Sony A6500 or A7iii to photograph whales underwater?

daveco2 wrote:

The big challenges for me underwater are framing moving targets and their backgrounds, water clarity, and backscatter with strobes. I've solved the framing problem by cropping to some extent with a high pixel count A7RII (soon to be A7RIII in a week). Water clarity and backscatter I tackle with varying success in Lightroom and Photoshop. This all depends on how I display the results. I like large prints. On a computer screen or DVD on TV, there's a lot more latitude.

I also do a lot of cropping with underwater shots, almost 100% due to corner issues and framing issues.  With 36mp to work with, I can get away with a lot when using output intended for the web.

I haven't used Photoshop in years, probably since the version I had quit supporting a newer camera.  I don't want a subscription model, so I'm doing everything in Lightroom now.   There is quite a bit you can do in Lightroom easily, and I haven't even got to play directly with the tone curve yet.

The biggest problem I have with wide angle shots is water clarity.   I have a trick that helps me a lot, and that is using the black slider judiciously.  Once I have all the sliders and adjustments about where I want to finish, I pull the black slider down until the left histogram just about touches the left edge (it's a judgement call), and a lot of the haze in my shots sort of disappears.  It also darkens a lot of the shadow areas, so I usually have to do some more adjustments to lighten the whole scene back up.   But it can be very effective, as the following example shows:

This was taken in St. Thomas on the first dive I ever did with my new Nauticam D810 rig.   Big dome port.   My late wife took this picture with a Canon point-n-shoot, and it shows the conditions pretty well.

And my shot of her looked about the same out of camera.   Since I shot in RAW mode, I had a lot of adjustment possibilities.

The following shot looked very much like the previous until I adjusted white balance and pulled the black slider down.

Chasing optical image quality as I do in land photography has not been very productive. For me, under water, most important are ease of use, equipment bulk, and framing versatility (zoom lens). Packing dive and photo gear for air travel is another matter.

Sony A7Rii and A7Riii sound like chasing quality...

For me, everything is important.  The reason is simple: shooting underwater is photography in a very challenging environment, and every camera feature/advantage is both tested and useful underwater.

Ease of use / Handling?  Important to get the shot.  Especially if having to change settings a lot.  The Nauticam helps me here having very convenient paddles for the most important functions and buttons and dials for the rest.   For instance, I have a thumb paddle (most convenient) for the Info button where I can instantly see all kinds of settings and change most.   (Important partly because the housing covers the top display LCD).  I also added a high eyepoint viewfinder that makes it easier to see to the corners with my mask on.

Bulk:  No way around this issue.   DSLR rigs are big, and FX wide angle is the biggest.  Having strobes hanging out on both sides vibrating in the current, and camera so big it's difficult to hold and use one handed makes it tougher.  Shooting with a big rig also limits where I can physically put it for some images.   It's all a drawback, in the water and out, though in the water it's not hard to use.

Framing versatility:  I do love having some with a zoom, though I would be happier with a 24-70 than the 16-35 zoom range I have.  While I can crop in a lot with the 16-35, I normally can't get anywhere near the closeups I can with my 105 macro.   With the wide lens I zoom for framing and crop for the edges.   With the macro, I crop for framing.

Packing - once I actually held my big dome port, which I had never done before ordering one, I was kind of shocked.   My shock didn't really lessen when I found I could not come close to fitting all the gear into a carryon.   Here are a couple of tricks I use.

First, I put all this into my rolling bag, partly to make use of a bag that was a bit of a mistake.  I have a Thinktank backpack, and I really wanted one with wheels after carrying a 31 pound backpack around the world.  I bought a Thinktank roller bag, but I didn't do my homework to realize it didn't come with backpack straps.  (Means when I get to an airport and try to move my  two suitcases, I have three handles to drag, and I can't temporarily put the roller bag on my back to get to/from the airport.

The roller bag doesn't hold as much as my backpack, due to the handle and wheels taking a lot of space.   But the backpack would not have held everything anyway, and it would have been around 40 pounds if it did.  Anyway, the lack of sufficient space forces me to split the rig up between suitcase and carryon.

First, I have to remove the strobe mounting balls from the housing so the housing will fit in the bag.  I put the spare parts in a ziplock with a small pliers for reassembly on-site.  I take the six strobe arm clamps and one more for the focus light, and I store them inside the dome port extension.  I can't put anything inside the dome itself, except maybe some cloth wipes, so it won't scratch.   Same for the macro port, due to glass there.   I take a lens off the camera and put it inside the housing.   The housing and dome port then go into the rolling bag, along with bubble wrap.   Those two items now fill the rolling bag, and I fill in gaps with some of the other bits, like the strobes, the focus light, and any small bits that fit in the small cracks left over.   The macro port and dome extension (holding all those clamps) have to go into checked luggage, along with my laptop, and most of my scuba gear.

I also wear a waist bag while traveling (Thinktank Speed Racer), and I carry the lenses in there, often along with a backup underwater rig (Sony RX100 II inside a Nauticam housing).

I end up with

1. roller bag with most of the D810 gear

2. waist bag with 16-35, 105vr, RX100 in dive rig, some extra lens for above ground (might be 85f1.4), dive computer, all the batteries I need, travel docs, a book to read and a water bottle.

3. 50 pound suitcase holding all my dive gear (BCD, wetsuit, mask, fins, boots, regulator, etc), 36 quart soft-sided cooler for the D810 rig, battery chargers, and not much else.

4. 40+ pound suitcase holding my clothes, sundries, bathroom supplies and more, spare equipment.   Also a scale to weigh the bags when I repack.

When my wife was alive, it was easier as we could share a suitcase for clothes, though combined we had 75 pounds of dive gear.