Chris Ross

It is interesting that Nauticam applies the " * " to the 230mm dome for this fisheye lens while all of the other fisheye zooms have the 140 mm dome asterisked. The new type II dome is asterisked for the Canon 8-15 with Kenko 1.4x while the type I dome is preferred for the 8-15 alone, while the new dome is preferred for the Nikon 8-15 with and without the 1.4x. It was previously suggested that the 140mm was preferred due to it being closer to a full hemisphere than the 230mm. Not so for the Sony lens at least and kind of shows that fisheyes may be less sensitive to precise dome positioning as the 230mm not being a full hemisphere requires the lens to be placed further forward in the dome. It is said Nauticam bases the asterisk on testing, so leaves us wondering what is better about the 230mm dome images. I would have thought you would still base dome choice on whether splits of CFWA was your priority or even that you already had either a 230mm or 140mm dome.

Have you tried shooting in manual? In most cameras this only requires a connection between the centre contact and the hotshoe frame and only needs to close the circuit- it doesn't need to transmit data like the TTL connections, so should have a greater chance of working.

I would add that you are highly unlikely to get close enough to whales to be able to get any useful light on the subject and many places prohibit the use of strobes or lights with any whales. The bigger problem which is apparent if you've been in the water with someone shooting video is that the lights are very bright and cause many subjects to turn tail and leave.

See this link from a post made by Reefphoto, there are issues you should check out when a flood occurs. Also I recall reading that the INON cases were strong but not incredibly chemical resistant so can crack when exposed to the alkaline soup from a battery flood. Here's the link: Reefphoto post I'm not aware of any INON service agents in Australia though, but this company says they can work on UW strobes: https://www.underwaterhousingservicing.com.au/about_us.htm

I don't doubt it will be an improvement over a 16-35 - it's just not a fisheye. Los of people are happily shooting with them.

There is not much around on how to do this. I found a couple of posts discussing doing this for flat ports. the principle I believe is the same for dome ports. The hard part is getting to old o-ring out. https://waterpixels.net/wp-archive/topic/68709-domeflat-port-deconstruction/#wp-post-447495 These may help a little. You could also ask the vendor is they can provide advice, or if they could do the replacement for you, I think I would be a bit nervous replacing the acrylic as it would be easier to scratch even with soft tools.

Well yes for that particular use, but if you are framing big animals it's a different story, you aren't getting close to fisheye wide, it's still better no doubt, but the advantage over rectilinears in a dome is more than just the width of the frame, the barrel distortion gives a bit of fisheye effect and you don't need to stop down so much to have decent corners, plus a big benefit is it focuses down to the glass, while retaining a good percentage of the reach of the 16-35.

The thing to remember with water contact optics like WACP is that they are not hugely wider than a 16-35 , the WACP 130 deg diagonal suggests it’s like a 10mm rectilinear, however the horizontal width of the frame is around that of a 13-14mm rectilinear lens. The water contact lenses and fisheyes both feature barrel distortion which is much stronger in the fisheye. What this means is that image scale varies across the frame, with objects in the centre rendered larger and more prominent with edges of frame rendering smaller and apparently receding. This draws attention to the subject if it’s placed in the central region. Rectilinear lenses feature constant image scale, but nearby objects appear more prominent (larger) and this becomes more apparent the wider the lens. This can cause weird distortion to a diver for example reaching forward that appears to have giant hands as they are closer to camera. Not super apparent at 16mm, more so at 14mm and on to 10mm where it is very apparent.

When do you go , is it soon? I think the winds shift within a month or so. There is a possibility of diving the far side of Lembeh island, depending on which dive resort you are with when winds swing to the north. Some nice wide angle reefs there apparently. As for lens choice I agree that a macro lens plus the MFO3 is indispensable in Lembeh, there are enough larger subjects to make good use of the MFO3. If you using the Olympus 60mm that for me was enough for most subjects I was shown.

Back from a trip diving from Lissenung Island resort in PNG, it's located at the NW tip of New ireland. Plentiful fish on the reefs there, this one pic I have ID'd 15 different fish species and there's at least 4 or 5 more where I'm not sure or the fish is facing the wrong way to allow a good ID. Here's a link to a larger image if you want to explore and chase down different species: Larger image List of species I could see: Lemon damsel Pennant bannerfish Purple anthias - lots of these Moorish Idol Blue and yellow fusilier Saddled butterflyfish Pink-tail Triggerfish Twospot snapper Speckled damsel Talbot's damsel Darkfin chromis Tailspot squirrelfish Neon damsel whitetail surgeonfish possibly and eclipse pigfish??

Email Backscatter as suggested. All the backscatter website talks about is compatibility with their branded flashes. Just because a strobe is listed as being compatible with Sony TTL, doesn't mean a particular trigger will work, even if it is said to work with Sony TTL. A lot of this TTL stuff is reverse engineered and may not use the exact Sony protocol for communication in TTL. It should work in manual though, which is wireless flash on in the camera settings and the strobe in manual mode at one of the fractional power settings (not Sony mode) - something like 1/4 power for testing - which is the mode dial set to 6. The AOI strobe is likely setup to work in TTL on Sony cameras using the AOI trigger in their housings.

I was there last October, there was a little rain, but weather mostly pretty good. It switches sometime in November usually in Lembeh. I would also add the seasons move around in Indonesia depending on what part you visit - it's a huge place. For example peak season in Komodo is low season in Raja Ampat. Many of the liveaboards move between the two areas. I also went to Lembeh in November many years ago. It had started raining but wasn't too bad and certainly didn't rain all day. In November the lodge I visited offered dives in the south east side of Lembeh as well as the much dives inside Lembeh, the SE dive sites are coral reef sites.