Chris Ross

If you want a nudi with totally black BG, I think a snoot is really required and you'll get some spill of light onto whatever it's sitting on depending on how small you snoot beam is and how it is aimed. Personally I like some BG inclusion and haven't ventured into snoot work. Inward lighting can also be effective, but it won't get a totally isolated nudi. Agree with the others, don't touch the nudis, they can be very fragile, I expect like fish they be injured easily by handling.

also 1:1 is at 49mm from the front element so about 40mm +/- from the port glass - very close and difficult to light. The Canon lenses similar to this one would be a better option, they have a RF 24 and 35mm STM macro available, they do up to 0.5x, which is probably the practical limit to light the subject with those focal lengths.

It would be a great addition, you probably could use the adapted Canon 8-15 or even the Tokina 10-17 with speed booster even with AOI, but you would be guessing about extensions needed. Though I don't think an 8-15 m43 would be high on their list to start making somehow.

Then you can use two of the INON 90 mega float arm 208 arms for 1394 kg lift. If you want to offset all of that be aware the rig will not want to be pointing up as Archimedes insists that the float arms are floating the highest. I use two Isotta arms at 670 gr each and the rig does not like being twisted upwards. I'm thinking I may place some foam under the housing to help float that upwards. This is only with the Canon 8-15 setup which is noticably heavier than the 60mm macro with my strobes. I seem to recall that 8-15 rig being 1.8kg -ve in total My macro rig is the same as yours, but I have Retra Pure (110g -ve with boosters) the Pro Max II lists at 160gr -ve. I'll have to weigh mine again at some point.

What field are you looking at? A fisheye (or add a teleconverter) would allow this and can be used in a small dome if required, or you could look at the MWL-1 it gives a 150 deg diagonal field, it's used with a Sony 50mm macro, downside is it needs to be shot at f14-16 to give its best. It can get close to the bottom as it's only 100mm diameter. It also works with a Sony 28-70 f3.5-5.6 lens between 60 and 70mm to give a 150-110° diagonal field. You could probably use a Canon 8-15 with sony 2x combo with a zen 100mm dome (at the cost of a little corner performance) to get fields between full 180° diagonal fisheye and something approaching a 28mm FF rectilinear in terms of horizontal field and it will focus down to the dome.

With exactly the same setup diving around home , only difference is the model of Retra strobe , mine I recall are 20g -ve or so in water and an INON focus light at 165gr in water, I use two INON 390g float arms and two 135 gr float arms. It's pretty close to neutral, just slightly negative. You would use two of the new 437 gr INON arms and come up at about the same weight I am less the INON torch. I always use back button focus in combo with C-AF underwater, seems to work pretty well.

yes that's correct, it's not something I'd claim for that system as the 60mm macro is 120mm FF equivalent. It will be better corners than a 30mm macro. I've used the 30mm macro a little and while it produces nice images if you are shooting at 0.5x or higher magnification it gets too hard to light as you are so close. In m43 specifically the MFO3 is certainly a better option than using a 30mm macro. On handling I don't see any noticeable downside, the rig remains balanced and easy to use.

It's a fairly wide open question as the performance of 16-35 lenses in small domes varies quite widely particularly in the corners, some of the newer close focusing lenses perform much better than the older versions. In general the 16-35 lenses might be sharper in the middle and the wet optics better in the corners and the wet optics also perform better at wider F stops. If you search you will find some tests photos from various lenses in these forums. Here is one example: The other consideration is that the WWL style optics are slightly wider about the same horizontal field as as a 13-14mm rectilinear and have some mild barrel distortion. they also will focus right down the the dome glass something that not all rectilinears can do. A final consideration is the wet optic is physically smaller making it more usable for getting in closer for CFWA type shots. regarding removing a WWL I've seen split opinions, a few say no problem, others say they don't want to deal with removing and stowing such a large lump of glass UW.

One of the claimed advantages of the MFO3 is that is corrects for the distortion and abberations caused by the flat port, these abberations are more of a concern for shorter focal lengths/wider fields like you get with a bare 60mm lens. So it should be sharper than a bare 60mm. The MFO3 is fairly hefty however the in-water weight is quite low and it balances quite well in use.

@sean.mcdive if this is confirmed not to vignette, using the 12-50 in the 60mm macro port would be a better option and it sounds like you already have everything needed apart from the WWl-C

The WWL-C as others have said will work with the 12-50. It is still a sizable chunk of glass and you need to work out what to do with it when it is not mounted. Some people here are happy to do this, others less so, it's not like a wet diopter that can go in a pocket and its a big lump to carry on a strobe arm. To mount it Nauticam sells a dedicated M77- bayonet converter. The downside is that it only gets to 110 deg with the WWL-C as it vignettes at 12mm-14mm or so., This is the diagonal field of a 15mm FF lens, but due to the barrel distortion you get the horizontal field of about an 18mm FF lens, so it would be like a 9-18 Olympus with a bit more reach. If you want something in between you could look at something like the 12-40 - I use it a bit diving around Sydney, the 12-45 is also an option, they get to about 0.3x up close to the dome and are sharp and contrasty lenses which will work in smaller ports as they are only 24mm equivalent. Part from the you are getting into needing an N120 port with Nauticam for the likes of the 8-25 and 7-14 - nice lenses but even the 170-180 ports are a little small for them to do their best. In fact the Olympus 12-40 getting 0.3x is very close to the 12-50 in macro mode. I've heard of people using it in 140mm domes.

They do indeed look like dust Dust can be highly variable in the way it appears based upon the lens and f-stop being used. I currrently have a dust spot on my sensor of my old ME-1 MkII. Here it is at f22 (300mm lens): and the same area at f4: and here at f8 with the 90mm macro: You can see that it is much less noticeable at wide apertures, the worst lens I came across for highlighting dust was the MP-e 65 Canon lens - it could do up to 5x and at that magnification every speck of dust was sharply defined. This speck seems to be something sticky that got blown in when the lens was off, I tried cleaning it but it doesn't want to move. Just look at the RH spot, the LH spot is a darker area on the wall. Olympus sensors are usually very good at staying clean, they have a vibration system to shake off dust and it it is mostly extremely effective, but if a liquid spray or something sticky like some pollens get on they can cement on. You do need to be careful cleaning OM sensors as they float the the sensor for IBIS and the mechanism can be damaged unless you park the sensor. Your pattern looks like very small liquid droplets or mist has hit the sensor, based upon the pattern of dots.

I have seen it written multiple times and people have enquired and confirmed the coating is on the inside only. The coating won't be doing much for you if it is etched like that anyway.

They are both One World so the JAL status should count for some extra allowance on Malaysian ? It always pays to read the fine print and know the rules.

I now blow the water droplets off my port, I purchased a mini blower designed for computer equipment and similar and it blows the droplets off, follow by a soft microfibre cloth to leave the surface clean and bright. The slats concentrate up as the water evaporates and particularly if the salts in the water are alkaline the can etch glass. By all means try out the cerium oxide, but if that does not work, I have heard the costs for new glass are not that high.