What is Wrong?

[Ardy]

How to you trigger the external flash? In case you trigger with the small on-camera "FLM" flash, it could also be that the small internal flash is not shielded well enough from the port. In this case you may get reflections from the internal flash on the port glass...
You can check by triggering the setup (without external flashes) in a dark/dim room and looking whether you see some light appearing at the portglass...

Anyway you should try to reproduce this behaviour at home and find out the source...

Wolfgang

Hi Wolfgang, not sure what the reflected light looks like but I have used this set up for 5 years going to Bali twice a year and mostly OK results. I get this effect sometimes in my bird photography in low light but this trip was very bad for it.
One thing I didn't mention was that I took my partner with me and don't think I put as much preparation into my shots and several like the Harlequin shrimps above were not in an easy position to photograph.
I trigger my external flashes with the FLM on top of the camera.

 

[Ardy]

Having a lousy trip to Bali is so unfortunate!

I'm with hedonist222 in thinking lens or port fog in Bali would be unusual--did you carry the housed camera from a cold space directly into the dive (or take the camera from a cold space and then put it in the housing and immediately dive? Did your other pictures from this or other dives show the same thing?

Also, were your strobes set for TTL, or manual (and what strobes)? Were you using a flat port?

I tool the liberty of doing my basic Photoshop things on your image (mainly with Dehaze). The hexagonal blurs do suggest moisture or some sort of schmutz, possibly inside the port, but also possibly air bubbles trapped on the outside of the port; but don't seem to me to account for the haze.

Whatever it is, I gather you didn't flood your housing, this seems like an easily-fixable situation with some trial and error, and you got to see a bunch of cool things like these harlequin shrimp! (Plus, Tulamben's one flight and a three-hour drive for you, so you'll just have to go back.)

View attachment 813496

I put the camera in the housing and left the A/C area but it was about an hour before we dived. I have not noticed fogging before but this effect I have seen before. I appreciate that I need to replicate it to find out what causes it but I do thank you for the ideas and effort you made.
I do everything manual with dual SnS - D2J and D1. The housing didn't flood and water temp was 28c.

 

[Ardy]

Just a thought. Do you think the hexagonal? shape that covers part of the large Harlequin is a reflection of the F stop?

 

[Mike_4635]

I had a friend with a similar problem. When enter the water, had air bubbles on the dome and forgot to remove the bubbles, just a couple waves of the hand over the dome removes the bubbles.

 

[Ardy]

I had a friend with a similar problem. When enter the water, had air bubbles on the dome and forgot to remove the bubbles, just a couple waves of the hand over the dome removes the bubbles.

Very useful information I will use in the future.

 

[rmorgan]

I had a friend with a similar problem. When enter the water, had air bubbles on the dome and forgot to remove the bubbles, just a couple waves of the hand over the dome removes the bubbles.

More with a dome than a flat port, for me. I‘ve managed to get swishing the front of the dome, which I use a lot, but not so much on a flat port.

 

[WS007]

I had this year a similar problem (with NA140 domeport and Canon 8-15mm fisheye):
It was in very cold sweetwater (7 °C) and it was raining all day. In the water, there was fog over most of the domeport. Later, when disassembling the housing in the apartment, I saw few droplets of water inside. I have no idea how the water came in (vacuum and leak indicator did not react), maybe I have managed to enclose the water already during assembly somehow (e.g. that I got the droplets inside the extension/domeport during disassembly from the previous dive)...
I must say, however, that I noticed the problem immediately when looking through the viewfinder and I could not take photos (poor AF and blurred vision). So probably no fog in your case, when you did not recognize it...

Wolfgang

 

[Failed captcha]

Just a thought. Do you think the hexagonal? shape that covers part of the large Harlequin is a reflection of the F stop?

This is just my opinion but I still think the problem is fog and that those hexagons are just different sized droplets that coalesced from the condensation. I know fog would have prevented you from having any autofocus, particularly with the contrast detect system on micro four thirds but you're at f16 and apparently 26 cm away from subject with a macro telephoto lens. I think you would have everything in focus. So the notion that you'd have noticed poor AF is kinda out the window imo. Furthermore, look at the difference made by the dehaze edit. I will admit that the problem with this idea is that you'd have probably seen fog in the back where you look at your rear display.

I'm fine with being wrong if I am, I just like trying to solve such problems and the challenge of diagnosis.

 

[rmorgan]

Perhaps the haze was caused by too much light. I can't tell what focus point you had, but I do see that you were spot metering exposure. If the exposure meter was reading off the more-distant center while your subjects were closer to the lens, then the camera would want the strobes to light up the distant subject, blowing out the little harlequins. On further reflection, as it were, I think the hexagonal artifacts are flare, rather than moisture, which also can be caused by overexposure. I've gotten tripped up by focus point badness enough that I try to remember to use the cross pattern, and when I'm thinking straight, meter off the subject and lock the exposure before I fire.

 

[Ardy]

Perhaps the haze was caused by too much light. I can't tell what focus point you had, but I do see that you were spot metering exposure. If the exposure meter was reading off the more-distant center while your subjects were closer to the lens, then the camera would want the strobes to light up the distant subject, blowing out the little harlequins. On further reflection, as it were, I think the hexagonal artifacts are flare, rather than moisture, which also can be caused by overexposure. I've gotten tripped up by focus point badness enough that I try to remember to use the cross pattern, and when I'm thinking straight, meter off the subject and lock the exposure before I fire.

That's very interesting. I will test that out but not too sure how to replicate it.