Underwater Photography News from DIVE 2016, Part 2: Nauticam
Nauticam are part of the furniture at the Birmingham Dive Show these days and you can be sure to find their stand in the Photozone, next door to BSoUP. You can also be sure that you are going to have to wait in a crowd three-deep as people lust after the Nauticam underwater housings and all the accessories that Alex and Kat from Underwater Visions have to offer. Martin Edge was also to be found at the Nauticam stand, promoting his courses and books. Respected photographers Pash Baker and Rob White were also around to help so there was plenty for the visiting underwater photographer to get excited about.
New from Nauticam for this year’s show were housings for the Canon 5D MKIV and the Panasonic GX85. These new housings have had a make-over with new and typically good-looking styling that also makes these new housings even sleeker, and they have a new smaller vacuum testing system. Nauticam are always bringing out new & innovative products, and the Compact Macro Converter II was proving to be a particularly popular accessory with those that like their critter photography.
Aside from all the lovely Nauticam gear, there were plenty of other products to see on the stand; the Zen Tripod Base, in particular, caught our eye. It has been designed to work with housings large and small, and will provide a stable platform on which to leave you camera for remote or slow-shutter shooting. Alex also showed us the 10 Bar Laser Snoot which has a red LED to guide you on snoot positioning (something I could do with!). The LED turns off when your strobes fire, so it doesn’t ruin the image. These are available for INON strobes and also the Sea & Sea YS-D1/D2. Another snoot accessory was the FIT Multi-Snoot which fits on the end of existing FIT video lights and offers varying sized snoot options by turning the head of this accessory; an inexpensive bit of fun for macro photography.
The final bit of kit we looked at was the FIT Strobe Dome which works on selected INON and Sea&Sea strobes. A clear, air-filled, acrylic dome that will increase your light spread, and also give you a softer light across your image. As you can see, there was a huge amount to look at on the Nauticam stand and we hope to get some of these products underwater in the near future for review.
When he was not busy on his stand, Alex also spoke on the Centre Stage, giving a talk titled “No More Fiddlesticks”. We will cover all the talks from the Photozone in a separate article later this week. The final word from Alex was that he “really enjoyed seeing lots of happy returning customers”.
For more information, visit www.nauticam.co.uk.
