Hi! 

I am looking for help in recommendations an deciding how to go about upgrading my camera setup. I have tried reading forums, videos, asking chatgpt, reddit, etc. Just getting harder to decide on stuff. 

So I am wanting to upgrade my camera setup and want to plan for the underwater part of it. I love taking photos of a lot of different things when I travel and am now upgrading everything. 

So at the moment I have a Sony rx100v with a Fantasea housing, a ys-01strobe, a saga 10+ diopter and an ikelite w30 converter. 

I am planning to upgrade to a Sony a7cii. One of the most important things is portability and flexibility underwater, I would like to be able to shoot wide, but my favorite things to shoot are macro. I understand that many compromises have to be made. 

I am looking at the a7cii and looking at the ikelite DLM housing. Both because of portability. 

Above water looking at the sony 14mm 1,8 for landscape and astro, also looks like it will work with the ikelite if i ever want to do that. Maybe the 25-200 tamron as an all-rounder. 

I was thinking if it would be a good alternative to use the sony 50mm macro and use the wet lenses I already have for better macro and in case some more wide is wanted. Both of those lenses are relatively small and light, also I would not need to buy new wet lenses (nauticams wet lenses are very expensive). 

Is that a really stupid idea? Would the quality with that mean that I'm not even upgrading from the rx100? 

I understand that the best is a wide lens with a big dome and the 100mm macro sony for best quality (accepting that I would lose one or the other on the dives, but it's hard to do that) with nauticams bells and whistles but it is quite expensive and above all heavy for traveling.

Am I asking for too much and should be more realistic or is it an okay idea? 

 

Thanks for all advice I can get! 

1 hour ago, Castillo said:

Hi! 

I am looking for help in recommendations an deciding how to go about upgrading my camera setup. I have tried reading forums, videos, asking chatgpt, reddit, etc. Just getting harder to decide on stuff. 

So I am wanting to upgrade my camera setup and want to plan for the underwater part of it. I love taking photos of a lot of different things when I travel and am now upgrading everything. 

So at the moment I have a Sony rx100v with a Fantasea housing, a ys-01strobe, a saga 10+ diopter and an ikelite w30 converter. 

I am planning to upgrade to a Sony a7cii. One of the most important things is portability and flexibility underwater, I would like to be able to shoot wide, but my favorite things to shoot are macro. I understand that many compromises have to be made. 

I am looking at the a7cii and looking at the ikelite DLM housing. Both because of portability. 

Above water looking at the sony 14mm 1,8 for landscape and astro, also looks like it will work with the ikelite if i ever want to do that. Maybe the 25-200 tamron as an all-rounder. 

I was thinking if it would be a good alternative to use the sony 50mm macro and use the wet lenses I already have for better macro and in case some more wide is wanted. Both of those lenses are relatively small and light, also I would not need to buy new wet lenses (nauticams wet lenses are very expensive). 

Is that a really stupid idea? Would the quality with that mean that I'm not even upgrading from the rx100? 

I understand that the best is a wide lens with a big dome and the 100mm macro sony for best quality (accepting that I would lose one or the other on the dives, but it's hard to do that) with nauticams bells and whistles but it is quite expensive and above all heavy for traveling.

Am I asking for too much and should be more realistic or is it an okay idea? 

 

Thanks for all advice I can get! 

Quite a few things to consider, first thing to think about is the budget you have in mind. Secondly the camera body may be small but full frame lenses are large and expensive and the ports to house them are larger and more expensive. Then there is the matter of ports, wide angle rectilinear lenses demand large ports. You mention the 14mm f2.8 lens, in Ikelite their basic recommendation is to use it in a 6"port which seems a bit on the small side for a 14mm lens and the corners will likely be soft. Ikelite also mentions that the DLM port system used with the A7C II housing can't use the larger lenses that other Sony cameras can in their system. 14mm rectilinears are not that popular UW and fisheyes and wet optics like the WWL are used much more often. Fisheyes are very useful UW as there are few straight lines except perhaps wrecks and for the most part you could never tell a fisheye was used.

To demonstrate the size difference here is a a comparison of the A7CII with 90mm macro and an OM system OM5 with a 45mm lens, they both have the same reach and both achieve 1:1, however the whole package is a lot smaller with the m43 macro lens which will also fill the frame with an object half the size of the full frame lens and arguably you wouldn't need wet lenses:

https://cameradecision.com/size-comparison/7en0_idfy-FtDC_KsMO-t

For wide angle UW I'd suggest considering a fisheye. For Sony that means a converted Canon 8-15 fisheye, while for m43 you could use either the Panasonic or Olympus fisheye, which has a number of advantages, besides being small and light it works very well in a 4"dome for reef scenics and CFWA and will focus right down to the dome surface. Here's a photo of an EM-5MkII with a Panasonic fisheye lens attached:

The EM-5 II is the same size as the current OM system OM-5.

So the summary is that camera body size is a very small part of the overall weight and bulk for travel of an UW system, the lens size, weight and price is much lower with m43 equipment and the ports to house them are significantly smaller. The sensors in m43 are a good step up in quality compared to the RX100. Don't get me wrong a number of people are happy using the A7C cameras, but they don't provide the compactness you'd expect based upon their camera body size.

On the 50mm macro, you could achieve 1:1 magnification with that lens. The wet lens diopters you have work by allowing you to focus closer, however the Sony 50mm extends to focus close making it less suitable for diopters and the working distance at 1:1 magnification is only 18mm from the front element, so likely about 10-12mm from the port glass. adding a diopter won't allow you to focus any closer. In fact with 18mm working distance, lighting something at 1:1 magnification will prove challenging due to shadowing from the port.

Indeed. Couple of years ago when I upgraded, I was also comparing the A7C series with the A7 IV. Finally, a post here (it might have been Phil Rudin?) compared the weight of these systems rigged with Nauticams, and the difference was not significant.

So I ended up with the A7 IV. My deciding factors were: A7C - lighter and easier for top side (like hiking), vs. A7 IV - better viewfinder.

Kind regards,

Ajay

@Castillo

You've already received input on the camera, I'll leave that alone.

Re; macro lens...if you are shooting Sony, the 50mm lens is going to leave you disappointed. My daughter has been shooting with the 90mm for years (A7III, A7RIV, A7RV) - the AF is just slow, and it's faster than the 50mm.

The 100mm is waaaaayyyy better. Several posts have already confirmed this in the field (including @Alex_Mustard who mentioned it might be the best macro lens currently on the market).

The 50mm is smaller, but that's it. Not worth it...

Edited yesterday at 05:06 AM1 day by OneYellowTang

The 50mm Sony macro is very sluggish, and you probably would be disappointed in performance.

Your options are:

100mm, great lens but expensive

90mm, still a great lens and can be picked up cheap on second hand market now

60mm Nikon with Monster adapter, could be an option, I have had pretty good performance on A7RV

5 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Quite a few things to consider, first thing to think about is the budget you have in mind. Secondly the camera body may be small but full frame lenses are large and expensive and the ports to house them are larger and more expensive. Then there is the matter of ports, wide angle rectilinear lenses demand large ports. You mention the 14mm f2.8 lens, in Ikelite their basic recommendation is to use it in a 6"port which seems a bit on the small side for a 14mm lens and the corners will likely be soft. Ikelite also mentions that the DLM port system used with the A7C II housing can't use the larger lenses that other Sony cameras can in their system. 14mm rectilinears are not that popular UW and fisheyes and wet optics like the WWL are used much more often. Fisheyes are very useful UW as there are few straight lines except perhaps wrecks and for the most part you could never tell a fisheye was used.

To demonstrate the size difference here is a a comparison of the A7CII with 90mm macro and an OM system OM5 with a 45mm lens, they both have the same reach and both achieve 1:1, however the whole package is a lot smaller with the m43 macro lens which will also fill the frame with an object half the size of the full frame lens and arguably you wouldn't need wet lenses:

https://cameradecision.com/size-comparison/7en0_idfy-FtDC_KsMO-t

For wide angle UW I'd suggest considering a fisheye. For Sony that means a converted Canon 8-15 fisheye, while for m43 you could use either the Panasonic or Olympus fisheye, which has a number of advantages, besides being small and light it works very well in a 4"dome for reef scenics and CFWA and will focus right down to the dome surface. Here's a photo of an EM-5MkII with a Panasonic fisheye lens attached:

The EM-5 II is the same size as the current OM system OM-5.

So the summary is that camera body size is a very small part of the overall weight and bulk for travel of an UW system, the lens size, weight and price is much lower with m43 equipment and the ports to house them are significantly smaller. The sensors in m43 are a good step up in quality compared to the RX100. Don't get me wrong a number of people are happy using the A7C cameras, but they don't provide the compactness you'd expect based upon their camera body size.

On the 50mm macro, you could achieve 1:1 magnification with that lens. The wet lens diopters you have work by allowing you to focus closer, however the Sony 50mm extends to focus close making it less suitable for diopters and the working distance at 1:1 magnification is only 18mm from the front element, so likely about 10-12mm from the port glass. adding a diopter won't allow you to focus any closer. In fact with 18mm working distance, lighting something at 1:1 magnification will prove challenging due to shadowing from the port.

Thank you for your very thorough reply with pictures I really appreciate it!

I understand a bit about the wide angles and the fisheye. My reasoning fpr the 14mm sony is because I shoot mostly when I travel. My trips consist of 1/4 to 1/2 diving and the rest hiking, city streets and such. Thats why the 14mm is a good option for astro/landscape, that I could potentially also use while diving. So not the best at diving but the best at other stuff and a bit of flexibility in the future. The A7cii also as my primary option for the same reasons.

Its about weight but also volume. I looked at the ikelite DLM because of the reduced volume and weight. Considering that i have to pack for other things tthan diving, often different climates on the same trip as well. I looked at tge port charts and that is why I was looking at the 50mm as well.

I had not understood about the focus distance and front element of the 50mm that is a shame for the wet diopter I already own. How about the wide wet lens would that work?

I am atm used to the flexibility of changing lenses underwater, like going on a manta dive without any mantas but finding a very cool nudi and being able to still have some good pictures has been great.

Is a setup with ikelite DLM and wet lenses for macro and evetually wide possible?

Any other lenses I may be missing for this purpose?

This is very tough 😅

4 hours ago, OneYellowTang said:

@Castillo

You've already received input on the camera, I'll leave that alone.

Re; macro lens...if you are shooting Sony, the 50mm lens is going to leave you disappointed. My daughter has been shooting with the 90mm for years (A7III, A7RIV, A7RV) - the AF is just slow, and it's faster than the 50mm.

The 100mm is waaaaayyyy better. Several posts have already confirmed this in the field (including @Alex_Mustard who mentioned it might be the best macro lens currently on the market).

The 50mm is smaller, but that's it. Not worth it...

I read the the AF on the 90mm got much better with the newer cameras, was that the same with the 50mm or is it as bad as before. And is it worse than the af on the rx100 for example? Wouldn't the AI AF on the sony compensate?

33 minutes ago, Castillo said:

I read the the AF on the 90mm got much better with the newer cameras, was that the same with the 50mm or is it as bad as before. And is it worse than the af on the rx100 for example? Wouldn't the AI AF on the sony compensate?

You shall not expect too much with 50mm even with latest camera body😂 But it really depends on your faviorite: super macro, blackwater, or just some critters in slow move and big like a thumb.

4 hours ago, Castillo said:

Thank you for your very thorough reply with pictures I really appreciate it!

I understand a bit about the wide angles and the fisheye. My reasoning fpr the 14mm sony is because I shoot mostly when I travel. My trips consist of 1/4 to 1/2 diving and the rest hiking, city streets and such. Thats why the 14mm is a good option for astro/landscape, that I could potentially also use while diving. So not the best at diving but the best at other stuff and a bit of flexibility in the future. The A7cii also as my primary option for the same reasons.

Its about weight but also volume. I looked at the ikelite DLM because of the reduced volume and weight. Considering that i have to pack for other things tthan diving, often different climates on the same trip as well. I looked at tge port charts and that is why I was looking at the 50mm as well.

I had not understood about the focus distance and front element of the 50mm that is a shame for the wet diopter I already own. How about the wide wet lens would that work?

I am atm used to the flexibility of changing lenses underwater, like going on a manta dive without any mantas but finding a very cool nudi and being able to still have some good pictures has been great.

Is a setup with ikelite DLM and wet lenses for macro and evetually wide possible?

Any other lenses I may be missing for this purpose?

This is very tough 😅

regarding the macro you can fill the frame with a 1:1 macro lens be it the 90mm or 50mm with a smaller subject than you can do with the RX-100V and your +10. The Rx with +10 diopter gets about 0.7x while you get 1x magnification. So you don't actually need the diopter till you want to go to significantly smaller subjects.

The ikelite does things differently the ports will get your lenses UW, but may have certain compromises with a lot of lenses. On the subject of wet lenses it's a bit different to the RX100 and the way it works, Macro with a proper macro lens is "better" than sticking on a wet lens. The wet lenses only focus in a certain range, but with a macro lens you focus all the way from infinity max magnification. But having do everything doesn't really work with bigger cameras, but it's better at both macro and wide than a camera you need to use with wet lenses. Something that goes close is something like a wet wide lens which goes from about as wide as a 14mm lens through to about at 35mm lens which focuses up to glass and can fill the frame with subjects around 50-100mm in size for CFWA.

It's nice if you can use the same setup above and below water, but it may be limiting, but if you are talking about space and volume savings then the small m43 lenses tick all the boxes. as the lenses and their ports are all smaller and the range suitable for UW is quite complete. The only thing maybe slightly lacking is for astro, but I've been reasonably happy using my setup for fixed tripod work. I went with Olympus UW and was using Canon above, but I basically shifted everything across, long lenses for birds, wide angle landscape, land based macro and the Canon gear hardly gets a look in these days,

1 hour ago, Chris Ross said:

regarding the macro you can fill the frame with a 1:1 macro lens be it the 90mm or 50mm with a smaller subject than you can do with the RX-100V and your +10. The Rx with +10 diopter gets about 0.7x while you get 1x magnification. So you don't actually need the diopter till you want to go to significantly smaller subjects.

The ikelite does things differently the ports will get your lenses UW, but may have certain compromises with a lot of lenses. On the subject of wet lenses it's a bit different to the RX100 and the way it works, Macro with a proper macro lens is "better" than sticking on a wet lens. The wet lenses only focus in a certain range, but with a macro lens you focus all the way from infinity max magnification. But having do everything doesn't really work with bigger cameras, but it's better at both macro and wide than a camera you need to use with wet lenses. Something that goes close is something like a wet wide lens which goes from about as wide as a 14mm lens through to about at 35mm lens which focuses up to glass and can fill the frame with subjects around 50-100mm in size for CFWA.

It's nice if you can use the same setup above and below water, but it may be limiting, but if you are talking about space and volume savings then the small m43 lenses tick all the boxes. as the lenses and their ports are all smaller and the range suitable for UW is quite complete. The only thing maybe slightly lacking is for astro, but I've been reasonably happy using my setup for fixed tripod work. I went with Olympus UW and was using Canon above, but I basically shifted everything across, long lenses for birds, wide angle landscape, land based macro and the Canon gear hardly gets a look in these days,

Thanks again!

Am I understanding you correctly that both the 90mm and 50mm will do better at macro than what I currently have either way? Because that al least would be encouraging. As said I am aware that flexibility requires a lot of compromises but would be silly to spend a lot of money on housings and end up with worse pictures.

I did not quite get what ypu meant with ikelite and UW, what do they do differently, do you mean wide wet lenses are not compatible with their falt ports?

"Something that goes close is something like a wet wide lens which goes from about as wide as a 14mm lens through to about at 35mm lens which focuses up to glass and can fill the frame with subjects around 50-100mm in size for CFWA." what did you mean here, close like getting to a subject or close to what I want in terms of flexibility?

It sounds like your traveling kit will get larger!

I would think that if your underwater photography is only one-quarter to one-half of your photos, you might stick with the one inch compact and use wet lenses. Not ideal for macro, but portable.

Trying to house the 14mm will create its own nightmares. But I get the desire to streamline things, but again, it leads to different problems.

For travel, if you do go with another kit, I think the Sony kit lens - 28-60mm - with a wet wide lens is a good way to go. You might be able to use the same port with an extension if you want to use the Sony 50 macro or the Zeiss 50 macro. The Zeiss does not extend at close distances, and is much better than the Sony. Also, you might consider the A7cR instead, as you can punch in on the sensor, giving you a 75mm equivalent, and won’t lose as much as you would with the less-detailed A7c sensor.

@Castillo The Sigma 20-200mm looks cool as a travel lens, too.

Just my 2-cents as well, from experience on the 7AC for about 3 years,. I suspect I'm due for an upgrade when I can throw the $$$ at new body and housing. I've found there's basically three different configurations I use:

1) General scenarios: The kit 28-60mm is a nice lens underwater and gives a lot of flexibility. I normally use the WWL-1B for wider shots and carry the CNC-1 on a caddy for instant macro (even swapping in water with dry gloves). This has really served well and provides versatility for anything from a nudibranch to manta on a single dive.
2) Macro: I also used the Sony 50mm for a couple dives and it was a dog! AF is just incredibility slow. I have an adapted Nikon 60mm and it's a better. My general macro is the trusted Sony 90mm and I recently added an MFO-3 for blackwater and some of the bigger critters. I haven't tried the Sony100mm but keeping an eye on it, but could entail a new port. As such, so far everything is using the same port for macro.
3) Finally, dedicated wide angle: I have the adapted Canon 8-15mm fisheye and really like it, and use it with a Zen DP100. Great for CFWA, but I need to get a larger dome for sharper wide angle as the corners are soft with the smaller dome. The main issue with the 8-15mm and the 7AC housing, due to the OEM zoom that resides on teh port adapter, you had to install camera into housing/adapter port, then install lens, and finally, install dome. I created a printable zoom gear that lets me extract the camera/lens at as one unit, and uses the housing zoom gear rather than the port zoom gear.

7 hours ago, humu9679 said:

It sounds like your traveling kit will get larger!

I would think that if your underwater photography is only one-quarter to one-half of your photos, you might stick with the one inch compact and use wet lenses. Not ideal for macro, but portable.

Trying to house the 14mm will create its own nightmares. But I get the desire to streamline things, but again, it leads to different problems.

For travel, if you do go with another kit, I think the Sony kit lens - 28-60mm - with a wet wide lens is a good way to go. You might be able to use the same port with an extension if you want to use the Sony 50 macro or the Zeiss 50 macro. The Zeiss does not extend at close distances, and is much better than the Sony. Also, you might consider the A7cR instead, as you can punch in on the sensor, giving you a 75mm equivalent, and won’t lose as much as you would with the less-detailed A7c sensor.

Yes, I thought about that as well but, I am feeling a bit limited with that setup both underwater and above. I looked at the fullframes since it seems to give me more playing room in most aspects, except the flexibility and that's what am looking to see if it's even possible to do with what I am thinking.

Yes the 28-60 seems like a good alternative as well. Had not heard about the Zeiss, sounds promising but it's not looking like it's available in Sweden (?). Will look into it!

53 minutes ago, RVBldr said:

Just my 2-cents as well, from experience on the 7AC for about 3 years,. I suspect I'm due for an upgrade when I can throw the $$$ at new body and housing. I've found there's basically three different configurations I use:

1) General scenarios: The kit 28-60mm is a nice lens underwater and gives a lot of flexibility. I normally use the WWL-1B for wider shots and carry the CNC-1 on a caddy for instant macro (even swapping in water with dry gloves). This has really served well and provides versatility for anything from a nudibranch to manta on a single dive.
2) Macro: I also used the Sony 50mm for a couple dives and it was a dog! AF is just incredibility slow. I have an adapted Nikon 60mm and it's a better. My general macro is the trusted Sony 90mm and I recently added an MFO-3 for blackwater and some of the bigger critters. I haven't tried the Sony100mm but keeping an eye on it, but could entail a new port. As such, so far everything is using the same port for macro.
3) Finally, dedicated wide angle: I have the adapted Canon 8-15mm fisheye and really like it, and use it with a Zen DP100. Great for CFWA, but I need to get a larger dome for sharper wide angle as the corners are soft with the smaller dome. The main issue with the 8-15mm and the 7AC housing, due to the OEM zoom that resides on teh port adapter, you had to install camera into housing/adapter port, then install lens, and finally, install dome. I created a printable zoom gear that lets me extract the camera/lens at as one unit, and uses the housing zoom gear rather than the port zoom gear.

Do you use the nauticam with that setup or would those lenses fit with the ikelite? Because the 28-60 does seem to fit a lot of criteria in that case.

Shame about the 50mm it looked promising on paper.

I may also just have to go with the 90/100 mm and a gopro for wide 😅

1 hour ago, Castillo said:

zoom gear.

Expand

Do you use the nauticam with that setup or would those lenses fit with the ikelite? Because the 28-60 does seem to fit a lot of criteria in that case.

Yes, I'm using the Nauticam NA-7AC housing.

9 hours ago, Castillo said:

Thanks again!

Am I understanding you correctly that both the 90mm and 50mm will do better at macro than what I currently have either way? Because that al least would be encouraging. As said I am aware that flexibility requires a lot of compromises but would be silly to spend a lot of money on housings and end up with worse pictures.

I did not quite get what you meant with ikelite and UW, what do they do differently, do you mean wide wet lenses are not compatible with their falt ports?

"Something that goes close is something like a wet wide lens which goes from about as wide as a 14mm lens through to about at 35mm lens which focuses up to glass and can fill the frame with subjects around 50-100mm in size for CFWA." what did you mean here, close like getting to a subject or close to what I want in terms of flexibility?

Yes macro is easier without a wet lens. The system only focuses in quite a narrow range with the diopter. The 50mm has a different issue in that it 1:1 magnification where it covers 36 x 24mm is achieved at about 10-15mm from the port making it difficult to use and lighting is difficult, in practice it probably only easily achieves the sort of magnification you currently get with your current setup.

What I was trying to say with ikelite is they will allow you use your lenses UW and will work, but there are various compromises. They have limited flat ports available for example they offer the same port for the 3 different macro lenses in m43 which are different lengths which means the shorter lenses are set back behind the port. What this means is that closest focus for those lenses is inside the port meaning it restricts the magnification you can achieve. They don't tell you this though. you also need to look at the fine print for each lens in the port chart to see if there are any restrictions. In particular for the DLM system there are many port options that won't allow zoom, they rely upon a 6" port with a zoom knob as there is no zoom control on the housing. They also don't have a 4" dome for a fisheye lens. Don't get me wrong amny people use their housings, but there are more compromises.

On wet lenses, they rely on having a well fitted flat port and if the front element is too far back in the port you get vignetting. the lens in question might work behind the port by itself just fine but will vignette in combination with the wet lens.

The other consideration with Ikelite is that it is only setup for wired triggering, which means maintaining the o-rings on trigger cables. Something I'd prefer not to do, The website only mentions using a manual flash bulkhead. You might be able to use the UWT external flash trigger to trigger with fibre optics.

If you are determined to go with the A7CII maybe consider the new AOI housing, has built in vacuum and flash trigger with Sony TTL support or manual. based 100% around the Sony 28-60 it seems. You would use it like the RX-100 and rely on wet macro and wide lenses. You could use the +10 diopter you have and possibly buy one of the AOI wet wide lenses.

Mostly disagree with negative comments about Sony 50 macro, at least with newer cams. I use it with a 140 dome (aka "curved port") plus 25mm ext with A7CR and A7RV and results are exceptionally sharp right across the frame. AF is reasonable, with some mis-focusing on small targets, especially thin ones. Robust ghost pipefish can be a problem, and for some reason it hates focusing on the heads of ribbon eels!! (Took many trys to get a decent pic).

But for everything else, no problem.

I don't know how the AF with A7CII compares to A7CR?

Also, for what it's worth, in practice I don't notice a difference with the smaller viewfinder with my A7CR (compared to VF of A7RV). I keep trying to see that difference... but I can't. Both are fine without external viewfinders, although if you are only shooting macro, a 45 degree VF might be a good idea.

Which is why I have my A7RV housing up for sale! (buying both was a silly idea)

15 minutes ago, dentrock said:

Mostly disagree with negative comments about Sony 50 macro, at least with newer cams. I use it with a 140 dome (aka "curved port") plus 25mm ext with A7CR and A7RV and results are exceptionally sharp right across the frame. AF is reasonable, with some mis-focusing on small targets, especially thin ones. Robust ghost pipefish can be a problem, and for some reason it hates focusing on the heads of ribbon eels!! (Took many trys to get a decent pic).

But for everything else, no problem.

I don't know how the AF with A7CII compares to A7CR?

Also, for what it's worth, in practice I don't notice a difference with the smaller viewfinder with my A7CR (compared to VF of A7RV). I keep trying to see that difference... but I can't. Both are fine without external viewfinders, although if you are only shooting macro, a 45 degree VF might be a good idea.

Which is why I have my A7RV housing up for sale! (buying both was a silly idea)

I have no doubt it would work well in a dome, I would say though using it as macro lens is different to use in a dome where you are out in the 0.3x magnification and less with a working distance up near 70mm due to the dome where the AF of macro lenses generally picks up.

I know what you mean about focusing on skinny things - transparent things give similar problems, seems like there are some things that the AF gets confused with. I encounter occasional things the AF doesn't play well with on my m43 setup.

The 50mm lens is a dog, on several newer generations of Sony FF cameras.

There are lots of folks that have found a work around to the various issues, even with the 90mm (which is better on an A7RV than it was on any previous A7 cameras, but still relatively slow AF and will occasionally hunt more than expected). These are all about making a poor experince tolerable, not making it great.

The new 100mm lens seems to solve much of this, but we'll have to hear more from the field. I believe @Alex_Mustard is in Lembeh with the lens at the moment - should be a good test. My next trip will be at the end of Jan - my daughter will have the lens (& port) for her Sony A7RV, so I'll get some first hand experience then as well.