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I got my bumpers and knobs! Super Nice!! About the standard Retra knobs. They have a cavity inside that could hold water and fit so close to the case that blowing out the water completely might be difficult. In replacing my knobs with the 3D printed Super Nice knobs, (1) I discovered that the shaft itself is Nylon, not stainless! Hmmm, I did not expect that on $XXXX strobes! (2) The cavity seems to serve no purpose and I took a 1/8 drill and put a hole in them into the cavity in exact alignment with the set screw hole such that it intersected the cavity at mid depth. (3) JFYI, the set screw goes deep into the plastic shaft and must be nearly completely backed out before the knobs will slip off the plastic shafts. I am quite certain that the added hole would allow complete rinsing and removal of any water and since all the parts are plastic I am not sure it matters. But who wants salt water left in their expensive gear, so add the "blow" hole or get some printed knobs that do not have the cavity and have a small gap at the interface to the back plate to properly drain. Hey, Retra, what is up with those plastic shafts, are those going to snap off? My Inons have plastic bodies and metal shafts, my Retras have metal bodies and plastic shafts, this is making my OCD hurt my head! On the first moon landing, Armstrong hit a CB switch accidentally and broke it off. If not for an ink pin inserted into the CB they might still be on the moon. The point being, if it is important and can break off, it will, exactly when you need it most. Plastic shafts? Are those going to break when I get that whale shark in my VF?

I have a much more basic carry handle setup that has served me well. Paracord, mini bolt-snap, little D-ring, 1/2 inch tubing. About $10. Attached to the top of the ULCS arm. Zip tied a big oring at the bottom of the arm to stow it while diving.

That's a great set! Thanks for sharing.

Hi, I’ve been using the Nikon 8-15mm lens in combination with a Kenko 1.4 teleconverter for several years now. I’m actually quite satisfied with the image quality. I mostly work within the 11–15mm range, shooting through a Seacam fisheye port. I’ve quickly picked a few sample images attached here. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to provide you with detailed metadata for the images. Best regards, Markus

Great thank you for the info- yes the screw unloosened and luckily I was able to save the other shackle from falling off

I primarily use a Nauticam water contact lens, normally the WACP-C or WWL-1B for a smaller rig. With that said, I find the 8-15 +1.4x behind the 140 dome a perfect solution for specific wider needs. Yes, I do miss the longer zoom capabilities of the water contact options with the Sony 28-60, but image quality is never a concern with either. Great images @Dave_Hicks and nice comparison!

EVF plusses generally outweigh the minuses, but it’s an adjustment. Dynamic range for one, auto-adjusting so you can’t ballpark how bright it actually is without taking your face off the camera for another. On the 5d4 I could see that it was dark through the viewfinder but could usually still see the thing I was focusing in, and make a judgement of how much to crank the exposure. I hear the R5ii is better, but I have the original flavor. But on balance it’s better and having instant playback in the VF is worth the adjustment.

I understand, that is why I too have the clamps with a shackle. And lock my arms at the center pivots with bolt snaps and at the outer to inner pivots with a bungee loop, tight or loose, my strobes cannot flail about like I see so often and with damaging results. I also beach dive often enough and need to be able to walk and enter and exit hands free.

I used them for a while, and they're nice because they're cheap and can "upgrade" an existing clamp. However, I ended up buying new clamps with an integral shackle due to a few issues. First, the lanyard metal would frequently bind with the screw so adjusting the clamp meant wiggling the lanyard holder to move things. This was most noticeable when loosening because the spring wasn't strong enough to push the metal out. Second, when I was getting out of the water and had the clamps tightened, any swaying of the lanyard would work the clamps loose enough that the (heavy) strobes could swing around and hit the housing or flop out and get much wider.

ULCS makes these or anyone handy in the shop could do something similar to convert a double or triple clamp to allow lanyard attachment to the center pivot. https://ulcs.com/product/ac-lhc2-camera-lanyard-holder/

After a current-heavy trip to Galapagos about a dozen years ago I came home with super floppy arms. I had cranked them down hard so many times in the current the o-rings were shot. Fresh o-rings made a word of difference. Then I ended up selling all of my ULCS clamps and bought all new ones for good measure. The old ones were still in good shape, but I cleaned them up and sold them for about half the cost of new ones. They were well over 10 years old. Sometimes it's just good to start fresh.

The canon is the sharper of the two, but both are sharp lenses. The 10mm lockout is based on using on APS-C. I imagine designing a custom lockout would be quite a feat.

Agree, makes life a lot easier this way, new o-rings do make a difference. Putting the short arm on attached to the handles and the long arm attached to the strobe generally allows the strobe to sit on the ground when folded into an "M", seems like that should be neater and more stable. The ikelites are good strobes but there's other more compact lighter options available these days.

Huh? Which 8-15 is sharper than the other 8-15? With the Nauticam 140mm dome setup, 10mm is too far back already. The vignette is at 11 or lower. I was thinking about modifying the zoom ring to disallow it from going back any further than where it clips. It should just take some specific alignment to make it work.

You mean this shackle: NauticamLong Multi-purpose (MP) Clamp ~with ShackleIn addition to being a clamp for attaching two 1" standard ball mounts together, the MP Clamp also features an additional socket equipped with a removable shackle for attachment of lanyards or other aThe shaft is about 4.5mm diameter. If it fell off I assume it unscrewed? If so get your self a shackle key to tighten the screw: https://www.whitworths.com.au/riley-mini-shackle-key-screwdriver the slot on the end slides over the tab on eh shackle allowing you tighten it up, once you do that it won't go anywhere. Should be able to buy something similar from a ship's chandler.

The Canon 8-15 can lock out so it won't zoom below 10mm which can help stop you going too far. From reports I've heard the 8-15 is the sharper lens compared to the 8-15 so likely will perform as good or better with a 1.4x.

Don't need the rear screen UW, most models have a programmable time that it will display the shot you just took through the EVF and you can instantly get back to live view with a half press of shutter. So it flashes up the photo taken and you can very quickly see if the strobes hit etc. all without taking your eye from the viewfinder. Mine is programmed to show the previous shot for 1/2 second, enough to see the strobes went off and were bright enough. You hit the review button for a closer look. I use the EVF for WA and macro. If you use a 45° viewfinder you have an adjustable diopter - don't know what your eyesight is like but if you use reading glasses I find the rear screen pretty useless as I can't focus on it properly. I don't need glasses yet to be able to read computer and gauges etc, but telling if a pic is sharp or not isn't easy on the screen but straight forward on the EVF.

On my Sony there is a lever on the housing that selects VF or screen. I bought a used 45 degree Nauticam VF and used it for a couple of years until one day I realized I care nothing about macro and prefer the screen. Yes, I agree, especially for macro, a VF allows more precise framing and focus check. But, I do not care. I sold the 45 degree VF and my new Canon rig is screen only. The VF also seems to use more battery, noticeably so on the Sony IMO. I do not have auto-review set on either of my cameras. I prefer to just press the review button. I may not review every shot.

Conclusion: To my eye the quality off all of these images is quite good. Even at fairly low shutter speed of 1/20th second an mid-range apertures of f9 the images are quite sharp and the corners look acceptable. The 8-15 + 1.4 outperforms the WWL-C setup in the corners by a small margin. I don't see any significant negatives to adding the 1.4tc to the 8-15. However, on occasion you will likely miss-zoom at the 11-12mm range and slightly clip the frame. A minor crop will take care of this.

There have been a number of posts recently discussing the merits of an 8-15mm lens with a teleconverter. The 8-15mm fisheye lenses are great performers, but can feel limiting because they are either 8mm (circular) or 15mm (wide fisheye). If you are dealing with CFWA or a Wide subject just a bit out of reach like Sharks, then a bit more reach might be welcome. A 1.4x Teleconverter delivers just that sort of solution. With the 1.4tc the 8-15 fills the frame without clipping right between 11 and 12mm. This opens up a useful range from 11-15mm or the magnified equivalent of 16 - 21mm. I just completed a trip to the Pacific side of Vancouver Island in an area called Barkley Sound. There is a quaint dive lodge out there called Rendevzous Dive Adventures that runs a very nice operation. I mostly shot the Nikon 8-15mm AF-S lens with 1.4tc (kenko) under a Nauticam 140mm dome. I used my 3d printed 40mm port extension that continues to perform perfectly after about total 25 dives. I did a couple of dives with the WWL-C / 25-50mm combo and tried to take some comparison shots. Below are two similar images taken with both combos. The photos are uncropped and very lightly edited. Nikon 8-15mm with 1.4TC, @12mm, f10@1/25s iso400, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes with 4500k filters WWL-C with z24-50mm, @24mm, f14@1/50s iso400, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes with 4500k filters And a comparison image of the 8-15mm + 1.4tc @ 15mm. Nikon 8-15mm with 1.4TC, @15mm, f8@1/30s iso500, Pair of Retra Maxi strobes with 4500k filters This image needed a BSXT pass as there was a lot of fuzz stirred up by multiple divers nearby.

Thanks, that's what I was expecting. Scaling would have been too easy, and it never works that way. Thanks for all your design efforts, and explanations.

New product promotional image for the TPU Dome Port Covers: Turns out that the Giant Pacific Octopus is a fan of these too! A GPO climbed on my camera and tried to steal my dome cover. Sneaky little sucker almost tore it off and made a quick getaway! It also managed to turn the zoom knob and made the lens (Nikon 8-15 w/1.4tc) vignette a bit. :)

Hi, I didn't have so much time for diving in the last weeks but I have test the dome and compare it with the Nauticam one which my dive buddy has. There's no difference at all in performance, in terms of construction is very solid and there are only two differences with the Nauticam one, the howshot shade can be removed by hand because you can release the screws with just the the hand, they have knobs. But if you prefer it they also send the prisoner allen screws to handle the shade. In the Nauticam dome the lug is machined in the dome body, in the Howshot one the lug is screwed, so yo can use with Sea&Sea, Nauticam and even Isotta by changing the lug. Here you can see two pictures with this dome, both with Canon R6 MkII, one with the Canon 8-15 fisheye lens at 8 with the extension ring which Isotta recommends in his port chart. The other one with the same camera, same lens and Kenko 1.4x converter, the picture is taken at 15 mm with no crop. As you can see the corners are not perfect but there is a huge difference comparing with the 4" dome port, and as I said I can't find any difference in terms of performance with the Nauticam one. I would buy it again.

The truth is that 3d fabrication is iterative. Even with perfect measurements you get things too tight, too loose, half a millimeter out of alignment, etc. Different materials will expand or contact so even if you get the right dimension and you have to adjust it anyway. I have made zoom gears from measurements a few times. Once i got it right the first time, another required three or four iterations to get the right fit. So it's not worth the headache.

A set of measurements should really be sufficient you'd think. Not like it's a mechanism. Im likely passing through Seattle in the next week then a week after, could do a drop off on my way.