Marelux Ambassador and underwater photographer Kate Jonker kindly provides a report of her experiences using the Marelux SOFT Pro snoot. It is profusely illustrated with wonderful images of the native macro subjects of her home dive sites at Gordon’s Bay near Cape Town.
Alex Mustard provides an in-depth review of his experiences of shooting the Sony a7R Mark V in a Nauticam housing during his recent workshops in the Cayman Islands. He evaluates a few key criteria including autofocus, EVF performance, image stabilization, battery life, and lens choices. He was using the camera with the Nauticam NA-A7R5 housing, and he discusses its performance, along with strobe triggering and water contact lens options.
Giacomo Rossi kindly shares his impressions of the new Scuba Lamp D-PRO strobe. He reviewed the previous D-MAX version in 2021 and was also able to compare the new version to the performance of a Retra Pro. The new D-PRO has added a significant number of improvements and modifications, which Giacomo discusses and notes how they improve the strobe’s performance and usability.
Alex Mustard kindly shares his thoughts about Nauticam’s EMWL. He was able to use it with a production-ready prototype of the new 160° objective during a recent trip to Canada, and, it is safe to say, found it great to shoot. Ho offers his views on the image quality it produces, how it focuses and copes with the depth of field, subject selection and how it handles in the water.
During the recent Wetpixel Red Sea Photographic Odyssey, Adam was able to use and test the Retra Pro X flash guns. Retra kindly loaned both the strobes and a set of accessories for them and they were used by Adam continuously over the two-week trip. In this episode Adam provides some insights into what he liked about the flashes and lists some improvements and ideas for getting the best from them in the field.
The travel restrictions instituted in order to control COVID-19 have presented challenges for the testing of equipment. As a case in point, Wetpixel Editor Adam Hanlon has had the Seacam Seaflash 160D strobes for over 18 months but has only now managed to get into blue water to give than a thorough test. In this episode, he outlines his findings about the strobes thus far.
Danish photographer Morten Bjorn Larsen kindly provides a synopsis of his experiences of using the Backscatter Mini Flash and Optical Snoot to the Wetpixel community. He lists several distinct usage categories for the flash, including subject separation, different beam sizes, oval cards, framing subjects, and wide angle. He notes that he has found the flash combination to be both versatile and easy to use.
The past few years have seen the release of a number of exciting new strobes from many manufacturers. Unfortunately, their release has coincided with a global lockdown, limiting many of our opportunities to try them out in the field. Fortunately, Hannes Klostermann and Giacomo Rossi are located in Baja California Sur and have been able to offer an amazing detailed comparative review of two of the new strobes on the market: The Retra Pro and the Scubalamp D-Max.
Phil Rudin, the senior reviewer for our friends at Underwater Photography Magazine, presents a review of the Aquatica Pro A7rIV housing, along with its associated ports and accessories. Phil was able to use the Sony 12-24mm F/4 zoom, Rokinon 14mm F/2.8, and Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 macro lenses in Florida’s springs and the macro destination at Blue Heron Bridge.
Mike Bartick provides a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated review of the new Backscatter MF-1 flash and OS-1 snoot. As Mike notes, these products offer some very interesting and unique creative opportunities. Mike also feels that as it is also fundamentally easy to use, this makes snoot photography more accessible.