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A serious blast from the past! An actual table of contents for an internet thing!!! Nota bene, a table of contents is something one typically found near the beginning of books. Claude, however, is far from perfect. See the Seacam entries at https://wetpixel.echeng.com/companies/seacam/. "Both (viewfinders) were available for all Seacam housings..." The Seacam Silver housing for the NIkon F5 was offered in versions that did not take the interchangeable finders but instead had a flat window for use with an F5 with an Action-finder attached (DA-something, I know because I have one). As well, the remote system started a few years earlier before it was shown at DEMA (2007 as reported in the Wiki) because I was able to order my D2X housing (late 2004 or early 2005) with it installed (ordered retroactively during the 9-month wait it took). I seem to recall the remote was announced alongside the Seacam housing for one of the Canon 1D cameras (either 2 or 3 series). When I saw that on Wetpixel I called Liz at SeacamUSA and asked about adding it to my housing as well as the big question for me: Would it be able to be used with longer cables than the lousy 1.5 meters of the RS remote control (which I had at the time). The answer was yes and has been at the core of my digital UWP.

That could be an interesting option as well. So if I understand correctly, by adding the 2x converter, you get a fisheye effect on the wide end and roughly a 28mm equivalent on the long end, right? What are the downsides? Is it mainly that the lens isn't native, so autofocus performance might suffer a bit, or are there other compromises? I do usually prefer to stick with same lens brand haha, but open to suggestions. Out of curiosity, what setup are you shooting with?

This is a fantastic resource. Kudos to Eric Cheng for building it! I’ve just started exploring. One thing I don’t yet understand is how to find the articles that are referenced. The links jump to the footnote, then the footnote jumps back to the link not the article. Any tips appreciated.

n85 Extension Rings:

Aloha and welcome @kdgonzalez

Aloha and welcome @Don Silcock !

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...

I am interested in buying a Fantasea UMG-02, or its equivalent AOI UMG-01, LCD magnifier. Either used or new would be fine. Please let me know if you have one for sale. You can DM me here or at [email protected]. Thanks, Adrian

Wow, what a great historical resource. Thanks for sharing, Alex.

I asked some information to Nauticam about the L10 case, and the compatibility with a bayonet N50 port, since I would like to have the option to change between super macro with the CMC-1, and wide scene with a wide wet lens, but this solution limits the zoom of the L10 to 30mm since the port is shorter. I got suggested an alternative, the canon R50 with the Nauticam case, which they have already available with the bayonet studied for a 18-45 optics (28/70 equivalent), and I like the fact that it allows natively to change between wide and macro, but I am not sure if the video spec are good as the L10, and I still have to do a good comparation on all the other characteristics Do you you have any point of view to help with the choice?

As most know, the Wetpixel website is in stasis and may be turned off at any point. Eric Cheng, who ran Wetpixel through its glory years, recently downloaded the entire site and being a software whizz, set about creating an extensive Wetpixel Wiki to chart the history of Wetpixel and the first 20 years of digital underwater photography. You can dive into it here: https://wetpixel.echeng.com For me this was a unique and special period in underwater photography. As we can all easily appreciate, digital cameras transformed our activity in almost every way. And serendipitously, and just as importantly, this took place in the first decade of people truly being online (and before they were distracted by social media). This meant it was the first time underwater photographers from all around the world could chat and share information together in one place. However niche your interest, you could find the others who shared it. And it was exciting to finally be able to chat to so many other shooters (something we already all take for granted). Digital cameras also brought a load of new people into the hobby, and a load of new talent too. And with lots of problems to overcome in those early years (and finally an objective assessment of techniques, made possible with instantly reviewable images) the site attracted almost everyone who was interested from brand new hobbies to almost all the leading professionals. As one member commented at the time, it was like finding a golf forum where Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods would be amongst those answering your questions! It was tremendously exciting time of rapid progress in gear, technique and imagery. As I said, special days. Anyway, Eric got AI to read 8,000 articles, 400,000 forum posts, 5,700 comments, 1,500 news items posted between 2000–2023 and watch all 302 episodes of Wetpixel Live - and then to use all this information to construct the Wiki: the history of the film to digital transition and then the different waves of digital technology arriving, and to identify some of the movers and shakers of that period, and the story of Wetpixel itself (you'll see that Waterpixels.net is promoted in the history as a successor). It is interesting to see what an emotionless AI pulls out as the key events, as opoosed to what I would as an emotional human! The Wiki is extensive and a great resource. If it is well received, I am sure that there is more that could be done with such technology and the Wetpixel archive. It is also possible to comment and suggest improvements. Alex

Don't have an answer for you will share my experience and I'm surprised they are that cheap. I contacted a number of companies in the USA and China and the acylic domes were much more expensive but they were also many times larger. It was hard to find anything that was "optical grade" which I'm guessing is much harder to make for larger domes, but I also wasn't sure I needed it and didn't want to spend the money to find out the hard way. Sounds like you have that part figured out. The most challanging part of the dome I hadn't solved was the housing interface, making it waterproof, and getting the right standoff distance. Definitely can be done and much simpler to do for taking images on the surface compared to depth. I'll be curious what you find out.

Exactly! Yes, that seems to be the case, I just tested it. It works with the R5II, by the way.

Hi Don!

Welcome kd!

Hi Joe!

Hi Alex!

Welcome Will!

I'm bumping this thread as I now have an A7SIII, firmware 4.00, and unfortunatelly don't have tracking on or toggle in the focus menu. It's only in stills. Apparently this super helpful function is just not available on the Sony A7SIII curse of old age, I guess...

Im looking to get some RFQ's from Chinese glass manufacturers for 200-300mm domes. What would be the thickness for the glass? They make 1-10mm. On the webpage they say domes are for underwater photography, so that leads me to think they might actually supply some of the Chinese manufacturers like Seafrogs or Weefine. Or maybe even higher end ones. Some of the prices i found were under $20 for a smaller dome. And yes, might go down the acrylic route found on this thread, but hey, why not glass if its cheap.

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 ....

So you are saying pressing the AF point button outside the housing activates display off, but inside the housing it won't work, but other functions assigned to that button work inside the housing? Maybe there is a eye detection function in the camera viewfinder and inside the housing it thinks there is an eye at the viewfinder and won't activate the function, because it thinks you are still using the viewfinder? You could test by covering the eye sensor to see if it stops activation outside the housing?

Fair enough, though I would add that ports for Isotta seem to be a quite a bit cheaper and particularly extension rings when you look at the prices for the type II rings from Nauticam - that's a long term cost if you add more lenses later. The Canon 8-15 with metabones and Sony 2x is also a fine option, about as good a quality as WACP-C according to posts on here and combines a 180° diagonal fisheye, the field of a 14-28 rectilinear and the wider end of the WACP. You can use it behind a Nauticam 140mm dome among other options such as Nauticam 4.33"acrylic dome and even the tiny Zen 100mm dome (at the cost of some corner performance). In Isotta you don't need the N100-N120 adapter and you could use it with the 4.5"glass dome.

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.

I've been experimenting with the Canon 60mm on Sony FF via Metabones adapter. IQ seems quite good and the closer FL is a real benefit in the poor visibility we are currently experiencing. I still need to get a port which sits closer to the lens which would make for an even more compact set-up to get into some tighter spots.