-
Hi @egopfe ,
OK I understand now.
The problem you’re describing is even amplified since you moved to a mirrorless camera: they are better than DSLRs in many ways, but the EVF can lack a little bit of colour contrast, when presented with ambient light only. Lena (my wife) finds it more annoying than me. I found using a custom WB can help when shooting ambient light only (the Z9/Z8 have a setting for the EVF to inherit the custom WB), but that’s not your scenario.
I definitely agree you need a focus light in your scenario, mounted above your housing.
A red light mode will help for shy subjects, although the AF will be slower. For macro, you will still see a monochromatic “scene” in the EVF, so I don’t think it will really help you find your subject, but it will help when it gets very dark, and definitely for night dives.
You can get a focus light with two beam angles, spot and wide, which – depending on the duration of your dives – could replace your hand torch (or keep it as backup).
For macro, I wouldn’t worry about auto shut-off: as long as you don’t have a very slow shutter speed, your strobe(s) will over-power the focus light => not visible on photos.
Lots of character in your grouper portrait by the way, I know how shy these guys are if you’re not in a marine park 🙂