RomiK

I like the camera, the sound, the editing. I don't like the colors. It seems like desaturated and hue shifted a bit unnatural even where video lights were used. I know it's extremely difficult to unify color tone throughout the movie but I just don't like the look of this. Which camera and software?

Ambient video with CWB for sure, sharks hate video lights and they don't come close anyway, but if you want to get that wall picture you've got to use strobes. Plus hammers don't mind the strobes as much as they mind divers 🙂. The advice is to stay away from other divers, don't breath when one is coming and then pop and shoot. The ambush!🤣

With experiences you have don't worry about Galapagos. Just keep the same habits you already have under your skin, nothing worse than complicate things with new stuff and then miss that whale shark swimming by over at Darwin arch... The most important thing will be your gloves and familiarity operating your rig with them. You will use your gloves to hold on to rocks at the current situations, tie downs are not being used at Galapagos as often you are perpendicular to the current so they aren't practical like at channel Maldives dives for example. Darwin and Wolf are all rocks no corrals so the way it goes is if there is bigger current you wedge yourself in between rocks, free up your hands and start operating the camera. My rig is same as yours and at times I had to minimize its profile and drag it behind me but that's nothing extraordinary. Basically all dives were one handed where my right hand never let camera go and left was used to manipulate my body. And then when wedged I was ready to ambush hammerheads 😂. The currents over there are no mask rippers, yes they may be stronger sometimes but no mask rippers... Darwin and Wolf are simple but the iguanas dive over at Fernandina could be a real washing machine so watch out 🤣 . Enjoy that beautiful place!

Thanks for heads up. In the meantime I bought Metabones V which does accept Sony TC 2x which I already had and is shorter than Kenko (40mm vs 27mm). Then I had to decide on the zoom ring. The problem in adapting Nauticams Kenko version is that it utilizes focus knob on the 100-120 adapter which then creates problem when quickly removing camera from housing for battery change and pictures review. So I utilized my existing Nauticam’s zoom ring for 20-70 and adapted it for now using 75mm waste piping system as shown on my prototype pictures. Works flawlessly, the union is rock solid and so I can pull out the camera quickly in between the dives. Later on I will design some kind of 3D printed extension for this solution as I want Nauticams aluminium barrel with cogs and not plastic 3D printed one. I am ordering 140mm dome as it is clear to me that due to curvature I would always have CA problem with 180mm dome. All in all I am beginning to think that I am building nice, travel friendly and versatile system around Sony N100 N100/120 + 20mm + 180mm for 16-35 PZ F4 N100/120 + 35mm + 180mm for 20-70 F4 N100/120 + 20mm + 35mm + 140mm for 8-15 F4 adapted as 16-30 F8 Fisheye (think travel friendly FCP1 🙂 N100 + macro port for 90mm and EMWL WWL1 will probably go. I will wait for 140mm to arrive and publish some tests and comparisons afterwards. Cheers.

Thanks for the reaction, I've spent quite some time reading yours and @DreiFish posts recently 🥵. I have both Sony and Kenko 2x - unfortunately neither Tokina or MC11 accept Sony 2x so I couldn't compare. I am not impressed with Sony 2x neither with 70-200 F4 GII or 200-600 so I think they will be same, the performance penalty is there but unless zoomed in 300% on 50Mp file one can't really notice it seems. I am more concerned with CA when using 180mm dome and would like to see uncorrected 140mm samples with contrast subjects. I didn't see any CA with 140mm dome but I did see CA with 17inch dome at @DreiFish thread which made me wonder... I wonder whether I could get satisfactory performance from 180mm dome and 8-15 w/2x to have one dome when traveling. I am quite OK with corner sharpness and micro contrast which in my opinion quite a bit surpasses that of WWL1 28-60 combo but that CA makes me wonder.

As part of my quest to determine viability of adapting 8-15 on my Sony A1 I made a series of shots which I thought could be of interest. I would also appreciate if current owners of this setup could answer certain concerns as far as chromatic aberration . Testing setup was Sony A1 + Tokina TA-019 + (Kenko Teleplus HDpro 2x) + Canon 8-15 F4 taking picture of improvised lens resolution chart setup under simple LED light. Magnifications are 300% on a 50MPix sensor with ISO of around 2000 but you can see this on screenshots. White rectangle in left corner thumbnail shows magnified position. First image the full view. 15mm is at 15 without tele, 16mm is at 8mm with 2x tele zoomed in 300% Underwater images without teleconverter at 15mm behind 180mm glass dome with 20mm port extension - too short (would need 15mm for this test, without the extension the CA was even worse in other pictures) but good for test and also a show a problem with chromatic aberration. What I would like to see if any users of 8-15 have any sort of test images with 140mm dome and proper extension which could demonstrate chromatic aberration issue or lack of it. With 180mm glass the CA is absent only at the very center and starts showing quickly towards the corners. Other then CA I am happy with corners and off center sharpness and resolution and micro contrast of adapted 8-15. Much better then WWL and perhaps WACPs, also Kenko 2x show no degradation of image whatsoever including color rendition so I think if I could tackle CA or it would show no issue in post the 8-15 with 2xKenko is great combo even for 50Mpix sensor adapted on A1. Tokina AF works flawlessly in photo mode including tracking and animal AF, also good in video mode that that has to be selected topside.

Very nice shots, how long it took eels to pop up after you sat camera down? I found myself unable to wait too long passing eel gardens on a group dives. Back to subject I think that this eel movie would benefit from narration or even subtitles explaining the life of eels which would become a story and the video would become an underlying part of that. Without the story I think it's just too long.

Yes, these were two lenses although technically WWL1 is paired with 28-60 and is classified as wide angle with kinda fisheye effect, the FCP is their fisheye. So yes the corners would be different and if anything I would expect - as Nauticam claims - the corners of WWL1 being sharper than 16-35. Which is the opposite even when WWL1 has more then 1 stop advantage. That`s another thing that struck me - no clear advantage in FOV. Perhaps few percent if that and achieved by bending corners if anything else. Of course this is for WA, I will have to make another test for CFWA and see how the depth of field and minimum focus distance would play into this. But as far as WA goes it seems the lens and dome have advantage with sharpness and micro contrast. And that was 180mm dome while 230mm would bring even more superior corner performance (but who would want to travel with that 🙂 ).

These are center frame images if we talk about same images (2nd and 3rd from the bottom). They seem to be sharp but sharpness falls more dramatically for WWL1 than for 16-35 comparing center and sides. I was laying on side of the pool and held the camera in the water looking down. The distance to mat was around 1m, the size of mat was 90x120cm. Light was provided by a 10000 lumen video light on my rig and light position changed with each lens exchange. hence the difference in scene lightning between lenses.

I am beginning to think that the Nauticams wet optics are just not good. And so no lens behind these wet optics WWL WACP etc will make a difference on the quality of picture. In fact I am beginning to think that these optics are wrong way to go. During my quest to check how fisheye lens would work for me I made series of picture in my home pool and the results of WWL1 with 28-60 were not favorable compared to such basic lens like 16-35 F4 PZ behind just a 180mm glass dome. Judge for yourself, all details are 300% and white box in left corner thumbnail shows the positions of enlargements. 16-35 performs much better even when its at F8 while WWL lens is stopped down to 13. I have disabled profile correction for 16-35 so it shows kinda barrel distortion like you might prefer for shooting in water to make the subject pop. With profile enabled it would be strictly rectilinear.

There is this ad series running on YouTube, the Masterclass... and there is one of them saying - "unless you have a story you don't have a way to persuade people" or something along these lines... most people's travel videos have story - for them. So the challenge is to come up with the story for general audience - based on shots captured as part of personal story. Not easy. Unlike Casey Neistat most people create stories after the filming, not before 🙂.

I will thank you twice 🙂. I found Your answers in an earlier thread on route to a camera store and so for now I end up buying there Kenko 2x. I also tested MC11 and while stills AF was fine the video AF was nonexistent. And also Sony 2x wasn’t compatible with MC11 either. so for now I will try to replace WWL1 with this setup where appropriate. the last missing pieces are to order proper 120 port extension and zoom ring 3D printing. I will appreciate any heads up where to get one or plans for it. 🙏🙏

Thanks for reminding me I already have Sony TC2x ! 🙈🤣 Okay I thought I would test it out but sadly Tokina's opening towards the camera does not allow me to insert the TC2x there 😐... So the next step is to test MC11 which I know it lacks focus in video period. I will post my findings once I get it. Then it will be 16-30mm focal length so 180mm will be OK! 👍

Thanks Chris ... and do you remember anything re: manual focusing with 1.4x coming across your eyes in the past?

I am happy to report that Tokina TA-019 adapter provides flawless AF in both photo and video with canon 8-15 F4 fisheye zoom lens and Sony A1. Not at the same time as there is Photo and Video mode switch on the adapter but in respective modes AF works fine. Even subject recognition Animal Bird and Human work fine in Photo mode. So my question is, if I was to use this setup with Kenko 1.4x teleconverter, is there an option for manual focusing 8-15? Nauticam's chart does not offer focus ring for 1.4x combo, only a zoom ring. Is there perhaps 3D printed solution or could be regular focus ring adapted? One workaround would be to shoot video in M mode and always focus before starting recording video but I would prefer having control of focus during recording too. (Imagine whale shark flyby 🤣). When Tokina adapter is in Photo mode the focus does not work at all both during video recording in any mode and when camera is in video mode. If I was to shoot video only on a dive I could switch the Tokina adapter to Video mode before the dive and then AF works flawlessly for video. But I can't take pictures as the AF will not work for taking pictures. Obviously there are better lenses for UW video so preferred modus operandi would be a photo mode with occasional video if desired. So that's that... Second Question I would ask is whether picture quality would be satisfactory with 180mm glass as I would be using the lens effectively in 12-21mm focal lengths...