Chris Ross

Keep in mind that for the Z5II with Nauticam you need the ($500+) Nauticam N120 FTZ adapter which has its own zoom knob which engages with the F mount zoom gears. You could avoid this and use the housing zoom control by making the zoom gear 25mm longer. You still need the extra extension though and Nauticam don't make a 45mm ring it seems but you may already have extensions to make up what is required. I know I had the adapter mounted knob for my rig using a Canon 8-15 and I didn't really like it. The zoom control gears on the FTZ look like an improvement on the older style adapter mounted knobs though.

Interesting that you can't use Isotta on S&S. I see S&S has a Macro port 15: https://www.seaandsea.jp/product/port/macroport.html It seems this might be short enough to work with the 24-50 which is reported to be 75mm long in working position. If you could borrow a 24-50 you could try it out with your extension rings. to see how far it projects beyond the edge of the ring. Typically the dimension of a port is from the flange of the port to the inside of the glass. All they would need to do is make an extension ring of the right length it seems and looking at other lenses it seems it might be a 25mm extension ring. I would add that in terms of viewfinders, the Nauticam are superior, the new models were designed to deal with larger viewfinders used on mirrorless cameras which require a a greater angle of view to work well. I have the original Nauticam 45° and the corners are blurry on my OM-1 viewfinder. Not clear if you have an INON currently, if you do performance is probably similar on Z7 vs Z8. You can get adapters to use Nauticam viewfinders on Isotta housings.

Hi Ratna, welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy!

This post seems quite relevant: Red/green it seems gave you a chance of avoiding scrutiny but now they seem to be going all out.

Good analysis, I would suggest don't count on using your current fisheye dome with Nauticam, unless you can find a lug ring in stock somewhere. You seem to have a macroport in both systems? Or is that the port for the 24-50 On the WWL C it goes from slightly wider than your 14-30 to about 35-40mm equivalent while your 24-70 gets to 70mm of course. Whether it's a complete substitute depends upon whether you use the 40-70mm range on your 24-70 much. Other than that it is effectively a complete substitute for the 14-30 and big dome- unless of course you are a dedicated wreck diver and want trust rectilinear rendering for your wreck shots. As you mentioned there is some fisheye distortion in the WWL-C. I's also suggest asking about using the WWL-C on a flip as it only attaches by the Nauticam bayonet fitting. It's quite a hefty piece (though nowhere near as big a 9"dome) and I've only seen one post where they said they took it off and swapped it for diopter and even then they removed it and stored it in a pocket. which changes buoyancy of the rig. I expect using it on a flip is going to be an issue due to its size. As far as whether the WWL-C substitutes for a fisheye, it depends on what you are shooting, the FE is the choice for reef scenics for me at least. A left field option might be adding a Kenko 1.4x which requires 20mm more extension and that gets you out to the field of a 16mm rectilinear based on horizontal field of view.

Particularly important for LED triggers which only produce a narrow beam of light. On the topic of 613 fibre cables, the YS-D2 historically has a history of difficulties in triggering due to a rather weak slave sensor and needs the very best optic fibre cables. I recall one instance where cleaning the windows the LED trigger fires through solved a problem. It will work though with coiled or straight cables if they are the 613 fibre variety.

I recall most people using full frame tend to stop down to f11-13 range with the 8-15 fisheye, you might try that. If you have a 20mm extension you could try that as well. Nauticam list a 20mm extension with the 7-14, while both Nauticam and Marelux list a 30mm extension for the EF 8-15, suggesting that 20mm may work on Marelux. I would not suggest buying a 20mm extension yet until you see a recommendation from Marelux. Perhaps @Phil Rudin may see the thread and comment?

I don't recall any detailed discussion on extensions for this lens on the forums as the lens is so new. SO far it seems only Nauticam has it on port charts where it uses 10mm less extension than the EF 8-15. It is likely it also uses 10mm less on Marelux, but needs to be confirmed as it is not on the port chart yet. There was a lot of discussion on the optimum extension for the 8-15 lens but it was rather inconclusive , the samples provided IMO showed no improvement for the longer extension. Nothing so far on the 7-14 I recall. Have you tested with 30mm extension at the 7mm end?, due to the 190 field the lens needs to be placed further forward to prevent vignetting, which is probably why Nauticam use 20mm. I would expect the 7-14 to vignette at 7mm with a 35mm extension, but it needs to be tested. Regarding a 1.4x it seems it's currently not possible to use a 1.4x, as you note the nose is too long. Also I believe the mount is keyed to prevent mounting it even if the nose was shorter. Kenko 1.4x is not available in RF mount so out of luck to use a 1.4x. Currently the EF 8-15 lens is the only way to get a fisheye plus 1.4x in combination with Kenko 1.4x and some people have used the RF 1.4x with the nose inside a Comcast RF-EF adapter that has been enlarged by filing it out and reported good results. On the 35mm f1.8, Marelux recommend the 140mm dome, the 50mm would be fine in that dome I think but you would need to test if it focuses well UW as the 50mm has a long 30cm min focus distance.

what basis are you using for that comparison? You should be able to use all your existing ports and extensions on Isotta, perhaps not on Nauticam. Is that quote for a full set of ports for both options? The difficulty in explaining is hopping between two options . If you want to use the 24-50 on your current S&S housing is option 1. Option two is to go to a Z8 system either Nauticam or Isotta. . Option 1 just email Isotta and ask them if they can confirm the correct port to use with the 24-50 on your S&S housing. You would need to print a zoom gear and there are a few places that will do this you could try: https://www.deepshots.co.uk/collections/gears-for-olympus-and-panasonic?grid_list=grid-view&filter.v.price.gte=&filter.v.price.lte= https://eocean.eu/en/16-custom-design-machining F.I.T 3D printed zoom gear and focus gear of various styles[Instructions] Zoom ring/focus ring customized production If you have any questions, please contact [email protected] Option 2 if you went with a new housing , again email Isotta and ask what is needed to use your existing domes/extensions with a new Z8 housing. You can buy all you need for the 24-50 off the shelf. I believe you should be able to keep all of your existing domes. For the Nauticam option to make reusing your domes feasible you would need to source Nauticam lug rings for each S&S dome assuming they are removable, they used to be available but now discontinued. You would need to know the length of the Saga adapter if you wanted to go that way.

Regarding expense it depends- you could just continue with your Z7 and just buy the Isotta flat port and it will be dirt cheap, you mentioned that as one option for you. I think the Isotta housings are certainly a lot cheaper in Australia, but it seems to vary by country, their extensions are about half the price of Nauticam in USA. Their ports are closer in price, but Isotta still a little cheaper. If you went with Isotta Z8 and assuming they 20mm more extension you just need one 20mm extension ring which would work with all of your other ports including your macro port. So you would be up for Housing plus 20mm extension (if you don't have one) plus a set of zoom gears. Looking at your lenses and guessing you have a 20/30/40mm extension you would appear to be fully covered?? If you went with Nauticam then it's a different story - you should Be able to convert your ports over to Nauticam bayonets, but the extension rings have their lugs machined in and are not adaptable meaning you need to buy some Nauticam extensions unless you can find an adapter. One exists for Nauticam ports on Isotta housings but doesn't seem to be one for Isotta/S&S ports on Nauticam housings so Nauticam will add up to more. You need Zoom gears if changing housings and Isotta are about 1/2 Nauticam price. To convert your ports to Nauticam they need to have a removable lug ring, not all S&S ports have this. The Nauticam lug rings also seem hard to find now and are essential to re-use your ports unless you find an adapter. On the WWL-C it mounts using a Nauticam bayonet only so you would have to take it off and put it "somewhere" to swap to a CMC/SMC and it's big lump of alloy and glass. I don't think swinging is an option. It should be a little wider than a 14mm rectilinear and much smaller physically. Something like equivalent to 12-13mm of horizontal field and will zoom into about a 50° horizontal field, equivalent to about a 40mm lens or so. They stretch more in the corners so are not as wide horizontal field wise as the diagonal field of view suggests. So it would replace your 14-30 and be both wider, longer lighter, physically smaller and won't need to stop down so much. Using the 24-50 with a macro lens is doable but fiddly getting to 0.9x and giving 49mm working distance, but that it from an approximately 150mm wide disc, rather than the ~75mm diameter OD of the nose of a macro port, which will limit approach angles a bit for many subjects.

The port charts don't agree unfortunately take the Nikon Z 14-30, on Isotta they suggest a 60mm extension for all ports. Sea and Sea suggests a 40mm extension again for all ports. The Canon 14-35mm f4 Isotta recommends 50mm, S&S say either 30 or 40mm depending upon port. The statement from Backscatter could mean the ports have the same mount and will fit, it doesn't specifically say the extension rings remain the same after all they would like to sell you some!

Nice shot, caught a good pose. I would suggest pulling in the white point followed by a light S curve to boost contrast a little.

Buried in the datasheet is the maximum discharge current of 2A, which seems a little low, a test of regular eneloops I found was measuring 5, 6, 7 up to 10A. This high discharge current is needed for fast recycle times on UW strobes. The recycle time for strobes is set by the internal resistance of the cells, so these would recycle slower than eneloops. The labelled capacity seems high but likely a work of fiction.

Very fine treads like that are a problem they can be difficult to start even when not damaged. Yes the aluminium is soft but if you are also screwing a soft aluminium adapter in to try and fix not much happens and there is a risk of cross threading and doing more damage. The correct way to try to fix this is using a thread file with the correct pitch of 0.75mm. You carefully place the teeth in an undamaged section and carefully move it around the circumference. It is meant to lift and straighten the teeth of the thread. It may be difficult to do with the glass in place though. The down side of fixing is you scrape off any anodising and it might be more prone to corrosion and seizing than a new thread. How much does the vendor want for it? with a damaged thread it should be close to free?😅

This sentence shows where AI got it wrong, it saying that as they share the same bayonet the housing flange distance must be the same, this is completely incorrect as that flange distance is totally different from the how the port is locked in place. You can see this with Nauticam when they first bought out RF and Z housings for Canon/Nikon, They both use N120 ports but the RF and Z housings have the flange distance longer by the thickness of the EF-RF and F-Z adapters specifically to allow the same zoom gear and extensions to be used when using adapted lenses when you upgrade housings. Doing a little research it lifted this comment from a comment on a post on Waterpixels. It didn't realise there is more to the problem than just being able to mount the domes/extensions. There seems to be some scatter in the port charts with S&S either 10 or 20mm less than what Isotta suggests with Z mount lenses. So I agree best to check with Isotta. In general I see a lot of the google AI summaries when searching for references related to topics raised here, for technical issues I see lots of problems, often conflating two or more topics to came to a false conclusion. AI can be great for example to develop a summary from a meeting transcript or similar tasks organising words, but the results need to be checked very carefully on technical topics. They are large language models which predict which words follow the previous and responses are highly tuned to the exact syntax used when asking a question. I glance at the results in the AI section and go into the actual results to find my answers.