I am off for the Sardine Run in a few days, and am suffering complete paralysis-of-analysis re what lens to use: Fisheye or rectilinear WA.

My options are:

• Olympus 8mm FE in Nauticam system

• Tokina 10-17FE in a Marelux system

• Panasonic 7-14mm in Nauticam

At present, I am leaning towards the Tokina because of the flexibility it will provide - but the Marelux setup is significantly heavier and harder to swim with if chasing action on the surface. So my preference would be to take the Nauticam MFT system bc of how much smaller and lighter it is - in which case i need to decide between the 8mm or the 7-14.

For those of you who have shot the Sardine Run - what’s focal length/FOV gets used the most often? I realize there is an element of luck involved but how likely are you to be close enough to the bait ball to need a fisheye? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

ChatGPT says that generally people dont miss fisheyes and a rectilinear WA will be sufficient for most shooting scenarios.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by vkalia

Hi,

hard to say. Always a lucky punch.

I shoot FF and mostly Nikkor 16-35 and Nikkor 08-15 with Kenko1.4 in these situations, like baits or big group of fish. I balanced my my rig positive on Sardine run in Mexico last year. Worked fine for me. I think it is not a big difference handling a slightly bigger rig in this situations. (I am 64 years old and not Arnie Schwarzenegger). But this is my point ot view. Different minds different thoughts.

Br Markus