RomiK

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...

I do have EMWL and it's not as you think. EMWL have quite a color alteration effect for one and second it has a quality alteration. It's a tool that works brilliantly within intended scope of use but that's all. I wish you a chance to try it some day. No worries, normally I shoot in Slog3 which has greater gamut than HLG. But this time I tried HLG and was pleasantly surprised. Btw you really are not supposed to color correct HLG and definitely not with some LUT or so but I am sure you already know that. Cheers and I wish you good luck with trying out EMWL. It's terrific tool.

Thanks Craig! Yes for hawkfish, in fact I think WWL was off since 0:22 (see the surface not being sharp) through 0:44 and then again 0:55 to 1:00. This changing of perspectives especially for video I consider the main benefit of using WWL1, not so much clearing the bubbles after a drop.

Hello, I am posting this to showcase benefits of using - and detaching - WWL1-B in order to achieve different types of shots on a single dive. I was using AWBUW on Sony A1 and I was using lights at some shots. All shot in HLG PP with no further color grading.

Just a food for thought... since we already spend big $$$ for liveaboards and related travel and these come and go. While investment into a good equipment is there to stay... Imagine diving this destination, all the effort and $$$ which lead to it, you get some great shots of sharks at 35mm and then , perhaps at the end of the dive, there is this fish bowl which screams 'take the picture!'... 180mm glass is like $1400 but that money is going to get used for other space limited travels down the road... and there really isn't substitution for an F4 ultra wide and 180mm combo and selected travel parameters ... just a thought... This bowl is with WWL1 at the widest but 14-16mm would get you quite there. Taken at the end of the dive at Wolf with 35bars ... not much time to play with 🙈🙂

Yep, real life sharks don't get that close... not like the tiger beach zoo types :-)... I wasn't to Malapasqua, I only saw vids that could get pretty dark... I was to Cocos, Socorro and Galapagos and at times it was dark there too so perhaps I could relate... I use Sony 16-35 F4 with 180mm glass dome on Nauticam and A1 and that offers quite good picture quality, certainly for video and shark photo wide open. APSC mode gets me to 55mm in video. Or I would go WWL-1B route. But 180mm glass would be preferred because you don't have to clean bubbles after drop... I missed quite a few shots on Galapagos with WWL and next time I would take 180mm dome for sure. I took a lot of photos at 35mm end in Cocos and Socorro, they just don't come that close over there. Here is an original frame from the best picture I got on Cocos' Alcyon in 2023 (we got lucky and got clear water that day). The detail is 300% loupe...

Whaaat?!!! Mexicans really don't like divers to visit! First they scam them at the airport and now this? So 5 days safari instead of $450 is now $900 extra? WOW!

it's a great effort 👏 but you can't be quite serious about the results being comparable... just download both pictures - Xeliminator and yours so the base is same and try to look in details... instagram maybe even though the scatter you left by the iguana head in the dark is horrible and in the blue is bad too... Xeliminator cleaned it up all and it's good for print even 1x1m after enlargement... Listen I don't mean to argue what simple things you can do with Lightroom but where credit is due credit should be given (xeliminator)...

I wouldn't say 'most' ... I would say 'some' scenarios... I would say most of the times we needed to remove backscatter from absolute shit conditions taken pictures like this Isla Fernandina on Galapagos... yes it is easy to remove backscatter from black backgrounds but we already knew that and did that. The 'other' pictures were major PITA...

I have had similar "effect" when experimenting with Sony 14-1.8 on 180mm glass dome. I removed 20mm extension pushing the lens further into the dome. And it looked similar to what you had. I think you need longer extension. Perhaps another 10,20 or 30mm depending on vignetting check. Although Nauticam states to use N120 Canon EF chart it depends on sensor position inside the housing. For canon EF-S 10-22 which has length of 90mm and minimum focus 24cm they recommend 60mm for acrylic dome. But I can imagine it's for Canon 7 housing while you have BMPC housing and your Tokina has 94mm length and 28cm minimum focus distance. Basically sink the lens as far back as you can so it doesn't vignette and you should be fine.

I too believe this tool will breath second life into many previously "not worth the effort" or "impossible to clean" images... as well as PS AI powered denoise and other tools do

Ha ha so funny!🤣 I asked for it on this forum and PM to retra - neutrally buoyant can with videolight good enough for macro and glove friendly controls - and three weeks later Retra delivers! 🤣 👏 Not that I would think they built it on my order but still 🤣 Well done @Oskar - Retra UWT ! 👏 I am from the camp really appreciating characteristics of undiffused light produced by circular tubes so it was a bit sad to see departure from those but one can always dream that the next MaxPro is going to have that. Once again well done! 👏👏

A note to all naysayers from a former owner of a software company (sold it and well) - things cost money. These money can be recovered only through sales. You thinking UW photography market is big? Look at subscriptions of UW market on YT for example. How many channels dedicated to UW photography ratings are there? How many Nauticam housings you think are being sold every year? I am grateful that someone got the balls and spent hundreds of some man-hours to tweak what caters probably many multiples sized market (astrophotography) for our needs... just think about it.

WOW! I can finally process so many images otherwise left for 'some day' 😍null

28-60 max length 75.3 (at wide) min focus distance 300mm => focus from front element 225mm 28-70F2 max length 155mmm (140+15?) min focus 380mm => focus from front element 225mm so it might do? Perhaps with WACP-C even more travel friendly for just a slight loss in perceived quality?

Update - and not a good one. Most of the Sea of Cortez group had to pay. Meanwhile another friend of mine from Chile living in Mexico arrived (from our recent Galapagos trip) through Cancun and wrote me: Before going through the x ray machine, I went to the bathroom and took the camera outside the housing and split it between my 3 bags. I didn't have any issues So it seems it’s safe to say one must consider the possibility to pay ransom when traveling to Mexico with underwater imaging equipment.

Sadly I must confirm this problem is ongoing and systematic. A friend of mine currently in Magdalena Bay in Sea of Cortez had to pay $400 on his A7S3 in Nauticam housing... ☹️

I have had WED7 2 years ago and used it on 40 dives. It was probably early unit and it was piece of junk. Yes once the HDMI cable was replaced with newer version I could finally see the image. But then the unit started to act erratically, the buttons were responding like on random basis. There was no way to update the firmware so I returned the unit. The screen wasn't really usable in shallower depths. Also buoyancy is less then optimal - it is a brick and need a lot to compensate. @DiversLens since you mentioned FX3 I am guessing you are serious about video work and will want to shoot Slog3 and perhaps deliver in HDR. I am shooting A1 - different sensor, perhaps similar philosophy but IDK. With A1 I am shooting based on waveform on my Shinobi monitor interpreting clean HDMI log signal into HDR HLG. This gives me maximum brightness keeping the waveform just at the top. At bright scenes my A1 monitor is unreadable while Shinobi shows beautiful scene. So to sum this up if your intentions are similar to mine then you have currently only two options for UW monitors - Shinobi/Ninja and SmallHD Ultra5. These Weefines and Supes won't work as they do not have HDR Log interpreting - but I would be happy if owners of recent versions would prove me wrong. Either way good luck, I am in awe what A1 sensor can produce. P.S. since I am also shooting stills I am contemplating to sell my Shinobi setup and splash for SmallHD - just because their PageOS and Nauticam interface might allow me access settings underwater or even create dedicated presets for stills and video. I can't see Shinobi on Nauticam website anymore. only Ninja. So my Shinobi setup might be for sale. But need to put my hands on SmallHD first.