Chris Ross

apparently the vacuvin pumps for resealing wine work??

I notice that unhelpfully the SMC-1 is no longer in the port chart so you can't compare working distances any longer. Depth of field increase I'm not sure hoe they would increase this - it's generally proportional to magnification.

First suggestion is fresh battery. Though it should blink red/blue when switched if low. If you lose vacuum it signals this by flashing red not solid red. I found another reference online which indicates that solid red is dead battery. That's you best bet I think.

the port chart provides this information. My understanding was that the 1 and the 3 were very close in performance.

Depth of field is a function of magnification, if you reduce the magnification on the sensor you get more depth of field at constant f-stop. There are special cases with wet lenses but shouldn't apply to a simple diopter. Bearing in mind of course that the depth of field is already razor thin at less than 1mm with the bare lens at 1:1 magnification.

Yes, though it's surprising how little info there is on many species!

Welcome aboard Kip, good to have you here.

Same here, I have not had a housing serviced as yet, my Em-1 MkII was 6 years old and not serviced in that time, My local dealer said it was needed unless you had issues.

The MFO3 turns a 90 into a 50 and a 105 into a 60mm They report the Olympus lens becomes the equivalent of about a 35-37mm range of lens, which matches my experience.

This is my shot of a Rhinopias frondosa: https://www.aus-natural.com/Underwater/Diver%20Lodge%20Lembeh%20-Sulawesi/Lembeh%20Selects/slides/Weedy-Rhinopia.html The dorsal fin looks quite different to yours, though it is fading into shadow in teh shot, it looks like a regular dorsal fin rather tahn a series of flag like spines. It is showing the start of the spotty pattern they have though. Inaturalist thinks it might be an ambon scorpionfish, but I'm not sure,

Really nice Ben, fascinating creatures to watch

I have a copy of this book, I have been told there are some inaccuracies in it, I think from one of the Nudibranch ID facebok groups and also that a lot of species have changed names like all the Chromodoris sp. that are now Goniobranchis for example. I still use to get a starting point and cross check by googling the species name.

As the R7 is APS-C you can approach the range available with the WWL by adding the kenko 1.4x to the 8-15 lens As a bare lens it is usable between about 10mm to 15mm and adding a 1.4x it is still wider than the WWL at the widest setting. The horizontal fields I find are best for comparing lenses as this defines the size of subject you can fill the frame with. This table shows the calculated horzontal fields of view of the 8-15/8-15 with 1.4x/18-45 with WWL along with the approximate rectilinear equivalent focal length. 8-15 Horiz- field Equivalent FL 10 141 fisheye 15 83 20 with 1.4x 11.2 114 12 21 59 32 18-45 - WWL 18 106 14 45 50 38 The barrel distortion in the fisheye zoom and WWL will be very close to the same at the same field of view, As you crop in by zooming the barrel distortion reduces progressively. The other point to note is I believe the WWL will have a little less depth of field at the same field of view, this was discussed on a thread on the forum recently. The 8-15 with 1.4x gives close to the same flexibility as the WWL combination, which has slightly more reach at the long end. Of course it doesn't allow adding a closeup lens.

There are various posts I recall about using the WWL in combo with a CMC. The biggest issue quoted is what to do with the big lump of a WWL when it's not mounted on the port, with some concern about the fact the lens has no way to attach a lanyard. I only recall one person saying they used the WWL/CMC combo and they thought it worked OK. I would add that the quoted field of the the WWL is a 130deg diagonal lens, though the barrel distortion means that horizontal field which reflects what coverage you can achieve is about the same or very slightly wider than a 14mm rectilinear lens. The Horizontal field of a fisheye will be about 145 deg while the WWL will be around 105. You can go close to matching the WWL reach with the 8-15 plus 1.4x or even an adapted Tokina 10-17 but of course you can't add a CMC lens to that setup. You can focus up to the port glass and this allows you to image subjects down to about tennis ball size filling the frame reasonably well for CFWA type shots. The CMC-1 will get you about 0.8x on the 18-45 and it only focuses between 44 and 81mm from the CMC glass, so it's not as easy to work with as a standard macro lens. Whether it suits you likely depends somewhat which way you are leaning with the majority of the subjects you shoot. If it's mostly wide with the occasional macro or occasional wide with mainly variable sized macro. A macro lens with a wide wet lens would probably suit a wider range of macro sized subjects better than using a CMC with a kit zoom.

I don't have specific information, the tightness of fit needed will vary depending the lens in question. The problem you are likely to see if any is vignetting. The good news is you check vignetting on land, so you try out what you have to see if it will work OK for you. It looks like it is supplied with two different thread options to try to accomodate different attachment methods. The part to mount a bayonet attachment to wet lenses is the Nauticam 83214. The backscatter page says it attaches to M67 lenses. Whether you can use it or not depends on the dimensions of the lens you are trying to mount , the thread is located further up the body of the lens on Nauticam wet lenses to get the backend of the lens closer to the port. You could try asking the vendor is the Kraken will work with this adapter?