GEAR TESTS: Aquatica Accessories
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Sean Havas Aquatica Staff  |
This year we brought down our Close-Up Kit which consists of a +5 wet diopter which offers 1.5x super macro and a +10 wet diopter which shoots 2x life size! These are awesome! Being that they are wet diopters you can keep them both in your bc pocket or on our handle caddy and go from shooting 1x to 1.5x to 2x real life size all on a single dive without having to decide before you dive what you feel like shooting. I personally have always found it hard enough to pick between macro and wide angle let alone how macro I want to go. On one particular dive I was shooting gobies with the +10, when an angel fish swam by, no problem, I simply popped it off and was able to shoot a beautiful fish portrait and then pop it back on and go right back to shooting super macro. I really like these.
Even within the world of super macro it can often be difficult to work at 2x the whole time so often times I would work the +5 on a subject getting it comfortable with me and once I had nailed all the shots I liked with that I could take it to the next level and switch to the +10. As far as I am concerned these are absolutely critical pieces in any macro photographers tool kits.
We brought 3 kits down this trip and much like everything else we brought down they were all out all the time. Everyone loved them. It was most people's first go at super macro and it was so amazing to see guests bring them back day after day ranting and raving about the amazing images they had made. Most rewarding of all was to see Judy Bennett take home first place in the Macro category of the competition with an incredible image of a goby made at 2x with our +10 on her first dive with it no less!
AQUATICA MINI DOME
We brought down a few of our mini domes to Bonaire this year and had them going out all the time. This is really an essential piece of kit for any wide angle photographer working in a spot like Bonaire. Most of the best wide shots here are close focus wide angle, and what better way to shoot CFWA than with the Aquatica mini dome. It allows you to get so much closer to your subject thus making it appear much larger and having much more impact on your shots than you could possibly accomplish with a standard dome. It also gives you the ability to get in nice and tight with your strobes to light your subjects more effectively and eliminates the dark spot at the center of your subject which can often be created as a result of your strobe light not being able to makes its way around your big dome. We absolutely love it for this type of diving and so did the guests. A big hit this year as it has always been!
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