Robin.snapshots

For sale: AOI UCL-03 Underwater Close-up Lens for Action Camera & Phone Condition: good as new, used a handful of times. Glass in good condition Asking price: €175,- Pickup from the Netherlands or shipping within EU at buyers expense/risk

The AOI mount also vignettes in 8:7 but considerably less than the Backscatter mount. cropped to 16:9 (or 9:16 for that matter) both mounting options work fine. So if filters are desired, I would definitely opt for the Backscatter mount.

A general rule of thumb underwater is to get as close as possible to the subject. Less water in-between means more contrast and overall better image quality. Getting closer will also mean more strobe light on the subject, but as you want to start with natural light, this is not a consideration yet. Fisheye lenses are quite common for underwater photography as they tend to give a wider field of view (getting you closer) and sharper corners in the smaller domes like the 6" seafrogs one. For reefscapes I would consider the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens first. This lens is not a native Sony lens so will need an adapter for a Canon or Nikon mount depending on the one you get. This is an excellent wide angle lens for underwater use and a versatile option because of the zoom range. For larger animals like sharks, getting close is not always an option. So a slightly tighter lens like the Samyang 12mm will get a bit more of them in the frame. There is also the Sony 11mm option mentioned before, I haven't tried that one but I guess that falls in the same category. Another lens to consider here is the Sigma 16mm f1.4 dg dn. This lens is not as wide as the other options but performs well underwater for natural light shooting and is an excellent lens for land photography. Being rectilinear lenses in a 6" dome, these options will all suffer from a lack of corner sharpness. This is not really a problem for things like sharks as the corners are usually blue in these situations. I personally preferred the Samyang for photographing people and things with straight lines like wrecks. Being rectilinear it doesn't have as much distortion a fisheye would have. Here's an example of a model shot in a pool with the samyang: null To illustrate what I mean for reefscapes. Here is a shallow reef shot with natural light on the Samyang: Notice the big drop in corner sharpness with this combination. A fisheye would handle this a lot better.

Hi Jallie, Feel free to send me a personal message. I am in The Netherlands and selling a full set of Salted line housing + ports and have some lenses available as well. As for lenses, what are you planning to photograph? I have used the Samyang 12mm AF and it works great in the 6" dome but I would not like that one to be my only wide angle lens.

Yes in 16:9 or 9:16 there is no noticeable vignetting with both mounting options on GoPro 12

When shooting RAW there is only wide mode (full sensor) available and as such I haven’t shot anything else than wide mode (photo and video) which was the recommended setting. Cropping will yield perfectly usable pictures but is an extra editing step and throws away resolution. This is fine for most users as they will probably use 16:9 or 9:16 which both work well. The lens is still a great product at a good price point and can be very small because of this limitation. The issue I have is with the lack of transparency and false advertising. The lens is sold with the claim of “Razor Sharp Focus From Corner To Corner" which is simply not true. The reason I started this thread is that I wanted to know wether there was a difference in mounting options. I had hoped the vignetting to go away with a better fitting mount.

The tokina 10-17 will work in your current Seafrogs dome if you have the 6” version. Another option I liked in that is the Samyang AF 12mm f2.0

Yes the vignetting is always there in 8:7 format. Backscatters response was to crop the image to 16:9 where it works just fine. I find it a bit misleading for a lens to be advertised as "sharp corner to corner" and then having to crop the corners off. In the meantime, I have tried a friends AOI mount which does sit closer to the port than the backscatter mount. The vignetting with the AOI is considerably less but still present.

After some searching online I found that photodiox has an E mount extension tube set that includes a 7mm. I expect the lens to work without vignetting on FF in the 55 port with that one. With a cmc-1/2 it will be underwater corrected and I expect cheaper in total than the other options.

I own the Sony 50, Canon 60 and Sony 90. If you find the 90mm an exercise in patience, I doubt you would prefer the 50 and 60 on blackwater dives. They perform much worse Autofocus wise. On my a7Riii, a focus light goes a long way to get better results with the 90mm. The 50 and 60 I like using on lower visibility dives. Both of them produce sharp results and I personally find the Sony 50mm much more enjoyable to work with. The tracking AF works much more reliable and in a bigger area of the frame on the Sony. On land I did notice both lenses AF come alive a bit more on my A7iv (still hunting but less) but I haven't tested them with that camera underwater. For both of them (canon 60 + adapter and Sony 50) you need the 32mm port + 40mm extension or 45mm+30mm both combinations work well. If nauticam would start selling a 20mm n100 extension I guess that should work similar with your 55 port. An option for your 55 port would be the Zeiss 55mm f1.8. This lens is great on land and can be obtained for a reasonable price used. This lens sits against the front of the 45 port on its own, it's a very tight fit and I would be worrried about it long term but it works. Nauticam recommends this lens in the 55 port in combination with the cmc-1/2 but warns about vignetting on full frame. The vignetting might not be an issue in black water dives at all but can be fixed by adding a macro extension tube inbetween the lens and the camera. To make the lens with tube fit, a 9mm tube would be perfect if such a thing exists. Otherwise shaving off half a mm on a 10mm tube would give it enough clearance.

Your sunhood could use a little adjustment 😀 This is indeed a very capable setup like this. Have you thought about adding a macro wetlens to the setup? There is the AOI ucl-03 that fits on the bayonet system but I don't have personal experience with it.

Where the camera flange sits inside the housing was changed going from the a7 to the a7ii (and newer). I would suggest looking at both port charts and taking into account the difference on top of Isaac’s measurements.

On my X3 there was a significant improvement for me when switched to the newer version of the dive case. By no means invisible but cleaner shots nonetheless.

Here is an example illustrating the difference with tracking AF in a handheld scenario on my a7 iv. As said in the previous post, the AF seems to work much nicer outside of the center with the Sony. Here the vignetting of the canon can also be seen initially but disappearing at closer focus.

Thanks for letting me know, Its been a while since I had an aps-c lens on I completely forgot this was a thing. The 1200px crops are still fine (there the magnification is also similar) but I would need to check the canon again for vignetting in that case. I did a quick AF test yesterday and I have to say that the Sony performs much much better when the subject is not centred in the frame. The sony can have focus points in the corners of the frame where the canon really struggles. During that test I also noticed that the lack of contrast of the Zeiss was partly caused by some internal reflections on the extension tubes. After flocking one I got much cleaner results but also some vignetting because the material I had is a bit thick. I ordered different extension tubes with a wider opening and will repeat the test with those.