The new Olympus OM-D E-M1 MKII has been the darling new camera lately, with high reviews from all corners for its improved feature set. The combination of a wide range of superb PRO lenses, fast speed, and incredibly rugged build quality has everyone thinking about this m4/3rds camera as the answer for a smaller, high performance underwater platform.

Komodo National Park lies near Bali, between East & West Nusa Tenggara islands in Indonesia. Our intrepid group of Optical Ocean Sales photographers managed to survive a cold wet season dive expedition there last February on the Damai 1 liveaboard boat and take an amazing array of photos.

We came, we saw, we took photos, and more and more photos of an amazing variety of small underwater critters at Lembeh Straits, Indonesia October, 2017 With 8,000’ deep drop-offs nearby, pumping huge amounts of plankton into the area, it harbors and fosters one of the highest bio-diversities of marine life found anywhere on the planet.

Divers and underwater photographers are being inundated with a dizzying array of new and different lights. Some of these have similar features like a single button for both mode and power, single lith-ion batteries instead of more reliable battery packs and chargers. Most less expensive LED arrays that have hotspots. In other words, buying lights strictly on the basis of lumens for dollars doesn’t always yield the best results.

We just received our first Nauticam NA-6300 housing for the Sony a6300 camera. We noticed quite a few refinements and small additions over their older NA-6000 housing that we thought we’d report on.

The last time I saw the Egyptian Pyramids was 18 years ago. A lot has changed, and a lot hasn’t, having already all ready lasted 5,000 years. One of the things that was new is the lack of tourists, mostly due to misplaced fear.

Congratulations on buying a great underwater compact camera package! We've written these instructions to help you get started.

Ultra-wide fisheye lenses are the preferred wide angle lens underwater due to their close focusing ability, sharp corners and wide field of view. Divers can usually get very close to their subjects with them, filling the frame, eliminating water which makes their photos lack sharpness, color and definition.

But there is a drawback to fisheye lenses; when shooting the straight lines, commonly of a pier or wreck, or models or other similar subjects, optical distortion is introduced.

When I first saw the WWL-1 lens at DEMA, I was intrigued to see if it would work with a less expensive Olympus PEN E-PL7 camera and carbonate PT-EP12 housing that came out a year or so ago. Would the WWL/CMC system be versatile enough to work on a 3rd party housing?

By Margo Cavis

So, after a year of waiting and researching, I finally decided to get the Panasonic GH4 (even though it had already been out for quite some time), since I had started doing more video than photography, but still wanted the option to do both. I also liked the idea of being able to shoot 4K video...

Shortly before heading to the Philippines, customer Tor Trygstad decided to upgrade his Nauticam Sony RX100 compact system to the new, full-frame Sony a7rII MILC in a NA-A7II Nauticam housing. Although he really likes shooting macro, and housing the Zeiss 90mm macro lens was his first lens choice, he was impressed with the new Nauticam WWL-1 “Wet Wide Angle” lens system that works with the Sony 28mm f/2.0 lens.
“It was less expensive and much smaller than housing the Zeiss 16-35mm lens,” Tor said, “and having that ultra-fast Sony f/2.0 lens, coupled with the low-light capabilities of the Sony a7II sealed the deal.”

By Margo Cavis When deciding on a lens for my new Panasonic Lumix GH4 camera body, I chose the Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm f2.8 PRO lens over a Panasonic lens, and I have been extremely happy with my decision. I just recently started shooting Mirrorless and after years of using only high quality Canon lenses, I was a little concerned about finding mirrorless lenses that would measure up. This lens sure does!