MrChen

Ok, I'll play with it. I'll check the alignment. Thanks guys.

I feel like my lens is sitting too far back. I didn't get a chance to screw the Kraken lens directly into my port. Would I be able to get my lens closer to the port glass by adding a weak diopter to the end of my lens?

Switching to the 60mm lens made ALL the difference, but I still am not in the clear. I was definitely able to capture better images. Please ignore my strobe placement, I lit up a lot of particulates. I was at the tail end of my BHB dive and didn't position the strobes properly for the WA lens. I'm getting a crooked black frame around my images, see the attached image. null I was able to capture lighting MUCH better, see the cropped photo. null

The bridge is amazing if you know where and what to look for.

Limonandra nodosa Seahorse Sargassum Frogfish Dwarf Frogfish Dwarf Frogfish Octopus Dwarf Frogfish Octopus Striated Frogfish

I had an amazing dive yesterday morning (Sunday). HT was just shy of 10am. I arrived around 8:30am and the parking lot was filling to the middle area. We decided to West. Water temp hopped between 76 and 77 on my dive log. Vis was around 25ft. All I can say is wow, what a dive. We found 6 frogfish, 4 seahorses, several nudis, sea hare, and 3 octopus. I took over 200 photos, which is more than I've taken a in a long while. I haven't done an ID on all of these yet and wanted to get photos up to share. Juvenile Straited Frogfish, size of pea. Seahorse Dondice arianea? A hiding flounder Seahare Seahorse Seahorse

I went Sunday morning and the place was pretty packed. I went west to avoid the crowd. I didn't see any manatees or spotted eagle rays, though I did see the spotted eagle rays on the east side a couple of weeks ago. One was just swimming around playfully with all the divers, swimming within inches of GoPro cameras. Yesterday, I had 76 degrees, 25 ft vis. My buddies and I found 5 frog fish, 4 seahorses, 3 octopus, 5 pipefish, and several nudis. It was an incredible dive for sure. Pictures to come when I have a chance to process them.

It makes sense and I assumed that to be part of the problem. I created another thread to discuss gap distance differences on diopters (Nauticam vs SubSee as examples). My thought is that the Saga adapter doesn't allow the SubSee diopter to get close enough to the port glass. It might not be fair to completely blame the Saga adapter, the SubSee diopter could be designed better for it as well. The port could fit tighter to the camera lens. It all adds to the gap distance. I'm only see the issue when using the 60mm with the diopter on the adapter. With the diopter flipped out of the way, the issue doesn't exist. I need to try the diopter threaded directly to the port. All of this is making me want to swap out the flip adapter and/or the diopter for the Nauticam equivelents.

I've used Reef Photo and Backscatter. Unfortunately (or fortunately for diving), I live in Florida and will be charged sales tax with Reef Photo.

I'm looking at the Nauticam dual flip adapters and there are two options with large price differences. First is the Nauticam M67 Double flip diopter holder for 67mm Macro Ports for $503. This seems pretty straight forward, there are two 67mm threaded adapters. Next is the Nauticam Flip Holder Double, M67 for MWL-1 for $387. This appears to come with an adapter for the MWL-1 lens. The price difference percentage wise is quite large for what appears to be a similar product from the same manufacturer. My question is mostly regarding the MWL-1 model, is the MWL-1 adapter exclusive to the MWL-1 lens or can the adapter be removed and expose a second threaded 67mm adapter? The idea being that I can pay $387 and get the same thing as the $503 model. Is there an opportunity to save money?

My post linked has me thinking about flip adapters and the accessories attached to them. Using my current configuration as an example, I have a SubSee +10 diopter attached via a Saga flip adapter. Looking closely, there's over a half inch gap between the camera lens and the diopter lens. When using my 60mm lens, I can see the diopter in the corners. I don't have this problem with my 105mm. As I look at the Nauticam products (flip adapter and diopter), you can see that they've designed it to get the diopter glass closer to the lens. The question is, how much of a difference does this make to focusing quality and speed? You can see the difference in this product picture:

I love my 105mm. Every time I use my 60, I immediately go back to my 105. I'm going to force myself to work with the 60. I want to do some blackwater diving, so practicing with the 60 isn't a bad thing. This is the effect I'm getting with my 60mm and my diopter on the saga flip adapter using the S&S recommended port configuration.

I bought it from them, so I used that chart as reference. They also sold me the Saga flip adapter which I'm not really happy with. I had to grind the hinge a little to allow the KRL09S to fit (per their own video) and I grinded it too far. I learned my lesson and grinded the other side correctly. I then used JB Weld to fix the one I messed up. But then I needed to swap the mounts so that the heavy KRL09S was on the one I did right and the lighter diopter on the one I had to fix. The JB Weld has held up extremely well. I used the steel reinforced epoxy. With all that said, I'm frustrated with Bluewater and will consider them a secondary source for buying gear, and not my first pick if I can buy an item elsewhere at the same price.

Yeah, I saw that. I'll take the 60mm out for a spin on my next BHB dive.

As for port lengths and not using their recommended configuration... They used to have an older chart with multiple configuration options. Configurations I've used for 60mm lens Previously: NX Standard Flat port (84mm) Current: Compact Macro Port SII (35mm) with NX Compact Port Base (50mm), Total length (85mm) The DX Macro Port 60 II is 93mm, possibly a little less, it doesn't say distance to the glass. Configurations I've used for 105mm lens Previously: NX Standard Flat port (84mm) with Extension Ring 20L (35.5mm), Total Length (119.5mm) Current: Compact Macro Port SII (35mm) with NX Compact Port Base (50mm) with Extension Ring 20L (35.5mm), Total length (120.5mm) The DX Macro Port 87 is 120.5mm and the DX Macro Port 90 II is 123mm. So, my current port configuration is within spec.