Sergio

I wanted to give my 2 cents to this topic as well;-) I think the very first photo where you point out the blurriness of the top left corner is due to motion blur. I have been watching a lot of videos of @Alex_Mustard and also subscribed to his online courses and he does enjoy taking shots panning the camera to instill motion in his images. Look at the background behind the school of fish and you see how it all "smears" away. So I think the background is blurry by choice. Also, from everything I heard @Alex_Mustard claim on his videos was not that the FCP would provide equal image quality to the WACP-1/2 but rather versatility in reach for a fisheye or fisheye-like lense. He compared the reach to the Tokina 10-17 which is still used a lot for APSC cameras but has less reach than the FCP-1. I think he also commented that the image quality of the FCP-1 should be equal to or maybe better than a fisheye including a teleconverter. And I suppose this is maybe what we ought to compare the FCP-1 with? It would be nice to have a better understanding of the reach of a fisheye with a teleconverter vs the FCP-1 and image quality at each focal length for the same aperture, iso, lighting etc.

Sorry, I only respond now. This is a very interesting discussion; having all those varied viewpoints will certainly help make decisions to get one or not. Regarding the distance I took this shot: it was very close. It's probably about 5 cm distance and that little bit of soft coral which is sticking out is even closer. I am really not a photo pro, so I am probably saying something completely wrong here, but still will try to formulate my understanding here: From what I understand DOF depends of course on the focal length but also the camera sensor and the distance of the subject. I went to https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof and plugged in some information, knowing that it's not all the correct but will probably give some indication of the DOF when being so close at the subject: So this would be a very shallow DOF of give or take 3cm. when adding a 2x Teleconverter DOF goes down to just about 1 cm: Now, I understand that fisheye lenses work a little bit differently from what I read and I couldn't really find any information about how to calculate DOF for a fisheye. So I am not sure that the rules above really apply to a fisheye but most images that I have seen which were CFWA typically have some blurriness in the background and would probably have it in the foreground as well if something were to stick out such as in that image I took. Hoping some of you who know about this stuff much better than me, can correct or support my understanding.

This shot was done at very close focus distance, so wouldn’t it be normal to expect a more shallow DOF? And again don’t rule out the incompetent photographer that took the shot 👀

Please don’t rule out the photographer who was at fault here. The z8 is completely new to me and I’m still struggling to get the right AF modes set which in this case was clearly the case. I’ve been trying a lot of different modes with this camera and some work better than others. So if things are blurry in the wrong places that’s me to who is to blame not the camera 🙈

Well, I just looked at those images when clicking on this website and somehow the server downsized them to 180KB from 8, resp 10MB. It seems as if this site is compressing uploaded images quite a bit. So, uploading both images in a zip file now. Sorry for all those messages. DSC_6319.zip

and here is the 2nd one, also cropped where the foreground is in focus while the background isn't

nullSorry guys. I uploaded those photos with an export setting I had for a previous export at 1200 pixels on the longest side - didn't notice it. For some reason, I cannot upload the full jpg which is about 20MB as I am getting an error -200, so I cropped the first one (background sharper than the foreground) here and will post the 2nd in a separate message as there is a file limit per upload.null

Wow, thank you very much, Chris. Lots of things I don't understand, but will dig into this and find out more;-)

Fear not my son and spread your mission to anybody who wants to sell you anything 😜

I reduced the resolution quite a bit as there’s an upload limit I ran into in another thread i posted, so I used the same export settings not thinking about how the files would look here - quite crappy actually;-) I’ll try to do it again.

Thanks Tim. I wasn't aware of that. Learning something new every time 😀

Thank you, Chris. Yes, it is possible to reset the WB, but I was just wondering why the colors are off to start with. I assumed that my strobes were perhaps not set strong enough to light the coral head properly for the camera to set the WB correctly? This photo is somewhat salvageable but others aren't, i.e. the colors get washed out or one has to go with some masking which in a busy scene like this can be potentially visible as well. I have been so far very pleased with the files that came out of the Z8 and paired with my Retras. Unlike my D200 and Z240 where I regularly had to adjust WB and remove noise, etc, these files oftentimes require a lot less work;-) So, I am essentially just trying to understand how I could actually get the WB right in camera if possible.

It's a medically induced syndrome I was told which makes you believe You Only Live Once 🥳

I will add my 2 cents to the discussion even though I don't see myself very qualified to chip in as I am still in the very early learning phase of underwater photography and photography as it is;-) I bought a completely new system based on the Z8 and when pondering what way to go for a wide angle system I splurged (had some sort of YOLO fart coming out of somewhere) and changed my original decision of buying a wwl-c to getting an FCP. I just came back from a trip to the Philippines where I could put my baby to work and have to say that overall I am quite pleased. While I do like sharp pictures, I was also struggling with the new mirrorless options and got a lot of blurry photos because it (please note that I did not say I 😆) focused on the wrong spot. I thought to add 2 photos which I thought show that the FCP does/can provide sharp photos but the DOF is definitely there. Both photos are simple raw exports, no processing, and cropping was applied and none are masterpieces, especially with the diver photo bombing. In the first one (from the bottom up), I focused on the background (an obvious mistake), but you can see that the Gorgonia and diver are reasonably sharp (at least to me), while in the second photo, the soft coral is sharp and the background is blurry which is a DOF thing I think, but I quite like it that way as it doesn't detract from the centerpiece, especially when you go close. The one thing I like about the FCP is its flexibility in having a range from 170 to about 70. The reason I went with the FCP was essentially this: what would be the alternative? Of course, there are several, such as fisheye with a Kenko 1.4 to get reach, wwl-c, etc. But none of them has the same reach and would mean to have several ports to lug as well. And since I heard a lot of good things about water optics I wanted to give it a go and grow with it over time as I believe this port just like any other system needs a lot of use and trial and error until one gets it - unless one is a pro or gets to use it daily, which I can't. I cannot comment on the image quality between the FCP and let's say a fisheye and dome (I don't think you can compare the FCP with WACP, etc as they don't distort the photo like a fisheye does from what I read, so would be rather comparable to rectilinear lenses), but from everything I read, it should be at least on par with a fisheye if not a little better but with the additional reach in being to zoom in and out quite a bit. The 2 real downsides are of course the price and the weight. If however, you start adding all the parts for a fisheye, kenko, and maybe 2 ports to also do CFWA you will end up close to the same weight I think, and might even be a bit bulkier. Well, the price still stands, but when you have the YOLO bug, then nothing will stop you...

Thank you all. Sorry about that. I reduced the file size to something more manageable and now it works 😉 The photos are simple exports from the raw file, unprocessed and not cropped. First photo DSC_6243.jpg: ISO 320 31.5mm f/13 1/200s Depth: about 3m Second photo DSC_6323.jpg ISO: 100 29.5mm f/13 1/100s Depth: about 19m