How Much Experience Have We Had?

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

I'm curious about this, and of course bored during stay-at-home time. I'm wondering how much dive and photography experience the others on here have? Also wondering how everyone's photographic endeavors have evolved or improved over time, perhaps with certain equipment.

Great tread Chraig. Thank you for showing these lovely pictures, I enjoyed the picture from you and your sister a lot!

Here is my story, just skip it, when it is too lengthy (I warn you...):

I am roughly your age (born 56). I was a wildly determined snorkeler since I can remember (30m+; I was even spear-hunting with hand spear !), but could effort scubadiving only after my promotion (I am a biologist). In 1981 I made my CMAS/TSVÖ ** certificate with my first self earned money. Much later, in 1998, I made the CMAS/TSVÖ *** brevet (similar to PADI divemaster) - the reason was that I organized excursions with my students on marine toxines and I felt it would be good to have the appropriate certification as a divemaster, just to make the diving saver. I was introduced into photography early by my grandpa, who donated a big film camera to me, when I was a child (the film was so big, that one could make contact positives from the negatives in my first darkroom). My first experience of making pictures under the water started in 1995 when I decided to make UW videos and aquired a Sony VX1000 in Sealux housing with two video lights (I stopped this around 2000).

Until 2003, when I met my second wife, I did not have an extremely high number of dives, relative to the time span (approx. 400), since my favorite time spending was white water kajaking, what I practiced almost every free hour and scuba diving was second. My second wife was so fascinated by scuba diving, that the focus shifted completely to diving (she did not like the turbulent white waters; currently I have 1143 dives logged). She is a serious photographer and started UW photography (First Lumix TZ5, followed by Oly EPL5 in Oly housing) soon after her certification. I started UW photography after surviving a severe cancer illness in 2017 (while undergoing chemo and waiting for the next surgery I thought to myself that life is too short to make the divermaster and illuminator for my wife and not to invest a fortune in good UW camera equipment ) with Oly EM5II in Nauticam housing. After my wife flooded her EPL5 in 2019, I had a good excuse to buy an EM1II with Nauticam for me and give her my old EM5II...

I am quite happy with the MFT format. My favorite WA solution is the Canon 8-15mm fisheye adapted with Metabones 1x adapter using Nauticam 140mm domeport, providing diagonal angles of view of 180 (8mm) - 85 (15mm) degrees. The optical quality is so brilliant, that I am reluctant to switch to a larger sensor, since there is no optical solution available for the big sensor, that comes close (eventually these super-expensive and super-heavy WAPC's from Nauticam come close). My standard Macro is the native Zuiko 60mm Macro lens (eventually, but seldom, with additional CMC-1 diopter), which is also outstanding in its IQ (similar to 120mm Macro on FF). Sometimes, but by far less often, I take the Pana 45mm Macro (especially when my wife is claiming the 60mm, that belongs to her, for herself). My favorite fish portrait combination is the native Zuiko 12-40mm behind Zen DP170.

I am very satisfied with MFT, the camera/lens/port combinations I listed above give brilliant IQ. Only sometimes I would wish more dynamic range (sunballs or bellies of fish (barracudas!) fading out), sharper images with more Megapixels for cropping and 14 bit resolution for better postprocessing. The optical WA options with FF, however, are scaring me a little. I plan to switch to a FF system in the future (In 2022, when I will retire; in my case it will be Canon, as I already have several lenses), but it is well possible that I will regret this experiment and come back to MFT (I need to convince myself personally, that I do not miss much, but who knows what the outcome will be at the end)...

All the best, Wolfgang