Sony a6500 shooting in a Nauticam housing

[Barmaglot]

I'm no expert, but I would guess that the focusing group inside the 90mm is much bigger and heavier than the one inside 10-18mm.

I considered getting an s-Turtle, but decided to wait for the UW-Technics trigger to come out. Pavel Kolpakov has posted on Wetpixel that it's planned for the end of May - not too far away now.

 

[Thrawn7]

I fit a Lipo 134055 3500 mah battery inside my Seafrogs salted case. More than doubles the battery capacity. Have to add a small 5V step-up circuit to convert 3.7v to USB power.

I use it mainly for lots of 4K videos (wide angle) or the 90mm (macro dives). Chew batteries pretty badly (doesn't even last 2 dives on 1 battery). I find limiting the focus range on the 90mm helps a little as well with focus speed and battery life.

I don't bother to even try to shoot larger subjects with the 90mm, nothing more than 10cm frame size. Its a great full macro and super-macro lense (with diopter). But not really a general purpose macro lense.

 

[BFRedrocks]

Hows the 90mm work for you? Which ports are you using for it? I'm considering picking up the 90mm for dedicated macro shooting as well, so super curious on your thoughts. What made you switch strobes?

I love the 90mm macro lens...the key for me is using it with focus peaking (manual focus), which gets me in-focus shots almost every time. It also gives you the ability to shoot at a fairly large distance at relatively larger subjects. I was able to get a pair of fire dart fish in full frame from about 6 feet away. This housing requires an adapter for the 90mm port, and the lens only fits in through the front port of the housing, so it's a bit of a pain to setup and makes the rig much bigger up front, but still manageable. I just got back from Wakatobi and can post some pics soon.

As for the strobes, I switched from the YS-D2s to the INON Z-330s because I flooded one of the YS-D2s and S&S was giving me a hard time, so I switched. Shot my 330s in Indonesia and love the power and control I get with them.

 

[rks]

I love focus peaking, it's the entire reason I went with the Sony system and is amazing! I do wish the sony could flash sync a little faster

 

[K Kwan]

How do folks make a decision about how to connect their strobes (whether fiber optic cable or electronic sync or other trigger?

 

[Barmaglot]

How do folks make a decision about how to connect their strobes (whether fiber optic cable or electronic sync or other trigger?

All else being equal, fiber optics are easier to deal with than electronic sync - with the latter, you have two more o-rings per cable to deal with, which are potential water ingress points. Fiber optics with pop-up flash suffer from recycle time limitations, but LED triggers solve that. Some strobes give you the choice of either connection (Inon Z-240/Z-330, Sea & Sea YS-D1/D2/D3), whereas others are optical-only (Retra) or electric only (Ikelite) necessitating the use of converters if your camera and housing come with the wrong setup.