Hey all

My setup is Sony A7R V in Isotta housing.

Currently I have only macro setup and I'm looking to buy a wide angel / fisheye setup, mostly for freediving and snorkeling, for use with strobes (2 Supe D-pro).

Would love to hear recommendation :)

What, specifically, are you looking for? Do you have a preference between fisheye and rectilinear wide? Do you need zoom capability? The most common options with A7R series are:

• Fisheye - Canon 8-15mm f/4 on a Metabones or MC-11 adapter, optionally with a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter. This will work with a small dome and give you the widest FoV, but at the cost of fisheye distortion, which may or may not be a plus.

• Rectilinear - Sony 16-35mm or 12-24mm (there are multiple options for either) or, more recently, Tamron 17-28mm. This will keep straight lines straight, but require a larger dome.

• Mid-range zoom - Sony 20-70mm goes fairly wide on the 20mm end, but still gives you good zoom capability for fish portrait shots from a distance.

• Wet optics - Sony 28-60mm in a flat port paired with a Nauticam WWL-1 or Weefine WFL09S.

I do more freediving & snorkeling than scuba and own 2 of the abovementioned solutions: Canon 8-15+MC11+ZEN100 dome and Sony 28-60 + WACP-C.

The Canon + minidome is small but only usable at 15mm under water (haven't tried TC yet). This combination should be fine for many situations if you can get close enough to your subjects.

The 28-60 + WACP-C comes at higher weight, cost and volume but delivers great pictures and is fully zoomable.

Below the manatee pics (in murky water) is taken with 8-15 and the Tigersharks with WACP-C.

Hi Sauther1,

I also have an A7R V in Isotta housing. I also have the Canon 8-15mm, Sony 28-60 +WWL-1B and Sony 20-70mm (and Sony 90mm macro).

Smallest for freediving is the fisheye Canon 8-15 with the small glass fisheye dome port and a small port extension. On its own with a Metabones or Sigma adapter you are using 15mm as a full fisheye (no usable zoom unless you use APS-C mode, which is still a good option if small system size is your priority). Isotta do a zoom gear for this set up.

Next smallest is adding the Kenko 1.4 teleconverter and an extra 20mm port extension to get a nice zoom range. Isotta make a zoom gear for this with the Metabones or Sigma adapter.

Both these are negatively buoyant if you are not using floats on strobe arms but not bad.

Getting larger, the same lens can be used with the 8 inch acrylic port. This is almost neutral in the water with the dome slightly tilting upwards unless you add some weights to the dome shade. The Canon 8-15 plus 1.4 Kenko is what I use for snorkelling with wide angle.

Another good option for wide angle zoom is the H59 B120 port which is made for the Nauticam WWL-1B with it's bayonet mount and the Sony 28-60 lens. . I use the Sigma MC-11 adapter for the Canon 8-15mm which does not have autofocus for video. This can be worked around with fixed focus (see the Backscatter video review on the Sony A7RV) but the Sony 28-60 and WWL-1B would be a better option than an adapted Canon 8-15mm if you are doing video.

There are port converters to switch from Isotta to Nauticam. I don't know if these are usable with the Nauticam dry optics like WACP-C as these will be a few mm extra in extension due to the adapter, but the WWL-1B is supposedly same/similar optical performance to the WACP-C. I can't see the larger Nauticam optics being optimum for freediving!

For rectilinear, I use the Sony 20-70 with the same extension and 8 inch done. Isotta also have a zoom gear for this even though it is not on their website port chart. Although not as wide as other options, those are covered with the zoomable fisheye. This still give a field of view as wide as the old Nikonos 15mm but also does decent larger macro, so it is a versatile option when you don't know what you will find. I also use this with a small arm and small single or double strobe (Inon s2000) for freediving.

Lastly, there are lots of supported wider rectilinear lenses like the Sony 16-35 or Tamron 17-18 which would use the 8 inch dome or larger glass dome (not sure about the inconvenience of a 9 inch dome for freediving...).

These are on the Isotta port chart on their website but they may also have other options for recently released lenses.

If you are freediving UW weight is likely to be important I would think. The Canon 8-15 is a nice solution, however with a small housing and dome it ends up quite heavy UW. I have an OM-1 in Nauticam and use the adapted 8-15 with 140mm dome and it has an UW weight of nearly 1.8kg. I use two Isotta float arms with 670 gr buoyancy each, they are 70mm dia x 220mm, so quite bulky and I'm still 400 gr negative.

The Isotta housings are quite compact, however in certain combinations makes them quite heavy UW. This means large floats if want to get close to neutral.

Hi Chriss,

for the combination with the WACP-C I can add that it is nearly neutral (has an bouyancy collar).

For ZEN minidome an 8-15 I fully agree that it is more negative. I didn't find the negative weight a problem when freediving. For me, it was a weight I could throw off in case I ran out of air and fainted (I'd rather lose my camera than my life, although I'm sure some underwater photographers would see it differently).

In my case the A7IV-Nauticam + 8-15 + Minidome was negative at around 1kg.

Another Fisheye option for Sony is the Sigma 15mm F/2.8 EXDG this image is using the Sigma MC-11 adapter.

If you are more of a rectilinear lens fan the Laowa 10mm F/2.8 might be more your style if you are willing to deal with a 230mm dome port for best results.

The ever changing light from the tonic water of the Santa Fe River over the entrance to Devil's Ear springs, High Springs Florida, USA. Sony A7C II, with Sigma 15mm F/2.8 Fisheye lens, Marelux MX-A7CII/R housing, MX-140mm dome port, two Marelux Apollo S strobes, ISO-320, F/16, 1/160th sec.

Laowa 10mm, second image, same location using a Sony A7R V, Marelux MX-A7RV housing, with two Marelux Apollo S strobes, ISO-640, F/13, 1/100th sec.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Phil Rudin