Excellent overview article above. In my experience, min focal distance more like 18" but the conundrum remains. To get good color you need good light, to have good light you need to be close, and to be real close you need a macro lens. But you can get decent shots shooting in the 18-30" range.
It's all about light. Filters always reduce total amount of light reaching the sensor so they don't work well in very deep or low light situations. However, filters will give you the best out-of-the-camera color when post-processing is not desired.
Suptig. If you're talking about the rectangular arrays of 48-84 mini-leds, I bought a couple. Sounded perfect. Super cheap, lightweight, easy to operate, and bright. They were all that except... waterproof. They didn't outright flood but I suspect had condensation buildup issues. They would work great for 20 minutes then go haywire, either refusing to turn off or on, or cycling through modes on their own. A few days drying out and they worked fine on land again, back in the water and same thing. Got my money back. So so so close.
