Nauticam Type 2 extension ring mini review

[Chris Ross]

Nauticam has made changes to their extension rings introducing the type 2 version recently.  I recently purchased a 35mm N120 ring (22135) from Scubapix, the Australian Nauticam importer for to use with my newly acquired Canon 8-15 plus Metabones for my OM-1.

 

The main difference compared to the original version is the locking mechanism.  The old version required you to swing out the locking pin, line up the ring push it in and turn.  Then the locking pin was swung back in.

The Type 2 has a an external lever that swings out to turn the internal lug ring to lock the port.  See the photo below:

 

 

The lever requires you to press the grey button before it will unlock with the red button, when you open the lever it turns the internal lug ring, quite similar to the locking mechanism for ports on the Nauticam housings.  The port is mounted to the ring lining up the two circles and pressed in then the locking lever is closed, no need to turn the port.  See the lever in the unlocked position below:

 

The locking ring rides on three ball bearing internally and slides quite freely, you can see part of the mechanism in the photo below:

 

 

The ring comes with a soft storage bag, spare o-ring and tube of lube.  The other difference is that all of this mechanism sits tucked away and doesn't intrude into the ID of the ring.  The minimum ID of the ring is set by the ID of the lug ring which is 110mm, so maximising the size of lens that could be accommodated.  The type 2 mechanism is only found on the N120 rings.  The N100 and N85 rings have not changed.

That's it not much more to say about an extension ring.  Nothing there to make you want to upgrade unless you want to use a lens with a large OD.  Probably the only lens right now that would benefit from the large ID is the Canon 11-24.