Chris Ross

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.

10 hours ago, ACHiPo said:

Nauticam claims the MFO3 turns a 90 mm into a ~60mm. Does that mean it would turn a 60mm into ~45mm?

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

19 hours ago, Jens H said:

The “bible” of nudibranchs. Here you will find almost everything you need to know about nudibranchs that you might encounter underwater. Unfortunately currently out of stock, try to get a used copy or a PDF:

Nudibranchs of the World (Debelius, Kuiter), ISBN 978-3939767060.

Nice book on creatures you see during muck diving. However, it is still not complete -that would be mission impossible:

Muck Diving: A Diver's Guide to the Wonderful World of Critters (Nigel Marsh), ISBN 978-1921517815

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.

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.

6 hours ago, homodelphinius said:

Hi mates,

For 13 years i use the combo 8-15 with 100m dome (Aquatica) and now 140mm on Nauticam (complete switch to Nauticam with Canon R7 as Aquatica support in Europe is !$#@$).

However, i wanna more flex during science missions - mean to have wide and macro at the same time.

Thus am thinking to move to WWL II and CMC on the handy 18-45 Canon lens.

Has anybody experience on such switch?

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?

8 hours ago, Jens H said:

Thanks Chris!

to the best of my knowledge, all camera settings for the flashes are set according to the manual of the converter.

I will conduct several test dives here in cold Austria to see how the setup behaves. Real live testing is always better than dry training...

Cheers,

Jens

let us know how you go!

5 hours ago, Grantmac said:

There is an EM1-II for $1000 in the classifieds that would offer you a massive opportunity for less than the cost of a dome.

Total bargain and still an extremely capable camera. For that you could add an adapted Canon 8-15 or Tokina 10-17 in a small dome and take it UW for less than the cost of a Nauticam housing for the Z8 or equip it with a fisheye lens and 4" dome and strobes and still be around the price of just the housing.

Yes it is spendy to take anything full frame UW, you can save a lot with a smaller sensor system and IMO it's good enough for what most people us their photos for. Most people don't go with rectilinears and big domes due to the size and hassle for travelling. You can also use less powerful strobes with smaller systems as you don't need to stop down as much. a m43 or an APS_C system would be a massive step up from a go pro for still images.

Big animals is generally WWL/WACP or fisheye territory, if you want a compact rig you can use a m43 8mm fisheye lens behind a 4" dome. If you want some flexibility for that shark that won't come close enough a WWL or one of he fisheye zoom options is worth looking at.

Looking at some options in Nauticam a Canon R7 housing is $1800 less than a Z8 housing while an OM-1 is $2800 cheaper. The domes are potentially cheaper in smaller formats depending which way you go and in m43 in particular the lenses are significantly smaller lighter and cheaper.

I'd suggest throwing together a spreadsheet and pricing up a few systems down to the lenses, domes, zoom gears and strobes in each sensor size range and seeing how you feel when comparing the prices.

I was thinking specifically of flash settings, I assume you are not using R1C1 as that requires specific protocol to intrepret the signals. Presumably you would need to ensure red eye reduction is off and check the various flash settings in the menu.

Regarding fibre optics I wasn't suggesting doing that with the subtronic strobes, just suggesting that many new strobes work quite well with TTL over fibre optics. I think the risk factor for new strobe sis quite small, many people are using both the mini flash and UWT riggers to trigger flash units both in manual and TTL. If you decide to go with new strobes juts put up another post asking about strobes that work well with the OM-1.

On 12/2/2025 at 12:46 AM, Smstelzel said:

I am looking to update my video lights with a pair of strobes and have a question about cables.

I have a TG-5 w/ PT-058 housing, eventually want to get a wide angle wet lens so was going to purchase the Backscatter flash adaptor linked below to accommodate the lens. https://www.backscatter.com/AOI-FCA-01-Fiber-Optical-Cable-Adapter-for-TG-3-TG-4-TG-5-Cameras

It looks like it can accommodate 1 or 2 cables so my question is if I am doing dual strobes is it better to use an individual cable for each strobe or use a single dual cable for both like this https://www.backscatter.com/Backscatter-Dual-Fiber-Optic-Cable-with-Sea-Sea-Ends

Or does it not really matter? Thanks.

if you triggering using an on camera flash then either will work, the single connector with two cables may not work so well for a l

LED trigger.

12 hours ago, waterpixel said:

Sony just announced their new sony A7V and a new kit lens

https://alphauniverse.com/stories/sony-electronics-launches-alpha-7-v-and-fe-28-70mm-f-3-5-5-6-oss-ii/

Personnally, I'd be very interested in seeing how that new kit lens will work with current wet lenses setups from Nauticam.

I saw some articles that said the optics are the same as the the first version of the 28-70 so i would expect that the it would be the same performance behind the WWL/WACP optics as the existing lens, so the 28-60 would likely still be the better choice.

You didn't say much about what you have the camera set at which can can make a difference. If you set the flash to second curtain sync on the camera you can use that together with a slow shutter speed around 1/2 sec or longer to tell if there is a pre flash as well as a main flash, that may help with trouble shooting.

I'm not sure I understand how you would need soldering to use the old TTL converter. The fact that the strobes work with the old trigger tells you something is not right with the new trigger. I see a few possibilities, with the m43 you don't tend to need as powerful a strobe as in wide angle shooting at f8 is generally sufficient.

You could buy new strobes ( huge selections these days,) pick ones that work well with the UWT trigger and OM-1

You could switch to fibre optic triggering with new strobes that will use that, plenty of strobes now work with R1C! olympus triggering, though ask here first there have been posts with some strobes proving troublesome. There have abeen a few posts on this recently.

You could trigger with the UWT trigger of you you could try using the mini flash for the OM-1 - that will work better in manual triggering than TTL possibly.

You could explore different cables as suggested by Pavel?

28 minutes ago, Tom Kline said:

somehow I screwed up and the text goes beyond the page!

Fixed it - I copied and pasted the text, copy using ctrl-C then pasted using Ctrl-Shift-V. Did you paste the text in from somewhere? If so try pasting with ctrl-shift-V.

14 minutes ago, Grantmac said:

Yes I'm curious to see an image taken with the 8-15 on a MFT, unless one has been posted and I've just missed it?

This entire album on my webpage was taken using the OM-1 and the Canon 8-15 with Metabones smart adapter and the 140mm dome:

https://www.aus-natural.com/Underwater/Walindi%20Resort%20PNG/index.html

If you use Firefox the add-on xiFR, an exif reader will show you the settings including the focal length just by right clicking on or near the image.

4 hours ago, Tom Kline said:

Not surprised that Zeiss may have made some improvements, but a doublet (2 elements glued together) for the port would also need to consider pressure resistance. How would hydrostatic pressure affect the glass at the contact surface between the elements? Lens element separation is bad enough in air (have seen Z optics with this problem - both camera and microscope).

Thank you Chris. These lens were first developed by 1955 as that is the date of the earlier book and there are more examples in it. The patent was submitted in 1951 (in France apparently), received by USPO in 1952. Suggests a bit earlier than the 1960s.

Thanks Tom, the point I'm trying to make is the earlier lenses, be they from the 50's or 60's are likely not as good as the Carl Zeiss version which it seems was designed in the 1970s when computer aided design and new optical glasses were appearing. This would possibly explain the remark the Inavnoff-Rebikoff correctors were not as good as the Nikonos lenses in the books.

Regarding doublet lenses perhaps yes if they are cemented doublets - they could have been air spaced doublets perhaps? Air spaced doublets provide an extra degree of freedom in the design due to the air space. If the front element were strong enough to resist flexing due to static pressure, as long as the join was inside the housing it would work as well as any cemented doublet I think? I understand cemented doublets become problematic in larger sizes and they were used as the polish and coatings required on the cemented surfaces were not as demanding as the cement filled defects and also avoided reflection from the two cemented surfaces.

4 hours ago, Grantmac said:

I'm rather interested in the 8-15 on my EM1-II, despite having a WWL-1.

Does anyone have an example image of it without the speedbooster and with?

Are you asking about an image taken with it?

There would be no reason to use the speedbooster with the 8-15 as you lose zoom range and you would need to zoom in to about 11mm or so on the lens to get a full diagonal fisheye equivalent to an 8mm fisheye. Between 8 and 11 mm you would have a partly cropped circular fisheye image which is really not usable. The smart adapter gives you a full frame fisheeye through to about the same filed as a full frame 28mm rectilinear lens, so a m43 system gives you the 8mm fisheye and the 7-14 reach in one lens.

The speed booster is useful though to mate with the tokina 10-17 it will produce frame filling images from about 11 to 17mm. Without the speed booster (using the smart adapter with no glass) it would not give you a full fisheye field at miniumum zoom , the view would be noticably narrower.

9 hours ago, JohnD said:

Considering the current/old adapter does not fit on the OM-1, and there is no longer production of the EM-1, perhaps the adapter is discontinued pending release of a new version that does fit? I have no idea if there is sufficient demand.

On the other hand, the Canon 8-15 is also discontinued, so perhaps the whole concept is pretty much at a dead end from nauticam's perspective.

Metabones currently offer a type 2 adapter which will fit the OM-1 this is the m43 to Canon EF lens adapter. The Nauticam N85-N120 adapter for Nauticam ports was designed to use any Canon EF lens with any m43 camera, but they chose to design the adapter for the speedbooster, which was not needed for the 8-15 and adapting other EF lenses to m43 was probably not required as the m43 manufacturers have a very complete range of lenses. There's no shortage of second hand 8-15s though and they are not that hard to find for sale.

I think it's more likely that Nauticam decided that WWL/WACP etc were the future for them so trimmed the range of offered ports and adapters. It's a pity as the 8-15 on m43 is an excellent option.

On 11/27/2025 at 7:52 AM, Tom Kline said:

The Rebikoff 'port' is often used for underwater television cameras, but it is disappointing for still cameras, and cannot match the sharpness of the Nikonos lenses."

Cutting and pasting brought in the figure.

Note the change in order of the names for both sources. Was this arbitrary? Nikonos lenses are better???!!!!!!!

I suspect there are many versions of this lens floating around and design capability for optics has expanded quite significantly since these were originally developed. The statement above quite likely refers to what was available in the 1960s. By the 1970s the possibility of computer aided lens design appeared and was likely used with the Carl Zeiss lens Alex has and likely they were able to improve it significantly with additional elements or other changes like newly available optical glasses. So the newer Inanoff-Rebihoff correctors are likely to better optivally than the simpler ones designed in the 1960s.

17 hours ago, flowdesign said:

Hi Chris, fully agree with MFO-3's advantages, I used in my last dive trip together with new Sony 100mm macro, really incredible result, even it was my first "real" blackwater dive. But considering to have two MFO-3 is a really "Crazy" idea😊

I know you have very rich experience on various macro lens for M43, just want to know the overall impression between 30mm and 60mm+MFO-3 for the blackwater? Focusing speed, focal length, FOV, etc.

Big thanks in advance~

Unfortunately I don't have blackwater experience. The 30mm Panasonic seems snappier than the 60mm but I haven't used it for a while. I do know that the 60mm AF is better on the OM-1 and even the Em-1 mkii than the earlier bodies. I think the main reason for the shorter macros in blackwater is the wider field making finding your critter easier. From what I can see the 30 and 60 mm use the same port and you just add an extension tube for the 60mm so it's just the lens cost to add the 30mm.

I

1 hour ago, Whiskeyjack said:

Hi Chris, this is super useful. To confirm, are you using the Metabones MB_EF-m43-BT2 adapter? This is the one I currently own, but the metabones people told me it won't work with the OM-1 and I need to buy the newer version, MB_EF-m43-BT4, instead. If there's some way to make the one I have work that saves me $400...

Nauticam also confirmed that ~2mm difference shouldn't really make a difference, which I guess just leaves me needing a custom zoom knob. I have no experience designing 3d printed objects so I'll have to see what my options are there I suppose.

I really not sure what version I have, it's not a Mark II, I recall I downgraded the firmware to an older version as I initially had some issue running a big Canon tele lens. But it works perfectly well now. I ground down the adapter a bit, you can see it on the first photo in my post linked above to allow it mount on the OM-1, the viewfinder section on the OM-1 projects forward preventing it from mounting. Maybe that's what they man by being not compatible. I bought the adapter second hand. I do see they have the latest version on sale on their website for $US399 today.

The STL file is linked in that post to print the gear.

35 minutes ago, flowdesign said:

I have no experience of M43 UWP, but theoretically it must be more powerful than TG series in most cases. Consider over 85-90% of our diving is only for macro, we rarely need to shoot macro and wide angle just in one dive even for the dives at the same day. Which means, I don't have to consider to use one lens fits for all, and if the existing wet lens can be used to enpower the entire setup, that's great, but if not, I'm also fine with that😀

Since the marco setup is much more important, I'd like to know:

• Does 60mm is enough for both normal macro and blackwater, or 30mm is recommended for the blackwater?

• As what Chris mentioned, panasonic 30 might be a better choice, but anyone has chance to check whether it could fie the same port as OM 30mm? It is 63.5mm in length, 3.5mm longer than OM 30mm.

They both take the same Nauticam port. If you want to minimise things and are into mostly macro the 60mm plus and MFO-3 would be the preferred solution I would think - it comes in handy when you find a larger subject when using the 60mm, think Anemone fish and even larger nudis and scorpion fish - like a Rhinopias. You have to back off too far with bigger subjects. I used it today for a 90-100mm long nudi, much less water between me and it, likewise a 130mm long seahorse. And you can put it on for blackwater. Then you don't need the 30mm.