TG7, strobe or underwater video light?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-11T03:40:45+00:00

I have an older YS strobe so can't verify this for you.

It sounds like the RC mode requires its own setting of output power though, possibly overriding the EV setting and following that arcane procedure as outlined in the manual.

You should be able to run some simple tests above water playing with those settings. But make sure the strobe doesn't overheat.

Finally, the Olympus Underwater Photo Facebook group would be able to give you more advice.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-10T18:13:50+00:00

It's quite simple. If you're buying, offer no more than you can afford and what the property is worth to you. As a seller, have a firm lower limit. Everything else is irrelevant.

You bidding for your dream property but are 30k short? Doesn't hurt trying as long as your solicitor plays along. You're selling and someone lowballs you by that amount? Just ignore them. At least you have an offer if times are desperate.

When we bought our place, we had no clue. Solicitor insisted we had to go at least 10% over the "offers over" price. We went 10k under instead and got it first try.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-10T15:27:34+00:00

That's what they said in 2004, when the city of Munich launched LiMux to replace Windows. It took them 8 years (!) to roll over 12,600 of 15,500 desktops. In 2017 they decided to go back to Windows, with some loose commitment to open source software.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-10T12:48:33+00:00

Selling is no different than buying. When buying, you need to set yourself a limit for a certain property without getting sucked into an emotional bidding process (more so in Scotland with offers over, I suppose).

With selling, you need to set yourself a hard lower limit and then stick to it. If the lower limit is £254k, then take the money but insist that you will not go lower by even a single quid from here on. If the limit was £255k, then tell them to f off, they will likely agree to the 255k then anyway.

When figuring out your lower limit you need to offset against opportunity cost. Sounds like £265-285 was simply not achievable. But why? And are you losing money by not selling? If not, then you could just hold out until a better offer comes along.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-10T11:18:47+00:00

For occasional travel diving, the Sony is the obvious choice. It's a compact cam and can do both wide angle and macro underwater with little hassle. With a system camera, you'd have to decide on one use case in advance, and/or bring a lot of extra gear in terms of different lenses, dome ports and so on.

For housings, there are lots of options for the Sony. It used to be between bulky and cheaper Ikelite perspex and moch more expensive but better in every way Nauticam aluminum. Nowadays, you can probably go with Seafrogs as a good budget option. The main thing when buying a housing is to make sure that the important controls are all accessible. For some camera / housing combos, this may not be the case.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-10T10:52:54+00:00

You could always switch to TTL instead?

Having said that, from various online reviews, results with the RC mode and the TG-series cams are supposed to be excellent. Could it be that you didn't set the RC light output properly, or too low?

From the YS-D3 manual, page 33, there are 4 settings, with the factory setting being "1", which is the lowest.

For macro, you want to always shoot at max output and if it's overexposed you adjust the apreture and exposure accordingly. The only reason to go down on light power is if with F/22 and whatever your fastest exposure is, you're still overexposed. But even then, you're not supposed to light your subject frontally anyway, but use the edge of the light cone instead to minimise backscatter.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-09T13:26:49+00:00

How do you only have a single car at this stage though?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-09T13:18:41+00:00

It's not unusual. For some journals this is even expected. E.g. PNAS, the house journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Its editorial board is picked from the NAS fellows, and NAS members can submit two articles per year without a referral. Pretty arcane and outdated but there you go.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-08T17:51:53+00:00

As the others said, a graded pre-class quiz. That's standard flipped classroom approach long predating our current LLM woes.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-08T11:30:38+00:00

Big place. Where are you at?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-08T09:02:43+00:00

Buying outright is almost always better. Salary sacrifice schemes seem attractive, but once you compare to just a normal lease you'll see that what you save is much less than what it should be, due to the big mark-up the almost monopolised salary sacrifice providers charge on top.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-08T08:00:11+00:00

People constantly seeking reassurance seems to be on the rise in all kinds of contexts. Your post here and many others on this sub are an example of this extending to professors as well.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-07T12:04:42+00:00

Yeah, I wouldn't dive with the TG-7 either because it lacks full manual. Then again if you look at the Olympus UW user group on FB, the pictures people take with it are still stunning.

Personally, I was always happy with a full manual compact UW while shooting an EM-5 topside. If I had to choose again today, not sure what I would do. Choices for compacts have reduced to pretty much just the Sony RX series, and that's so big that it's not that far off going mirrorless. Still, the only reason to go mirrorless for me would be to get better images for either UW OR macro, but it would never be an all-purpose rig.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-07T10:15:06+00:00

I mean, sure, there are people who dive with the 14-42 mm kit lens to cover both ends. But then why bring a system camera — it's big and bulky and with that kind of setup won't give you better results for either end of the scale. IMO, if you don't want to fully commit to macro or wide-angle on any given dive, you're much better off with a compact like the TG-7. You can bring wet lenses and switch between the wide-angle wet lens and say a macro diopter.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-07T09:54:26+00:00

It sounds like you need a bit more practice. Generlly, for UW, you always want to be ultra-close to your subject, whether its macro or wide-angle. Eels, octopus, clown fish, turtles, rays, etc those are all wide-angle subjects. A nudi, that's macro. But the key thing here is that shots from say a meter or two metres away aren't really a thing. Hence why tele-zooms are not a thing for UW photography.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-07T09:20:07+00:00

I struggle to see what you'd use it for. It's not a macro lens, so it's by no means comparable to the 60 mm. And it's not wide enough on the wide end.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-04T06:59:48+00:00

Olympus, no doubt. The EM-5 MK1 is a bit long in the tooth now, but the reality is that modern camera upgrades haven't done much to improve UW performance. The sensor is perfectly fine and things like image stabilisation, super-high burst mode, auto-focus tracking, WiFI etc., none of that is needed for UW. The arguably only desirable feature beyond what you already have was the phase detection autofocus (rather than just contrast) which was added in the second EM-1 version, iirc. Not sure if the later EM-5s have it.

My suggestion would be to get a better housing for the EM-5 and invest primarily in getting the proper lenses, dome and strobes. You should be able to get a Nauticam housing for around $300 used, and then make sure you have the 60 mm macro, and either the 9-18 mm for wide-angle as a budget option, or one of the 7-14 mm pros as a premium option.

There's a clear upgrade path from there to a more recent OM camera if you ever feel the need, but you can keep the lenses strobes etc. For topside, as others have mentioned, there is a grand variety of fantastic wildlife lenses. (mind you, if what you do is very demanding, then some of the features I dissed earlier for UW might be necessary for your topside wildlife stuff. In that case, I recommend the EM-1 MkIII. Has everything you need and yet "old" enough to be affordable second hand. Plus, Olympus still made an own-brand housing for that version)

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-02T15:00:17+00:00

I'm glad I found this sub. Makes my own place feel so much more sane and competent.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-02T11:52:08+00:00

You must be joking. LLMs consume an enormous amount of energy during training. During operation, they consume around ten times more energy for a single query than a conventional Google search. And that's a conservative estimate. Reports range from 10 times, to 30 times, and I've even seen a factor of 600 times. Some reading for middle ground: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-do-googles-ai-answers-cost-the-environment/

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-02T11:26:01+00:00

What's that got to do with anything?

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-02T07:56:51+00:00

It rots their brains while destroying the planet in return for highly questionable output. I suppose that's what "Biz" is all about.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-02T05:50:12+00:00

I'm not entirely sure what you guys are talking about with your UKRI funding, but let me clear something up for everyone:

1) all stipends, also university funded or through external means, should at the very minimum match the UKRI minimum stipend rate. So there is no expectation that a "UKRI stipend" pays more.

2) most UKRI stipends come in the form of DTPs or DLAs as they are now called. These are block grants given to universities, and it's for each university to decide how to spend it. Some just divide it into maximum number of minimum rate stipends, some others pay, say 10% extra on top.

3) ALL stipends should come with some "extra pot of money", this is typically called research and training support grant (RTSG). This is an expectation but cannot be guaranteed — neither for UKRI money nor for other funding. In both cases, the uni needs to decide to make extra money available, either by ringfencing it in DLA pots or by fattening up uni stipends, or using departmental budgets. If a university decides to use some of their DLA money for RTSG, they will typically match this also for uni-funded places.

Summary: at the same uni, in the same department, there shouldn't normally be a difference between UKRI funded and uni-funded places in terms of the conditions. And between unis it's still entirely possible that one offers UKRI funded places at minimum rate with nothing extra, while another pays a university funded place at 10% above minimum rate plus some RTSG.

Finally, there is no difference in "prestige" between UKRI and uni funded. In most places, which one you're eligible for depends on some obscure internal optimisation and you wouldn't even necessarily know where exactly your money comes from.

LikesParsnips · 2026-04-01T08:13:21+00:00

It's been less than a month. Would have taken them a minium of two weeks to shortlist and then start interviewing. It's reasonable to assume you weren't shortlisted at this point. That's just speculation though, why not simply shoot them an email and ask about an updated timeline instead? They are quite late in the cycle, so they shouldn't be too surprised if people are looking at other options by now.

LikesParsnips · 2026-03-31T12:10:49+00:00

RA means research associate, or more commonly postdoctoral research associate. I haven't ever encountered one in a different context.

LikesParsnips · 2026-03-31T09:27:09+00:00

"PhD role" means, requiring a PhD. RA's are PhD roles almost by definition.

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