Marelux housing experiences?

[jlaity]

I’m considering a Marelux housing for Canon R5 but I’m finding very little online as far as reviews. Does anyone gave experience with these, especially coming from Nauticam? The housing design seems to be inspired by Nauticam, putting it kindly. 
 

How difficult is it to adapt Nauti ports to work with the 20mm extension/adaptor? Do the Nauti viewfinders work? How is the optical strobe trigger? 
 

Thanks. 

[Kate]

Hi there!

 

Before you read on: Full disclosure - I am a Marelux Senior Ambassador.

 

I have a Marelux housing with the Canon R5 but did not come from Nauticam, rather from Isotta. 

 

The Nauticam viewfinder is not compatible (I was using the Nauti with my Isotta housing), so I had to get a Marelux viewfinder.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. I will happily give you unbiased feedback at all times 😄

 

Kate

[JayceeB]

I have been shooting an R5 in a Marelux housing since May 2022. 

I owned 3 Nauticam housings before that (RX100 IV, Olympus OM-D EM1 II, Sony A7C)

The strobe trigger works well.  I ran with that trigger for nearly 2 years, then switched to UW Technics for HSS.

[jlaity]

I heard back from Marelux sales department that Nauticam (and Inon, etc?) eyepieces are not supported. Also Nauticam ports are supported with a 20mm extension, but that makes it incompatible with a fisheye lens. Since I would need to replace 3k+ of glass, I guess I’ll keep saving and searching. 

[Chris Ross]

18 minutes ago, jlaity said:

I heard back from Marelux sales department that Nauticam (and Inon, etc?) eyepieces are not supported. Also Nauticam ports are supported with a 20mm extension, but that makes it incompatible with a fisheye lens. Since I would need to replace 3k+ of glass, I guess I’ll keep saving and searching. 

If you are trying to minimise expense you could look at Isotta housings.  They use the S&S port system which are directly adaptable from Nauticam N120 ports and use the same extensions I believe, it involves changing the Nauticam lug ring to a S&S lug ring.  You can do this for any Nauticam port with the lug ring attached by screws - it won't work for example on a port where the lug is machined.  I seem to recall you can use INON viewfinders and perhaps Nauticam with an adapter.  You would need new zoom rings I believe. You could email them an inquiry asking about what would be needed to use your existing lenses/ports and viewfinders.  You may need an extension ring to accommodate the EF-RF converter if you are wanting to use your existing EF lenses.

[ColdDarkDiver]

On 9/16/2024 at 10:37 AM, jlaity said:

but that makes it incompatible with a fisheye lens.

Is that because you are trying to use the 8-15 and in the end you would need 35mm of extension with a 20mm nauticam and the 15mm minimum Marelux extension - so 5mm over?  

 

I also have been using the Marelux R5 housing for a couple years.  I have been very happy with everything I have gotten from Marelux.  I have used Nauticam housings but not their mirorless or dSLR only a couple of iterations of Point and Shoot. I don't see a difference in quality between the two companies.  I like the Nauticam wet optics, but you can use most if not all of those on Marelux housings.

 

I haven't changed the batteries in my optical trigger after 2 years... it is the most reliable one I have ever used and is nice and bright - fires strobes wonderfully.    

 

That is too bad about the viewfinder as that is some significant investment to have to swap away from.  Good luck finding the right housing brand.

 

 

[Phil Rudin]

On 9/16/2024 at 1:37 PM, jlaity said:

I heard back from Marelux sales department that Nauticam (and Inon, etc?) eyepieces are not supported. Also Nauticam ports are supported with a 20mm extension, but that makes it incompatible with a fisheye lens. Since I would need to replace 3k+ of glass, I guess I’ll keep saving and searching. 

Marelux offers two types of optical viewfinders, 45 degree for EVF and 180 for LCD, also Inon Viewfinders are supported with an adapter which can be had a Fun-In. Also when I transitioned to Marelux I used Nauticam 140and Zen 230 for NA dome ports for a verity of lenses including Canon 8-15mm, WACP-1 and WACP-C with the Marelux N100 to MX 17mm adapter. I used both NA and MX extensions based on the recommendations on the Marelux port charts for your camera choice.  Zoom gears are not compatible and macro ports may need to be for MX. I have also used the WWL-1B with the MX 32 port.