina 10-17 which will eventually get a Metabones adapter and dome port. But I like the concept of wet optics and being WA on one dive and the next Macro without having to open the camera up on a wet, salty, humid boat. So, yes, big hopes for the WWL-1.

I am on a fixed income and have an airplane/motorcycle/bicycle habit to fund, a WACP is out for me. I cannot afford $4,500 for a single component. But it is a beautiful thing I admit. I hope you can get one.

James