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 yesterday at 06:06 AM1 day 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 yesterday at 08:46 AM1 day by Christian K

Thanks Chris and Christian,

those were my thoughts too — a proper macro lens with optional wet lenses can do more than the combination in the Nauticam housing. The ability to also use a strobe converter is, in my opinion, another small advantage. Since the budget doesn't allow ordering everything at once, the path is now much clearer. Start with the Isotta and macro ports for the 60mm and 105mm. Then later either the adapter solution or a dedicated Isotta dome port for the 10-17mm.

There probably won't be much experience out there with the adapter and a dome port. But maybe someone here uses a similar solution themselves and can say something about it?

The non removable port housings like the new AOI for the R50 and the two from Nauticam for the little Z and the R50 should not be thought of as full feature rigs. They are meant to offer larger sensor alternatives to the now extinct pro-compacts and are intended as grab and go travel systems. Toss in your flavor of WWL and a CMC and some travel friendly strobes like the S220s and it will all fit into a sub carry on size case. All of that will go in the little carry on with the camera ensconced in the housing, no gears, no tray to attach, no unreliable trigger that needs batteries and multiple domes and ports and multiple lenses. I can get everything in the case but for the hard float arms. Standard arms and Stix floats might go.

Not even getting into the CMC-2/1, I can cover a fairly large range of FOV with up to the dome focus and zoom through.

Edited yesterday at 07:57 PM1 day by Nemrod

Yes, that's the big advantage of this system. Since I unfortunately haven't had either of them in my hands yet, I'll probably make a trip to Panocean (Münster, Germany) and try to test both systems. Both have their pros and cons. For me, the macro range is more important and I'd also like a larger magnification ratio than 1:1.

@Nemrod nice pics, by the way

7 hours ago, Tobi said:

There probably won't be much experience out there with the adapter and a dome port. But maybe someone here uses a similar solution themselves and can say something about it?

The adapter is basically an extension tube with different bayonets on each end, so has no impact apart from adding some extension. As long as you can get the right extension length It's no different to using a native Isotta port.

The difference you do need to consider is that the Nikon DSLR Tokina 10-17 doesn't work on the Z50 as it has screw drive AF. The solution is to either adapt a Canon version 10-17 or to use the Nikon 8-15 on a FTZ adapter.

Not an easy decision but if you want better macro capability the Isotta looks good. For wide angle, Isotta have ports that work with Nauticam wet lenses so for wide angle the kit lens and WWL-1C should be a good option. I can't see the 16-50mm Z50ii kit lens on their port chart but expect that is because the housing is new and they haven't updated the chart.

Or, if you are happy with the width of the 12-24 then that takes a 26 +50mm extension. From the Isotta website the Sealux adapter looks like it adds around 10mm(?) with a corresponding adjustment in port extension length needed. The 26mm then can also be used with the 110mm macro port which covers the Af-S 60 and 105mm with FTZ adapters.

For fisheye, I see Chris mentioned it already ... the problem with the Tokina 10-17 with the FTZ adapter is it is only manual focus. The option of the Nikon 8-15 fisheye looks expensive if you are on a budget, but there may be other non-native solutions.

A while ago I nearly bought a Nauticam + Nikon Z50. I may be wrong but that didn't seem a popular solution and it is interesting that Nauticam went for the fixed port on the Z50ii. As Nemrod said, more targeted at the evolution of the compact camera market, with advantages and some limitations. The Nauticam Z50ii housing is now lighter and much cheaper than their Z50 housing.

Something else ...If you use a 45 degree viewfinder for macro the Nauticam Z50ii just has a compact type over the LCD, whereas the Isotta can use an Inon viewfinder (the Nauticam Z50 could work with viewfinders).

It would be interesting to cost out the options ....

Thanks for all the info and input. I've done a rough calculation and the Nauticam with WWL-C, CMC-1, adapter and vacuum valve comes to around €4,100. The Isotta with strobe trigger (manual), macro port, adapter for the Sealux, port extension and vacuum system comes to around €3,650.

To start with I'd stick with the 12-24mm and upgrade later, the 8-15mm is already looking very interesting and offers even more possibilities.

Plus the benefit of a viewfinder.

So it looks Isotta is the way to go...