Aloha everyone,

I am an underwater photographer based in Oahu, Hawaii. I work as a professional shark diver and photographer currently. I shoot mostly blue water with the primary subjects being sharks and people. I also run trips for Orcas and Humpback Whales so looking for opinions on if I should switch systems.

I currently use the R5mii with the 14-35 f4. I feel low it’s low light capabilities and metering give me issues in blue water so running auto iso is out of the picture as it wants to shoot extremely high. I have the wacp-2 and with the 14-35 it has vignetting in the corner so kind of defeats the purpose of using that lens. I do have the 15-35 as well. I am looking at buying the wacp-c and the 20-50 F4 lens that just released as that’s a way smaller setup to shoot and handle sharks with while giving me close focus and ultra wide fov.

I got an offer for a good price on a Sony a1 setup and they have the 20-50 2.8 lens which seems interesting to me. Would be much smaller and that extra low light capabilities for Norway with orcas is huge.

Has anyone used any of these cameras and the wacp-c setups that could give some insight to steer me one way. Feel free to msg me here, respond to this posts or IG@whotippedmycow

Thank you for your time and happy 4th!

A few considerations on upgrading as you know the widest lens that doesn't vignette for the WACP series is 28mm so both of the 20-50 lenses would need to zoom into 28mm in operation and you can't just get there by turning the dial out you have to look to see you have got to 28mm. I could see this being an issue when trying to work quickly.

Also neither 20-50 lens is on the WACP-C port charts as yet and particularly fast lenses might not work with the WACP-C, though the Sony 24-50 f2.8 is on the WACP-C port chart, but there appears to be a typo in the port chart and the line advising the zoom range is 28-50 seems to be missing. I believe they have a limit on entrance pupil size which impacts what lenses work in that system. Assuming you are looking at both lenses behind the WACP-C

The WACP-1/1B includes the Sony 20-70 f4 lens, but most of the lenses for that optic are also kit lenses.

What exactly is the concern with with the R-5II? I would have thought the sensor capabilities of the A1 and R5 II to be very close, Is there no option to cap maximum ISO when using auto ISO? It might be worth asking the question how Canon shooters handle blue water metering as well, could be a better option than a system switch?