ColdDarkDiver

I put some examples on page 2 of this thread: (not sure why the hyperlink box is so wonky.) 7-14 - Nice and sharp, easy to use. Great lens. I can pull some 8-15mm photos for ya if you want. Slightly less sharp (my copy) but not really notable unless corner peaking.

Seems wide for a prime to shoot pelagics. If you haven't tried the 16 f/2.8 it makes a nice small package (no extension) and gets you to 2.8 - although likes a big dome which defeats some of the "small profile" advantage. It plays nice behind the domes at least. Corners are bad at small apertures which may not be an issue for large pelagics. I'd go for the 14-35 for that purpose since I would want some reach. I haven't use the 15-35 f/2.8 - does it out perform the 14-35 underwater? I have found the 14-35 OK but outperformed by the 15-30 (non-L) behind a dome.

I have both the Cinebags grouper and the AO cooler. I like them both but for different reasons. The AO cooler is much thicker and provides superior padding when traveling around with my rig in the cooler. It also is much taller so you can get a housing with a monitor on the top to just tuck in. My zipper is still alive after a couple years. It does not travel super flat so harder to get to wherever one is going diving. However, when closed up with the flaps down it is a nice padding setup! The Cinebags - (now Kraken... somepoint would like to know how that happened)- is great for strobe + mirrorless housing and arms but no monitor. Plus it fits nicely in a XL Duffel bag (in particular a North Face one w/o wheels) so I use it as a packing divider for all of my camera stuff when flying/traveling to the dive site. It provides nice extra protection for float arms...all that kinda stuff for baggage handlers. When I get to my destination it then becomes my camera moving device on and around the boat but I am always right at the size limit for it with 180mm dome and a couple strobes. I don't do enough live aboard diving to have an opinion on using either as a rinse tank. I have definitely used both as rinse tanks on the dock at the end of a day of boat or shore diving to make sure they get a good wrinse.

I just stuck a bunch of tire balancing weights to the bottom of mine. It helps a lot. I have ~100 grams worth on it but could add more. I don't know what you would need for the A7Cr with 20-70 though. Good luck!

I don't know. I think the likely hood of slightly overzooming and having hard edges is not worth the risk. Tape is the new zoom gear, and much more cost effective. One could tape it at 13. (but with the ability to remove the lens shade underwater, with zoom gear you can swap to the full 190, which can be fun.) It wouldn't take much of a sale to push me over the edge into buying it myself.

To get some real-world experience, I rented the new 7-14mm fisheye over the weekend to try it. For reference, I have and love my 8-15mm EF fisheye and so my question is whether it is worth it to upgrade to the new RF version. Like my EF one – I taped it at 14mm for the whole dive, used my Marelux 140mm dome on a Canon R5. Lighting was two Inon z330s with stock diffuser. TL DR – A great lens – works great underwater and if I didn’t already own the 8-15, I would definitely get it. I’m not sure I will buy one… but may. Long version: I had no issues or challenges using this lens. It is.. maybe 5mm shorter when on the body compared to the 8-15 so I just ended up using the 30mm extension that I do for the EF version. Marelux and Nauticam space their housings differently…so a nauticam user may want to go to do something different...? I didn’t find any sort of weird problems with it being 14 instead of 15 in the dome, I did not remove the dome shade and it seemed like I could maybe zoom out to 13 without getting any vignetting on the full frame sensor… but I didn’t try (since I taped it and there isn’t a zoom gear for it anyway…yet). For this dive I turned off all non-essential stabilization (still IBIS) so had zero crop on the full frame sensor. I took it to the Channel Islands, CA and vis was great (for the channel islands) but there was still a lot of particulate in the water. I shot between F/8 and F/20 but kept it mostly at my sweet spot of f/13 and F/16 – which is how I find the EF one to be a nice balance of ISO, Shutter Speed and strobe output. As always, I find the biggest challenge with either of the lenses is to evenly light the frame without getting lit backscatter on the edges. I've selected (mostly) uncropped images for this post as I think it is most telling, but my favorite images from the day have some mild cropping done. These two images are uncropped at at f/13: I found the lens incredibly detailed with good color. At F/16ish the only bit of the frame that wasn’t sharp was the absolute most extreme corners and even those were pleasing to me. (here is a cropped one for color:) Here are a few other non-cropped: This one at f/18 and here is one at f/16 - I find this one particularly revealing on how sharp the lens is behind the 140mm dome: I returned the lens today and I'm left with a fondness for the lens and think it is the absolute right choice for anyone that doesn't already own the 8-15. I know many extend or use the EF on the crop body and that remains a barrier for the RF. Having done a lot of dives with the 8-15 and only 3 with this one - my gut feeling is that the RF lens is sharper and the corners look better than the EF. I do not think that either of those are sufficient to outweigh composition and lighting, etc. so "better" should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't think I will buy it, but haven't decided. I also want to extend my thanks for everyone who does real lens and lighting testing for this site! So helpful and soo much work to try and make things quantitative. This was just me diving for a day. Hope it helps your purchasing decisions!

Just noting that Marelux also makes an R7 housing. https://www.marelux.co/products/mx-r7-housing-for-canon-eos-r7-mirrorless-digital-camera?VariantsId=10042 and can be adapted to Nauticam ports (if you so wish). Just keeping you informed of options.

I have attached the insta360 X5 to my housing. I don't love it as I will only use the Pro dive case and it is a lot of float to move around when positioning the camera. It works fine when shooting stills but is always self righting to the top with when moving the camera . Going between portrait and landscape is a battle of floatation. I lessened this by using some extra weights up right underneath the housing mount on the selfie stick, but it is still a lot of float. Found it annoying so just stopped. I will often just take the insta 360 though, just like it a lot more on a selfie stick when not using the big camera.

In my opinion (based on personal experience), the go-to lenses for Canon FF are the 8-15mm taped at 15mm (so a prime) and the RF 15-30 for rectilinear. The RF 16 2.8 is just fine too and all of them like bigger domes rather than smaller. I bring the 16 2.8 as a backup but rarely shoot it. The 15-30 gets more keepers than the 14-35 F4L even though it is a cheaper lens. I have not used WWL or WACP because of the mixed reviews on the 24-50 and I don't shoot a Nauticam housing, even though I could get one to fit my housing with adapters. Good luck on your purchases!

I'm wondering about how the video lights are on the Maxi and haven't seen it discussed much. From the layout, it seems they would not have an even light pattern at all. I assume they are not Keldan quality but are they really just dive lights or are they usable for video? Love to hear impression's of those who got them with the 6k video lights.

And the text that goes with it Bluewater PhotoSea & Sea YS-D130R Underwater Strobe ReviewSea & Sea's newest flagship strobe, the YS-D130R, is a powerful 130 ws wide angle strobe with a recycle time of 0.8 seconds at full power. This strobe is a Bluewater staff pick. I would love to see see quality of light compared (beam evenness) to the Retra Maxi and Max II, as well as tests that are from users.

I saw this on Social. Looks like a competition for WACP. But which one I am not sure. MareluxAquista 135D Wide Angle LensAquista 135D Wide Angle Lens Anyone have any further information on it? @Phil Rudin - have you used this? Or do you know when a port chart for it is coming out?

Thanks for the great images and review. I was wondering if you could elaborate on stacking reduction rings with the warming filter. Are both of these the standard ones from Retra and can you put them in series? I also dive in meh visibility water and so was wondering how to lower the color temp while also reducing backscatter. Thanks!

Like the 8-15mm, it is really just a 14mm prime with a party trick. The circular images are really fun, but I also noticed in some of the example images the ring of color cast/distortion (chromatic aberation?) at the edges which I was hoping to not be present in this new lens, is there. Plus 190 degrees may just not work on a housing. Yes - extending would be nice to add in zoom functionality. No IS, kinda a bummer. I am interested in its EVU/ VR utility application and if that would work underwater for landscape experiences. Looking forward to underwater tests, and while excited - it would need to bring some real improved gains to get rid of my 8-15mm to see if it is worthwhile.

As yet another new strobe on the market, I am intrigued by the Sea and Sea YSD130R strobe. I haven't seen it mentioned but overall specs seem nice: -Circular Flash Tube -5600k (so a little cooler than Retra but warmer than many) -Works with a Li-Ion battery or AAs. -Not cheap but not insane either at 1k USD I've seen two reviews - One in UWP (with a link from the Sea and Sea website) https://www.seaandsea.jp/pdf/20260115_uwp.pdf and a little from Blue Water Photo, but as far as I can tell it is just some images. If anyone has some hands on experience, it would be great to see how it compares in beam evenness and impressions of the strobe beam quality.