Hey everyone,

Sorry if this post is a duplicate. For my scuba trips, I use a Nauticam housing with the WWL-1b and 28-60 mm with my Sony A7IV, which works well.

Since I live close to Baja, I do many “seafari” trips like Mag Bay or Mobula Ray types of expeditions. With more fast paced action with shallow free diving, I am not enjoying the wet lens setup at all since the air bubbles do not always readily clear.

I would like to have a separate “no wet lens” setup that is more streamlined and conducive for seafaris. I do have a sigma 15mm fisheye lens sitting around. The way I see it is I have the following options:

1. Sigma 15mm with Nauticam 140mm dome

2. WACP-C, it will be bulkier and heavier maybe not as streamlined?

3. Nikonos RS13mm just finding this lens at a reasonable price is difficult, but sounds like an ideal option.

Am I missing anything else? Look forward to hearing about folks experiences, thanks in advance.

Samir

I used A7IV, 28-60 and WACP-C for the Mobulas. It is not the lightest one but other solutions might differ only by let’s say a few hundred grams.

I like it. And you could sell the old port and the WWL.

@fruehaufsteher2 thank you for sharing. Do you find the setup pretty easy to wield in the water? For some big animal encounters, there’s a good deal of surface swimming? Also any issues freediving with it? Thanks.

1 hour ago, Samhp said:

Hey everyone,

Sorry if this post is a duplicate. For my scuba trips, I use a Nauticam housing with the WWL-1b and 28-60 mm with my Sony A7IV, which works well.

Since I live close to Baja, I do many “seafari” trips like Mag Bay or Mobula Ray types of expeditions. With more fast paced action with shallow free diving, I am not enjoying the wet lens setup at all since the air bubbles do not always readily clear.

I would like to have a separate “no wet lens” setup that is more streamlined and conducive for seafaris. I do have a sigma 15mm fisheye lens sitting around. The way I see it is I have the following options:

1. Sigma 15mm with Nauticam 140mm dome

2. WACP-C, it will be bulkier and heavier maybe not as streamlined?

3. Nikonos RS13mm just finding this lens at a reasonable price is difficult, but sounds like an ideal option.

Am I missing anything else? Look forward to hearing about folks experiences, thanks in advance.

Samir

I think you need to consider that the WWL/WACP options are not really interchangable the wider angle of the fisheye makes every thing much smaller in the frame, though your subject may not shrink much due to the barrel distortion. Also you need to watch corners much more closely for stray freedivers, fins etc. Your experience will help with deciding if this is going to be an issue for you.

So the questions to ask is how often you zoom in from maximum view with WWL?

This post compares the field of view of a 14mm rectilinear lens which is close to what you get with a WWL with a fisheye and shows the impact of zooming into a 28mm equivalent lens and a 15mm fisheye with a 2x.

I can see some options.

• get a 140mm dome and use with a fisheye or you could consider the Laowa 10mm

• A WACP which would use your existing lens

• an adapted 8-15 fisheye with a SONY 2x which would completely replace what you have now - one system for Baja freediving and the same system on reefs, but having the advantage of full fisheye on the reefs.

The last option will give a full fisheye for reefs with zoom capability for CFWA. It will be quite heavy UW which may be an issue. There's lots of posts on how this is done on this site and it gives a very flexible setup.

You could probably use an o-ring or gasket to seal bubble-free water between your WWL-1B and port glass. I know people who used an o-ring in this way with the WWL-1 so they could do split shots. Obviously that would only address the bubble issue, not the streamlining issue.

Thank you, this forum is great, you have given me a lot to think about, I will take a closer look at my photos and see how much am I zooming since full fisheye may be too much field of view. Thanks also for the o ring tip never thought of that.

Aside from port and lens issues, if your budget can stretch to a new camera and housing, the Nauticam housing for A7CR is 1924g and A7RV is 2806g, as measured on my kitchen scales. There is a further approx 200g saving in the camera bodies.

AF performance of the two is identical, although the A7RV housing rig has a few ergonomic advantages, such as placement of the playback button, plus a joystick control, and a few more custom buttons. Design is clamshell vs removable back.

5 hours ago, Samhp said:

@fruehaufsteher2 thank you for sharing. Do you find the setup pretty easy to wield in the water? For some big animal encounters, there’s a good deal of surface swimming? Also any issues freediving with it? Thanks.

I do more freediving than scuba and really like the setup. It has a slightly negative buoyancy which I think is good. Being able to use the full zoom range helps very much.

I do own the 8-15 with zen 100 minidome in parallel but I don’t think I will use that very often. https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/2372-fisheye-options-for-sony-ff/#findComment-15915

Edited May 31May 31 by fruehaufsteher2

Regarding your question about swimming: that’s exactly what I’m using it for. Sperm whales and Humpbacks, dolphins, sharks. A GoPro is smaller but the WACP-C combination is a no-brainer with really good IQ

if you can live with tighter wide angle then 20-70 in 180mm produces stellar results and the setup is very light

Could also go with the 16-35 and 180mm dome, though I haven't seen any testing on the combo with that dome vs the larger dome. I'm curious about it for the same reasons you have. I free dive a lot and the smaller dome is tempting (as is the above mentioned a7cR and its smaller housing).