Hi everyone,

the upgrade from my aging Nikon D200 at home has finally arrived. I went with the Z50 II and I'm very happy with both the performance and image quality. Now the "search" begins for the right underwater housing. I'm torn between the Nauticam with wet lenses and the Isotta, the classic approach with macro and dome port. With the Isotta I could continue using my existing lenses (AF-S 60mm, 105mm, and 12-24mm f/4). I was always happy with the quality of my macro shots; the angle of view on the 12-24mm could be a bit wider though — for that I was thinking about the Tokina 10-17mm. Or should I take the plunge into the Nauticam ecosystem? The WWL-C is supposed to have really great quality, but can the kit lens with SMC come close to the 60mm or 105mm macro? Unfortunately I don't have any experience with that yet. Alternatively, I still have the 180mm Sealux dome port — I might be able to continue using it on the Isotta housing with an adapter. Does anyone perhaps have experience with that as well? Thanks a lot for your input.

I haven't used them but I find the idea of the Nauticam systems using only a kit lens with either a diopter or WWL somewhat limiting. In general the the WWL is sharp and provides good to great images by all reports, however the width of the frame is about that of a 14mm rectilinear lens, the barrel distortion gives a 130° diagonal, which seems like a 10mm lens, but with barrel distortion the corners are stretched the consequence being is the horizon frame field is about that of 13-14mm rectilinear.

Macro is another story, you can add diopters and get near macro magnification but working distance is very limited. the 16-50 with CMC-1 gives you 0.9x at 45mm working distance. Compare that to the 105mm Z lens which gives 1:1 with about 120-130mm working distance. The 16-50/CMC-1 only focuses between 45 and 75mm from the front of the diopter so only gives quite a limited magnification range. I'd estimate 0.9x - 0.4x approximately.

It seems there is an adapter available for Sealux to Isotta (looks like a custom order so a bit of a wait), I'd be strongly tempted to go that way if macro is important to you. https://www.uwcamerastore.com/isotta-adaptor-ring-for-sealux-1p

For wide, the wwl-c is awesome. Please note that the 13-14 mm equivalent Chris mentions is on a fullframe camera. On your DX it is quite a bit wider than your 12-24, which equals a 18-36. 10-17 FE also a very solid option, shot it many years, and has the advantage of being able to do splits with a large enough dome (not as travel friendly as the wwl-c). Others can chime in on the Nauticam macro, but you could stick to a classic macrolens and port and shoot wide with the wwl-c and compact zoom IIRC. Not sure what port system the NAZA50ii uses?

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Christian K

22 minutes ago, Christian K said:

Not sure what port system the NAZA50ii uses?

No port system, it's a fixed port and it allows you use the 16-50 kit lens or apparently the 50mm macro fits, but it has pretty short working distance. If it were me, I wouldný want to use the CMC to get just 0.9x with little to no working distance. You can take decent pics, but it's a kludge solution compared to a real macro lens.

2 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

No port system, it's a fixed port and it allows you use the 16-50 kit lens or apparently the 50mm macro fits, but it has pretty short working distance. If it were me, I wouldný want to use the CMC to get just 0.9x with little to no working distance. You can take decent pics, but it's a kludge solution compared to a real macro lens.

Ahh, right .. recall now it has a fixed port system. So it can't fit the z105 f2 which paired with a MFO3 is a pretty versatile combo, covering a lot of macro needs. Have no experience with the CMC or how good/bad it is. I'd say the Nauticam route is nice for a lot of WA needs, but perhaps not for macro in the case of Nikon Z50II.

Edited 56 minutes ago56 min by Christian K