Phil Rudin

The big news for Laowa is that the 10mm in Sony FE and Nikon Z are its first auto focus lenses after being in business for ten years. According to the web site the lens is in much higher demand than Laowa had ever expected and if you ordered today from the Laowa web site shipping will be expected sometime around August 2024. I ordered mine direct from Laowa very early on and got it in four days from start of shipping. My guess is that the manual versions are in smaller demand and may be back burnered v the AF models. Manual also is available in 5-blade and 12-blade making it even more speculated to go manual. For me it was worth the wait.

First it would be nice not to assume everyone is using Nauticam and simply acknowledge that extension starts at the housing and not at the port adapter, so Nauticam recommends a 30mm extension plus the 35.5mm port adapter so the extension with the NA-230mm port for Sony FE 14mm GM is 65.5mm. In Marelux terms this would be 50mm with the Marelux 230mm port and you could go to 45mm with about the same results. I own the Sony FE 14mm and it is a nice lens but as 121 pointed out above you are paying GM prices for a lens that begins to have issues underwater even in the 230mm port. I reviewed the Rokinon/Samyang 14mm F/2.8 AF for Sony lens in issue #122 (Jan/Feb2020) of UWPMAG.com and as was indicated above the minimum focus distance is 20cm not 25cm as with the Sony 14mm. This improves the ability of the lens to work well in a dome port. At the time of testing I was also working on a review for the Aquatica A7R IV housing. Aquatica had provided a 200mm acrylic dome port and the best extension choice I had was the 28.5mm extension. While I would recommended that best results would be with the 230mm dome the Rokinon is by far the best value in a 14mm for UW use. In addition to the MFD of 20cm the lens also goes to F/22 unlike the Sony which stops at F/16. The difference between Sony F/1.8 and Rokinon F/2.8 is not very relevant for use underwater. For me I don't see enough difference between the two lenses underwater to warrant spending the GM price. For land use this of course would be a different story. This lens does not appear on anyones port charts except perhaps Ikelite. My review is a free PDF download from the back issues at uwpmag.com. For Adventurer the Nauticam to Marelux extension difference for the N120 to N100 35.5mm port adapter is 15 to 20mm, so if 121 has calculated 35mm of extension on top of the 35.5 adapter your starting point should be 55mm of extension for your Marelux housing and 230mm dome port. This however also vignettes and my recommendation would be 40mm of extension. I think 121 is also wrong for Nauticam and may want to actually have the lens to test before posting recommendations. The 40mm for Marelux with 230mm port and 28.5mm with 200mm port for Aquatica seem to be more in line. So for Nauticam the 35.5 adapter and maybe 10mm would be closer to the mark. You may also want to consider the excellent Laowa 10mm F/2.8 to F/22 auto focus lens for Sony FE and Z cameras if you are willing to get on the rather long waiting list. This lens is reviewed in the current issue of uwpmag.com and is about half the price of the Sony FE 14mm GM and the Laowa has minimum focus of 12cm. The setup is the Rokinon 14mm, Marelux Sony A1 housing, Marelux 230mm dome and 40mm extension. Images are uncropped with no sharping. Steps F13, splits F/22, below water thermometer F14, pool light F/13 at 15cm.

For those interested I spent three weeks at Scuba Seraya in September 2023. Beach and boat diving up and running.

You may want to consider the Matty Smith 12 inch dome (305mm) with your desired lens. This port cost half as much as the 230mm glass domes and weights 1.75K(3.4lb) with neoprene cover compared to around 2.67K (5.89lb) for glass. The dome is rated to 2 meters which makes it very useful for things like Sharks, Whalesharks, Sailfish and other subjects near the surface. It also pairs nicely with the new Laowa 10mm F/2.8 AF lens ($799.00US) which has a max aperture of F/22. I have reviewed both.

Hi Brandon, I hope all is well in the great Northwest, I assume you have quite the light show going on at night up there. I don't know about the license but it ia odd to me that Laowa does in fact make the lens for full frame Canon RF and the L mount just not in auto focus. My AF lens has the 5-blade aperture while the manual lenses come in 5 and 12 blades. Did you get rid of all the Sony stuff?

I am assuming you are referring to the UWP article and not this thread regarding 140 dome images. First when you submit to a magazine the Editor makes the choice of what images are used not the contributor. Second the image of the mask with bubbles was taken with the 140mm dome but that information was not included in the description. For me the 140mm dome with 35mm of extension was more than excerptible and the 180mm port was not. As I expressed this is a travel issue for me more than a IQ issue. If I don't have room for the 230mm port I can use the 140 port. I have reattached two of the images taken with the 140 dome system also pictured. null

I am sure all interested are eagerly awaiting the July arrival and subsequent "structured testing" which will be forthcoming. For now you may be interested in my uwpmag.com review of the Laowa 10mm which posted yesterday. I would add that in the review I commented that, If you have no tolerance for soft corners in your images this may not be the lens for you. This is by no means the fault of the lens but the result of using such a wide rectilinear lens in a dome port.

This would be a little closer to accurate.

Yes I understand your question and the answer is that so far and I will continue to use both ports U/W I don't see huge differences. On the off topic of the splits I have the 12 inch Matty Smith acrylic port which I have not yet used, so that recommendation will be a topic for another day. I am not in the habit of commenting on equipment I have never used and speculation is a just that. What I would say is the Laowa lens has 77mm filter threads which will allow me to use my 77mm grad neutral density filter for splits which could be an advantage and I also have the S&S 77mm correction lens to test. Not sure the S&S would add ant value to a fixed lens this wide. I am not clairvoyant so I will resort to my old school method of doing pool tests.

I will also be trying the Matty Smith 12 inch dome port at some point soon to see how it works with the Laowa for splits.

I think he is suggesting that the sunshade needs to be removed from the 140mm port all the time when in fact it only needs to be removed if you want to shoot the 8mm circular fisheye end of the lens.

I could not afford to keep three housings so I sold NA-A1 and now have MX-A1 and MX-A7RV. I use the R V Marelux housing much more than the A1 housing now. The attached photo is with the Laowa 10mm, 20mm extension and 230mm dome on the Marelux A7R V housing. ISO 100, F/22, 1/200th sec. Small crop from the bottom because the lens much like a fisheye is a bit difficult to control when you get very close. The left arm is closer to the lens than the body and it is elongated making the arm look longer and the hand cropped out of the photo very big. Lighting is with two Marelux Apollo III strobes shot in manual. I plan to test this lens for splits with the 12 inch Matty Smith dome at some point using the same 20mm extension. My guess for Nauticam would be the 230mm dome and just the N100 to N120 35.5 adapter.

I currently have both the WACP-C and WACP-1 and to me the obvious question is what are your needs and are you willing to own both a WACP-? and a complete wide-angle system for shooting splits. Second do you prefer your images to be rectilinear, fisheye or are you willing to spend enough to own both. Lots of choices out there and many more on the way. Also while I believe that Nauticam provides excellent Wide Wet Optics choices they are not the only ones that offer these lenses and just like we have levels of price choice for land lenses like F/2.8 V F/4 you also have levels of choice for wet lenses. Not everyone has an SMC or CMC for super macro you have plenty of other choices in a verity of price ranges.

First of all Nauticam is an excellent company and they do extensive testing to provide the best information they can based on the tank tests. Few manufactures include any extension advise that is not in 10mm increment so very few recommend a 5mm addition to their recommendations. To add to the confusion with Sony full frame housings many ports require the N100 to N120 35.5 port adapter II so when you say the Sony FE 14mm F/1.8 requires 30mm of extension you really have 65.5mm of extension. Regarding the Nauticam WACP-2 the fact that it will auto focus above water does not always imply that it will actually work in the way you would think. All of the WWL and WACP lens AF out of the water but the conclusion should not be that the images will be in sharp focus. Since I have actually used the WACP-2 and the only real reason you would want to use it above water is for splits this is what happened in the real world. First I had to use a Childs life vest to help hold it half out of the water because it weights around 15 pounds. Second you need to chose a hyper focal distance and focus on that because trying to AF on something about or below is not easy at all. So if you want to focus closeup Set your lens at F/22 and focus on your hand them lock focus in manual so the distance won't change they shoot. For more distant shots focus on a fin and relock This can be a bit frustrating while trying to hold the system steady. Not included in any of the posts above is what you do about a lens that no one is supporting like the new Laowa 10mm F/2.8 or many others. At that point you need to revert to the system 121 uses or for the math challenged like me who have a pool in the backyard jump in and see what works best. Since I have probably reviewed more lenses than anyone on this site I will tell you without hesitation that testing in the pool is always the first step for any of my reviews. I always start with the Manufactures recommendations but I can assure you they are sometimes wrong. Last lenses with the closest minimum focus distance will beat out other lenses in any given port almost exclusively. So for instance 121 and I have both used the Tamron 17-28mm F/2.8 that focuses at 17mm in the 19cm range extensively enough to recommend it over many of the much more expensive 16-35mm's both F2.8 and F/4. The 17-28mm works even better in a 180mm dome. However in the same 180 dome the Sigma 17mm F/4 with 12cm minimum focus distance is noticeably better and can even be used in a 140mm port with dissent results. Now on to the Sony FE 14mm F/1.8 same same with the results, you are dealing with a lens that focuses to 25cm hard to get stellar performance even in a 230mm dome while the Rokinon 14mm F/2.8 that focuses to 20cm I had better results in an acrylic eight inch port with Aquatica housing and 28.5mm of extension. Not everything is apples to apples so sometimes you just need to DIY your calculations and hope for the best results possible.

I am aware but for me it is more about a like size for travel so how well 140 preformed against the WACP-C is relevant to me. At some point I will compare 230 to WACP-1 which is clearly better than C. This is a lens that is about 1/4 th the cost of WACPC and 1/6 the cost of WACP-1.

I am not a big fan of shooting flat pool walls or tile but I can immediately see that the Laowa 10mm shot in a 140mm dome with 35mm of extension and the sunshade removed looks much flatter and has sharpness about as far out at F/13 as the WACP-C does at F/11. What is most noticeable is how much more the barrel distortion tends to make the walls curve into the corners with WACP-C while the pool light in both photos remains about the same. Again WACP-C at 28mm is F/11 while the Laowa is at F/13. Laowa first photo.

I am having a very busy month so this is not something I would have time for anytime soon. Again regardless of the NPP I would be recommending whatever each housing manufacture recommends in their port charts. What works for me at present is 35mm extension for 140mm with dome shade removed and 20mm for the 230mm port without removing the shade.

I have two ports, the 140 used for the pool shots without a shade and the 230mm used for the springs shots with 20mm of extension. A 30mm vignettes and I don't have a 25mm to try. Also no profiles have been added to the Lightroom program used on the photos. I will leave the NPP math to others because in the real world the amount of changes I can make is limited to the equipment I have in house.

I only shot a few images with the wrong port extension. Not really adequate information to assess IQ. AF. is fast and appears accurate.

If you look back up this page you will see I have used it with the Marelux 140mm dome port with the shade removed.

Clearly this lens would not be most folks first choice but a friend has the lens mostly for astro. She also has a Marelux housing for Sony A7R IV and we gave it a try in a 230mm dome with to much extension so it vignettes. This can be resolved with more extension testing. Photos by Nicole Alarid in the North Florida Springs, natural light at F/5.6 un-cropped so you can see the vignette.

The TIPA 2024 awards were announced today in the US and among the winners for best camera equipment of the year is Laowa's 10mm F/2.8 rectilinear full frame AF lens. Laowa announced this as an architectural, astro, landscape and portrait lens but it is also a fantastic underwater photography lens with an AOV of 130 degrees. Attached are just a few photos from last weeks trip to the North Florida Springs. The 10mm is paired with the Sony A7R V in a Marelux housing with the Marelux 230mm dome port and two Marelux Apollo III strobes. Shot from ISO 400 to 640, most at F/13 and from 1/100th to 1/160th sec. Thanks to Nicole Alarid for her terrific job modeling.

The Warrenty I referenced is for North America user manual. I don't have manuals for the rest of the world so I suggest contacting a dealer in your area of the world. The response I got from Marelux was in reference to my area of the world. I think we are all aware that the EU has different regulations and I am sure Asia and the rest of the world differ as well. You don't need to shoot the messenger I am just releating what I was told.