Dave_Hicks

For compare and contrast purposes, here are a couple of images from earlier in the week with a standard 60mm Nauticam Flat port.

I dove the Curved Glass port with the Nikon 60mm & Nikon Z8 lens. I put the port on a 20mm (19 really) port base and connected to a 40mm printed extension ring. Everything worked great! Local visibility is not stellar right now but a lot better than earlier this week during a heat wave. I dove a Seattle muck diving site on Alki Beach and found it to be overrun with giant nudibranchs feeding on Sea Pens. Here a few sample photos: Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 60mm lens, Curved Port, f14@1/200s iso400 Backscatter Atom strobe & snoot + BS MF-2 Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 60mm lens, Curved Port, f5.6@1/200s iso80 Backscatter Atom strobe & snoot + BS MF-2 Nikon Z8 w/Nikkor 60mm lens, Curved Port, f6.3@1/200s iso100 Backscatter Atom strobe & snoot + BS MF-2

I ended up making a 20mm version of the Curved Glass Macro port and dove it tonight in an empty housing. Took it to about 80 feet in some of the worst, chunkiest, algae snow storm visibility I have every seen. We had record high temps and lots of sun in Seattle this week which leads to algae blooms. >sad< Less than 1 meter of visibility with all the snotty bits in the water. Still, the port held and worked perfectly. Next up is a proper dive with a camera and photos!

Welcome to WaterPixels. I am also in Washington State, here in Seattle. Both are great communities full of avid divers and photographers. Look me up if you need a dive buddy!

When I was using Eneloop cells, i would buy a new set every year. I was doing about 100 dives a year at the time. I used two sets of 8, so replaced one of the sets every year. A few years on now, most of my old Eneloops won't consistently charge anymore even for use around the house in remotes, thermostats, etc

So much for the conventional wisdom that AA batteries are superior to LiOn because you can buy them anywhere... For what it worth, i used a pair of 4XAA chargers that are USB-C PD powered. Redundancy and no issues with local power supply. Carry a 60W USB brick and run all chargers off of that

Is that a printed ring holding the dome on an extension ring? Subal maybe? I considered that but decided to just print the whole port a single part. If there is ever a need to use to curved port in a more diverse set of configurations I could make a 20mm ring holding the dome. I reprinted overnight and am getting ready to test this out.

It only took a couple of minutes to insert the o-ring. I made about six test prints to fine tune the fit. Too loose, still loose, too tight, just right. I made it snug enough that it was not impossible to place the o-ring. We will see how well it works in the water soon. I built in a provision for a locking ring outside the glass to secure it a bit out of the water. Now the original Zen dome I could not push out the glass by hand. I had to pluck out the o-ring with a steel pick. My dome i can push out by hand, so it is not as tight but hopefully good enough.

Yes, that looks like a problem! My extension ring design has that lip but i didn't (think) i needed that extra diameter for the port. I will add that back into the design!

Yes. It was from a Zen Underwater WA-100 dome port for Olympus 9-18mm. Cost about $200 on ebay. The actual glass rim diameter was 103.85mm. I bought 103mm x 3mm 70a orings from McMaster Carr. I got about 5 orings and used one up repeatedly using it to test fit and installation techniques in draft prints of the top of the port.

Great idea! Absolutely upload it to Makerworld. I'll try it out, very clever idea.

Curved Glass Macro Port - Nikon 60mm n120 Hot off the printer: 17 hour print time! Perfect off the printer! No post-processing or clean up was needed beyond brushing off some threads and dust. Port, glass, glass o-ring, lock ring for glass, Ultima Dryglove lever or o-ring insertion: Pushing in the o-ring: Quarters, then Eighths, then the rest. Installed and Holding Vacuum: Pool test later today. Dive with empty, spare housing later this weekend.

Yes, that is true of my Z8 as well. My older D800 & D850 synced to 1/250. I have not found the 1/200 sync to be an issue. Sure 250 would be better but it should not be a decided factor for most. If it is very important you can spend a $300-400 for an HSS compatible trigger that will eliminate sync speed as an issue at all. I actually just ordered a Turtle Smart3 trigger (non-TTL) to get support for HSS and Rear Curtain.

Enjoy your new rig! I am curious my you didn't house the Z6iii? You could still use small ports like the WWL-C or 140mm dome. Olympus is probably smaller still, but not dramatically.

Yes! I took these images at Magdalena Bay last year snorkeling. The first humpback shot was taken from about 2-3 feet distance. I don't think this would have been possible with a rectilinear lens. If I did this again I would probably add a 1.4tc to the lens. You can still get the same width at 11mm but you have a bit more reach when things are further away. Nikon Z8 w/8-15mm Fisheye lens, f8@1/250s iso640, Nauticam 140mm dome, Natural Light