After a lot of asking questions on here, heaps of research, several spreadsheets, and a few other things, I have decided to load up with

- Sony A7R VI camera
- Nauticam Housing
- Sony 100mm macro lens + Nauticam N100 125mm macro for it
- Sony 16-35 rectlinier zoom lens + dome port - diameter to be decided
- Nauticam MFO-3 and SMC-3 wet lenses

- Retra Maxi strobes
- Nauticam 7 inch monitor

Main Question at this stage is -
- has anyone used any of the Sony 16-35 zooms? I'm particularly interested in the FE PZ 16-35mm F4 version as that doesn't physically extend like the GM F2.8 versions, and so I think that it will be better in a 180mm dome than the GM F2.8 versions because of that.

Edited September 11Sep 11 by CCRphoto

I use the FE PZ 16-35 (in a Seacam housing with the compact dome which is 170mm) and I'm satisfied with it. I bought it over the other 16-35s because it's light and compact, and doesn't need a zoom ring - I just control the zoom in/out with the left and down arrow buttons. This might be slower to operate than a zoom ring though. Image quality is good. I occasionally wish it had a longer reach, that it had an even lower min focus distance, and I don't use it much topside because it is slow, but we can't have it all! I'd buy it again.

1/125 f/8 iso 1000 16mm

1/125 f/10 iso 500 16mm close focus

1/125 f/8 iso 320 19mm close(ish) focus

1/100 f/13 iso 500 26.5mm closest focus I could get to on this yellow-tipped phyllodesmium.

All uncropped

Edited September 11Sep 11 by Johan

There's a few posts on the various Sony 16-35 zooms on the forum, as I recall the 16-35 ones that focus very close do OK in 180mm domes. You could look at UWPMAG back issues, @Phil Rudin has reviewed many of the 16-35 options available in there, Here's a link to his 16-25 zoom review.

https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1877-nauticam-support-for-sony-16-25-f28-g-and-laowa-10mm-f28-af-lenses/#findComment-17652

I recall he also reviewed the 16-35 PZ lens.

6 hours ago, CCRphoto said:

After a lot of asking questions on here, heaps of research, several spreadsheets, and a few other things, I have decided to load up with

- Sony A7R VI camera
- Nauticam Housing
- Sony 100mm macro lens + Nauticam N100 125mm macro for it
- Sony 16-35 rectlinier zoom lens + dome port - diameter to be decided
- Nauticam MFO-3 and SMC-3 wet lenses

- Retra Maxi strobes
- Nauticam 7 inch monitor

Main Question at this stage is -
- has anyone used any of the Sony 16-35 zooms? I'm particularly interested in the FE PZ 16-35mm F4 version as that doesn't physically extend like the GM F2.8 versions, and so I think that it will be better in a 180mm dome than the GM F2.8 versions because of that.

That went overboard quickly 🤣

You might want the bigger dome with a wide rectilinear like the 16-35, unless only the center of the image needs to be sharp, which tbh in many cases is usable. Nauticam recommends the 230 mm glass-dome.

Edited September 11Sep 11 by Christian K

1 hour ago, Christian K said:

You might want the bigger dome with a wide rectilinear like the 16-35, unless only the center of the image needs to be sharp, which tbh in many cases is usable. Nauticam recommends the 230 mm glass-dome.

Yeah, that was my thinking too. My experience with 16-35 rectilinear lenses (in my case the Nikkor 16-35), is that a 230 domeport is pretty much essential unless you are happy with squishy sides and corners. Even then and stopped down to say, f11, perfection is not guaranteed.

You can avoid the problem of course by having non-important edges - blue water for example- where blurring has no impact. But once you start shooting reefs, the edges do tend to show up and is, in my view, one of the drawbacks of FF sensors. (But I think we have sailed around this buoy often enough)

2 minutes ago, TimG said:

Yeah, that was my thinking too. My experience with 16-35 rectilinear lenses (in my case the Nikkor 16-35), is that a 230 domeport is pretty much essential unless you are happy with squishy sides and corners. Even then and stopped down to say, f11, perfection is not guaranteed.

You can avoid the problem of course by having non-important edges - blue water for example- here blurring has no impact. But once you start shooting reefs, the edges do tend to show up and is, in my view, one of the drawbacks of FF sensors. (But I think we have sailed around this buoy often enough)

Yes it depends what you are shooting! A 230mm dome is a big beats of a thing to travel with. As I recall you were shooting archeological sites, I guess you could crop some or zoom in a bit and do mosaics. You could always look into the new Seacam precision port but it currently only works with a Nikon 16-35 I believe, it'll do a great job at emptying your wallet though! But seriously, I recall you mentioned you thought a 20-24mm lens might do what you wanted and it will play better with a 180mm dome - The Sony 20-70 is one that a few people on here like.

Domeport 180mm and Sony 16-35mm is not the perfect combination, 230mm domport, or, even better, Seacam PPO is the way to go (but this is not what CCRphoto asked for)...

(Seacam wrote me that the excellent Sony 26-35mm GMII works very well with their PPO; flange distance in Seacm housing seems to be bigger compared to Nauticam, hence after doing appropriate recherches, Saga could make an adapter for Nauticam)

But it may be useful still to state that it depends very much on a particular lens. Tamron 17-28mm works very well behind 180mm, even 170mm, domeport. Same with Sony 20-70mm. I can say this from my own experience, I use both lenses behind Zen DP170 with A7R5/Nauticam..

Edited September 11Sep 11 by Architeuthis

I was thinking about the Seacam too, for 16-35 for sharp rectlinear FF, without having to schlep on a big*ss dome. But I know little about its compatible lenses… So only Nikon, huh. Peculiar. For semi-fish, Nauticam and a WACP or WWL with a 28-60 for SONY would be the no-brainer inmo.

9 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

There's a few posts on the various Sony 16-35 zooms on the forum, as I recall the 16-35 ones that focus very close do OK in 180mm domes. You could look at UWPMAG back issues, @Phil Rudin has reviewed many of the 16-35 options available in there, Here's a link to his 16-25 zoom review.

https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1877-nauticam-support-for-sony-16-25-f28-g-and-laowa-10mm-f28-af-lenses/#findComment-17652

I recall he also reviewed the 16-35 PZ lens.

My views have of course changed over the years as lenses have become more refined but in general the zoom lenses with the shortest minimum focus distance tend to work best in all size ports and especially 180mm and smaller. These days the first thing I look at when a new zoom or fixed lens is announced is minimum focus distance. I have not tested or purchased a lens with MFD over 20cm for some time.

While I have owned the 16-35mm PZ and like the idea of not having to buy a zoom gear the newer Sony FE 16-25mm F/2.8 G simply has better sharpness towards the edges at 16mm in the 180mm dome. I credit this to the MFD of 18cm over the 24cm for the 16-35 PZ. If you shoot the lens mostly at the 16mm end you may also want to consider my favorite 16mm the Sony FE 16mm F/1.8 which has a MFD of 15cm. This is an excellent lens for the 180mm or even in a pinch the 140mm dome port. This site and others frequently talk about how much sharper fisheye lenses are in the corners compared to rectilinear lenses, this is urban legend related to older zooms with MDF values of 25cm or more. I have attached a photo taken with the 16mm F/1.8 in the Marelux 180mm port with 30mm extension at F/8 and ISO-1250. It has corners far sharper than any fisheye lenses I have tried at F/8 and the same distance to the subject. By comparison the second photo is the WACP-C, with 28 to 60mm at 28mm, F/11 and ISO-400. The 16mm clearly has corners sharper than the WACP-C even one stop higher. For those who want to argue that the WACP-C has a much wider 130 degree AOV, V. the 107 degrees for the 16mm I offer a third photo using the Laowa 12mm which has an AOV of 122 degrees. The Laowa 12mm photo was taken at F/8 and ISO 400 in the Marelux 140mm dome port with a 30mm extension and in a smaller port a stop wider it also looks better towards the corners than the WACP-C. I suspect you will find this to be true for any of the wet wide lenses.

What should be considered first is how much are you really going to notice the corners in real world use and does it make a difference to the 99% of use who are not major pixel peepers.

I agree with Phil that the Sony 16-25 is worth a look if you are OK with the shorter range, and cheaper too. Not only does it work nicely with the 180 dome, it works equally well with the 140 dome.

7 hours ago, dentrock said:

I agree with Phil that the Sony 16-25 is worth a look if you are OK with the shorter range, and cheaper too. Not only does it work nicely with the 180 dome, it works equally well with the 140 dome.

Are you sure about the 140mm dome (I cannot find this dome as beeing compatible in the Nauticam charts)?

What extension are you using?

Would be great, one small domeport for both fisheye and rectilinear WA...

Edited September 12Sep 12 by Architeuthis

12 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

My views have of course changed over the years as lenses have become more refined but in general the zoom lenses with the shortest minimum focus distance tend to work best in all size ports and especially 180mm and smaller. These days the first thing I look at when a new zoom or fixed lens is announced is minimum focus distance. I have not tested or purchased a lens with MFD over 20cm for some time.

While I have owned the 16-35mm PZ and like the idea of not having to buy a zoom gear the newer Sony FE 16-25mm F/2.8 G simply has better sharpness towards the edges at 16mm in the 180mm dome. I credit this to the MFD of 18cm over the 24cm for the 16-35 PZ. If you shoot the lens mostly at the 16mm end you may also want to consider my favorite 16mm the Sony FE 16mm F/1.8 which has a MFD of 15cm. This is an excellent lens for the 180mm or even in a pinch the 140mm dome port. This site and others frequently talk about how much sharper fisheye lenses are in the corners compared to rectilinear lenses, this is urban legend related to older zooms with MDF values of 25cm or more. I have attached a photo taken with the 16mm F/1.8 in the Marelux 180mm port with 30mm extension at F/8 and ISO-1250. It has corners far sharper than any fisheye lenses I have tried at F/8 and the same distance to the subject. By comparison the second photo is the WACP-C, with 28 to 60mm at 28mm, F/11 and ISO-400. The 16mm clearly has corners sharper than the WACP-C even one stop higher. For those who want to argue that the WACP-C has a much wider 130 degree AOV, V. the 107 degrees for the 16mm I offer a third photo using the Laowa 12mm which has an AOV of 122 degrees. The Laowa 12mm photo was taken at F/8 and ISO 400 in the Marelux 140mm dome port with a 30mm extension and in a smaller port a stop wider it also looks better towards the corners than the WACP-C. I suspect you will find this to be true for any of the wet wide lenses.

What should be considered first is how much are you really going to notice the corners in real world use and does it make a difference to the 99% of use who are not major pixel peepers.

Did you test also the Tamron 17-28mm? How is performabce against the Sony 16-25mm, if yes?

Thanks, Wolfgang

Finally getting a chance to reply once again - someone else has been spending time ON my laptop today

Many thanks for all of the replies - it is good to get some really great feedback. Cheers to @Phil Rudin for the detailed explanation of how shorter MFD is needed for smaller domes etc.

I'm keen to avoid the need to carry a 230mm dome, but am happy to carry a 180mm dome (especially as Nauticam make a N100 180mm dome), so I guess what would be useful is everyone can add to the list of lenses for Sony full frame that will work with a 180mm dome (Sony or third party).

So far -
- Sony 16-25mm F2.8 G
- Sony 20-70mm (F4 G model?)
- Tamron 17-28mm
Any others?

The Sony 16-25mm F2.8 G would be fine instead of the 16-35mm, the 20-70mm would be fine for the archaeological work although oddly the Nauticam port charts only offer a N120 180mm dome solution with N100-N120 adaptor instead of a N100 180mm solution.

I am planning to add the new Sony 8-14mm Fisheye once a port becomes available.

On 9/11/2026 at 9:17 PM, Christian K said:

That went overboard quickly 🤣

Sssssh!😂

3 hours ago, CCRphoto said:

Finally getting a chance to reply once again - someone else has been spending time ON my laptop today

Many thanks for all of the replies - it is good to get some really great feedback. Cheers to @Phil Rudin for the detailed explanation of how shorter MFD is needed for smaller domes etc.

Similar Internet user here...😁

12 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

Are you sure about the 140mm dome (I cannot find this dome as beeing compatible in the Nauticam charts)?

What extension are you using?

Would be great, one small domeport for both fisheye and rectilinear WA...

Regarding the Sony FE 16-25mm F/2.8 G I want to be clear that I said I tested it in the 180mm dome port I did not do a test in the 140mm port. Second I don't think the 16-25mm appears on the Nauticam charts with any port.

The Nauticam charts do show the 16-35mm F/4 and they say that lens works best with the 250mm port and 70.5mm of extension. It also works with an N100 180mm port and 50mm II extension but in the N120 180mm port it takes the N100 to N120 35.5mm II extension and the N120 20mm I/II extension or 55.5mm of extension.

So thats's the 250mm port that does not appear to exist in N120 anymore.

N120 180mm port $1700.00+N100 to N120 $680.00+N120 20II extension $660.00 or N120 20 extension $390.00 total $3040.0 or $2770 depending on extension. Advantage will be the N100 to N120 can be used with other ports and lenses.

The N100 180 port $1600+N100 30II $550 and N100 50II 610 total $2760. The upside all N100 and the down side may not be as usable with larger lenses and ports.

With Marelux it would be the Marelux five inch 180mm dome port and five inch 40mm extension. That's $1380 port and $286 extension with lock. Total $1666.00, works with any lens on the lens chart and interchangeable between all full frame camera brand housings, so Canon, Nikon, Panasonic or Sony. Nauticam housing for Sony A7R VI $4800.00, Marelux housing for A7R VI $3398.00 a difference of $1411.00 so $7560.00 NA housing and port system (cheapest option) V MX $5064.00 all in with no accessories like vacuum, flash trigger.

I have owned more than ten Nauticam housings over at least nine years or more, they make excellent equipment but so does Marelux, Aquatica, Isotta, Seacam and several more in the aluminum housing market. For those entering and buying an entire new system or looking to upgrade they should really look at all that is being offered currently. One manufacture is not the Holy Grail for housings, wet lenses, strobes or other related items.

13 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

Did you test also the Tamron 17-28mm? How is performabce against the Sony 16-25mm, if yes?

Thanks, Wolfgang

I reviewed the Tamron 17-28mm in uwpmag.com, back issue #119, you may also want to checkout Sigma 17mm F/4 (outstanding lens) issue #133, Sony FE 20-70mm issue #132 and many other related items. Back issues, Phil Rudin in the search engine for about 120 more articles.

So far -
- Sony 16-25mm F2.8 G
- Sony 20-70mm (F4 G model?)
- Tamron 17-28mm
You may also want to add,

Sony FE 16mm F/1.8

Sigma 17mm F/4

Sigma 20-200mm F/3.5-5.6 DG, this lens is supported by Marelux with a zoom gear. It focuses to 1:2 from around 28 to 85mm (better than the Sony 20-70mm) and in the Marelux 180mm port it will focus from 20mm to around 140mm. It is also a better choice than the Sony 70 to 200mm F/4 macro which is also supported by Marelux.

Images with Sigma 20-200mm at 20mm and 81.1mm behind a180mm dome, impressive coverage to me.

Re tests with 16-25 which I own:

With 180 dome, A7CR / A7RV body, 25mm adapter, 50mm ext - alignment is theoretically perfect (0mm misalignment of OC at EP).

IQ score at 16 is corners 2 at f8, 2-3 at f11. At 25, score is almost 3 at f11.

I have explained my scoring system in previous posts, but for a quick recap, I look at the area of central sharpness at 100%, to see where it falls off (stuff that should be in focus is in sharp focus - quite easy to judge).

2 = a circle of 24mm diameter (touches mid long sides of 3x2 FF frame), 3 = 36mm (touches mid short sides of frame).

With 140 dome, 25mm adapter, 35mm ext - alignment is -3mm (i.e. 3mm too long). Score is identical to the above (surprised me). As a variation you could reduce ext to 30mm with alignment of 3 (needs 3mm more). You could also use 35mm adapter + 20mm ext.

Re Nauticam port charts, I emailed them and spoke to their agent about including this lens - no joy there (unsurprising given their lack of customer support).

NB - you will need a zoom gear. Not available from Nauticam but fortunately the gear for 24-50 fits well (these two lenses are a matching pair from Sony).

Final point: given you have 20-70 on your list, I would buy this first - it may be that 20mm is wide enough for you. About 10 degrees difference to 16, and works well with 180 dome, plus giving you handy close-up ability. Unfortunately, 20-70 does not work well with 140 dome (radius of 70mm is too small to accommodate the lens extension of about 40mm at 70mm FOV, so you cannot achieve decent optical alignment).

However, 140 should be OK with new fisheye (fingers crossed)!

That Sigma 20-200 is very tempting as a do-everything sort of lens. Like the 12-50 on MFT but both wider and tighter.

Should be a very easy zoom gear to make as well for us Nauticam folks.

11 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

The N100 180 port $1600+N100 30II $550 and N100 50II 610 total $2760. The upside all N100 and the down side may not be as usable with larger lenses and ports.

With Marelux it would be the Marelux five inch 180mm dome port and five inch 40mm extension. That's $1380 port and $286 extension with lock. Total $1666.00, works with any lens on the lens chart and interchangeable between all full frame camera brand housings, so Canon, Nikon, Panasonic or Sony. Nauticam housing for Sony A7R VI $4800.00, Marelux housing for A7R VI $3398.00 a difference of $1411.00 so $7560.00 NA housing and port system (cheapest option) V MX $5064.00 all in with no accessories like vacuum, flash trigger.

I have owned more than ten Nauticam housings over at least nine years or more, they make excellent equipment but so does Marelux, Aquatica, Isotta, Seacam and several more in the aluminum housing market. For those entering and buying an entire new system or looking to upgrade they should really look at all that is being offered currently. One manufacture is not the Holy Grail for housings, wet lenses, strobes or other related items.

Down here in Australia the price difference between Nauticam & Marelux isn't that great unfortunately - tariffs might be the cause of the bigger price difference in the U.S.

Nauticam is supported extremely well by their distributor here - good stocks of housings, ports, focus & zoom rings, etc. Isotta fairly close to that, unfortunately the distributors for Seacam, Aquatica, Marelux, etc keep little stock and don't keep their websites up to date when new models are released etc.

Having said that I am considering the Marelux Apollo III 3.0 - they have some features that suit me. The local distributors are still listing the 2.0 and haven't even listed the 2.1 yet so I will have to email them about a price for the 3.0. They haven't listed the housing for the A7RVI yet either. The other distributor doesn't list any of the Marelux strobes.

I will take a look at those UWPmag articles that you mentioned - cheers!

The diving in Bali is great this time of year, perhaps you should pickup the equipment there😃😃😃

8 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

The diving in Bali is great this time of year, perhaps you should pickup the equipment there😃😃😃

Hmmm, or Hong Kong as there are no sales taxes and then come home via Bali...😄