Chris Ross

I should add that the min focus distance grows quite a bit on at the tele end to 45cm. Probably not ideal for UW work. The 12-40 and 12-45 lenses are better suited to UW use as the focus much closer.

A Manual flash trigger might be a solution? If it doesn't recognise the trigger as a flash then it won't restrict shutter speeds. You could then point the strobes away till you want to use them again. The Nauticam manual trigger for example allows the Olympus cameras to shoot at higher than flash sync speed this way.

Thanks so much Alex!

The AOI port chart specifies the 52mm extension ring to use the 12-100 lens. I see no reason it wouldn't work well with the correct dome setup, the 12-40 and 12-45 lenses work quite well, the issue is situations when you might to use a 12mm lens. I use a 12-40mm lens with a 170mm dome port, images are nice, but it mostly gets used around Sydney in temperate waters, for many situations you might need to back off too far to frame subjects with a 12mm lens meaning more water between you and your subject and the strobes are further back. I don't see the 12-100 being any different.

Not a lot of people adapt the Nikon 8-15mm, but a great many adapt the Canon 8-15 usually on Metabones. Historically it seems the Canon lenses have been easier to adapt and only recently have Nikon adapters appeared. I have heard some say that that the Canon is the sharper lens - it really is an excellent optic. Many people use it with the 140mm dome - the 230mm doesn't give any advantage, possibly partly because it is not a full hemisphere. Nauticam recommend the 140mm dome as most optimum. A cheaper option might be the Sigma 15mm fisheye in Canon EF mount on a metabones or sigma adapter, if you don't feel the need for the circular fisheye. The standard setup is as recommended by Nauticam in the port charts. The last line item on the chart for Sony is the N100-N120 35.5mm port adapter for all Canon EF lenses. You use the 35.5mm adapter plus the extensions/dome recommended for the lens in the Canon EF port charts, the Nauticam zoom gear also matches up with the control knob on the adapter. So the recommended setup for the Canon lens is 30mm extension plus 140mm dome with the 35.5mm adapter. Nikon would use the 20mm extension ring as per the Nikon F mount port chart. As mentioned by RVbldr the side knob on the adapter works but feels coggy and sometimes disengages, my example ( on m43-EF adapter) required inward pressure to avoid dis-engaging the gear. Just doesn't seem as smooth as other lenses which use the housing zoom control knob. Some people just set the lens at 15mm and leave it there unless they specifically plan to use the 8mm end for circular fisheye images. The lens is effectively either a 15mm or an 8mm lens - in between on full frame the corners vignette and the resulting image looks alittle odd.

Hi everyone, Announcing that today our 1000th member joined the Waterpixels community. New member@Grega signed up to the forum a couple of hours ago becoming our 1000th member to signup. A warm welcome to Grega! Thanks to all those who have signed up since we started in Dec 2023. We reached our 500th member Feb 2024 and have seen a continuous stream of people signing up since then. It's everyone's contributions to the site and willingness to share experiences that has allowed the site to continue growing. Look forward to everyone's ongoing contributions and to many new members coming onboard.

Possibly a little early as it's newly released. The port chart shows the details of magnification and focus distance: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FmfFKRmxF8aFsCdF97nBk1QIIAVbjlsI/view

The extension required for the N120 170mm Zen dome is the same as that required for their 230mm dome based upon inspection of their port charts. Looking at a couple of lenses it seems the Nauticam 230mm dome and the Zen 230mm dome have the same dimensions and and the same recommended extensions. If you look at a few lenses in the EF port chart you'll see that the 140mm dome and the 230mm dome recommend the same extensions. In this topic people have been using the 35mm lens in question in the 140mm dome with no extension. Logically then the 170mm dome with no extension should give equivalent performance. You can also do some calculations on placing the dome centre of curvature at the lens entrance pupil. This involves basic trigonometry once you know where the entrance pupil is. There's lots of website to show how to find the entrance pupil/nodla point/no parallax point of a lens. You can also take a split shot in a tub shooting a stick or a board above and below water The stick should be straight through the water surface. This topic includes this method:

might be a good solution for you to try the wired connection. It's a 36 mile trip from MIA to Reef Photo which could work if you land at right time of day and day of the week. Their website says they help accommodate you within reason to get gear, suggest you contact them if you decide to go that way.

If no flash symbol shows up and apparently the trigger is not recognized by the camera as a flash, this is the behavior expected of the Nauticam manual flash trigger. Basically the camera internally closes a switch connected with the shutter release timed so that it syncs with shutter first curtain. If this is the case it implies that there is nothing that can be done on the camera end and it lies within the trigger. I think it also implies that any sort of pre-flash logic is not the issue. If the camera is X-syncs like a regular camera it uses a single electro mechanical switch to signal to the flash trigger to light up and bypasses any other logic in the camera. I note you say an electrical connection works fine - presumably this is using a flash hotshoe connection to have a cable connected to the socket on the flash (no fibre optics involved). So this is completely leaving the flash trigger out of the equation if I understand correctly. THis also points to the flash trigger as your problem. It basically confirms the switch in the camera closes for every frame to trigger the flash.

A Nauticam manual flash trigger should just work from the x-sync contacts, this is why they allow for example the olympus cameras to sync at higher than rated shutter speed. Does the Z8 recognise the trigger as a flash - that is to say does it show any of the flash functions in the menus? When working with fibre optics both the camera/trigger and the flash need to be set correctly. If I recall correctly the Z8 doesn't have a shutter so may not have classic x-sync contacts, but check if the camera recognizes a flash as being connected, If it doesn't the fault seems like it must lie in the trigger. If it is recognised by the camera then maybe some adjustments in the camera might help?

If you would like to test the YS-D2 strobes electrically, it sounds like you have access to ikelite cables, if this is the case you can simulate manual triggering by the cables without the camera by following this FAQ from Ikelite: Wiring Diagrams + Test Firing Strobes Find your cable and bridge the terminals they recommend to fire the flash - you can use a paper clip to do this. Do not use the TTL converter - just attach the cable to your strobe and set it manual - no pre-flash mode. If you try this test and the strobe won't fire at full power it seems there is a problem with your strobes. Regarding Olympus I use an EM-1 Mkii and the mini-flash unit that came with it to trigger my INON Z240 through fibre optics. On the camera it is manual exposure, manual flash set at 1/64 power. Double check red eye reduction is off and that's it. On the flash you want the non pre-flash single lightning bolt option. For the Sony flash triggering - I assume you are using a trigger to fire your strobes, You can set the WL mode as suggested above. You could also check if the previous owner changed the custom mode of these strobes. Go to the back of the manual to find out how to change this to the right setting for your camera. It shouldn't matter for manual triggering but it can't hurt either to set it to the recommended setting.

As I suspected, though I'm not sure what the basis for saying it is not compatible is as it clearly works with a 20mm extension and will be quite close to the correct position for your lens. Without actually having your dome in hand it looks to have the same dome shade as mine and the adapter adds about 10mm of extension, so it is pretty close to the right extension for your Olympus 8mm. Perhaps the translation of their response is we haven't done the testing/measurements for your lens and this particular version of the dome?

Did you have a look to see what the image quality was like? Cheap diopters were renowned for making images a little mushy. Better quality diopters like those from B&W have a better reputation.

I wouldn't assume that the USB socket is immune to shorting, The salt water is certainly enough to make a connection between two wires. There's two components to make a phone waterproof, first the physical seal that prevents water ingress, second electrical protection so that shorts do not impact the device. for example an iphone: If you see a liquid-detection alert on your iPhone - Apple Support detects water and shuts down the charging port. It allows it to be rated IP68 which withstands 6m or water for 30 minutes. An OM-1 is rated IP53 which is resistant to water spray from "certain angles" - not submersible, so I expect doesn't have this protection. I believe OM is the only camera maker to have IP ratings on its cameras. And the camera is the one that needs to be resistant. Above someone mentions they shorted their Canon R5. So yes it will short if wet. But again as you say it's low risk, I only raise this as I have seen a lot of people be quite cavalier with their housings and a bit of simple attention to the cap o-ring will make this a lot less likely.

I'm not sure what this one actually is, but the solution is less extension. I think there are lmited extensions available in N85 so possibly a 20mm? I measured 22mm from the dome shade, this one has ~22mm from seam below the dome shade to the flange.

based on experience 1.8kg is a lot of lift. I tried out using about that much lift on my system with float arms and it created a lot of torque trying to point the rig upwards or downwards, the big floats did not want to sink. I had two 670 gr and two 210 gr float arms (1760 gr total). I found it unmanageable and pulled the two 210 gr arms swapping to standard arms and it worked better. You could try it out with two 650 gram INON mega float M arms, they are reasonably priced. You'll probably need long clamps at the middle joint to use them effectively. It's probably worse with macro as you need fine control of the pointing, If you want to get close to neutral with that much lift needed I think you need to place some bouyancy on the housing itself - something like a 200-400 gram block of foam under the housing tray. Note too that to cancel out this much UW weight you are looking at a volume about equal to a giant 2l bottle of soft drink, no matter which type of buoyancy you use. - it's not small.

This is the concern we are discussing. If the o-rings fail water can get in - realistically quite unlikely but possible and if it did then shorting the socket is possible. If there is water splashing around like on a small dive boat or tender, shorting at the socket is again possible. You need a reasonably protected area if charging as it would need to sit with cap off and plugged in for at least an hour to get a decent amount of charge in. Not really feasible on a small crowded dive boat. It's something you would do at a camera table on your liveaboard or the resort during a surface interval.

Well, I typed a bunch of stuff to go with these pics but it's now disappeared? Looking at your pic , your dome seems to have some extension built in. Compare a pic of my dome with yours, you can see where I have circled it that there is a straight bit that continues on from the dome shade on your dome that is not there on mine. To allow comparing the domes I measured from the shade edge to the port flange as shown in second pic, eye balling with a ruler the distance from the dome flange on mine to edge of the sun shield is around 21-22mm. If yours is more than that it is the problem. You should be able to see the outer edge of the front element when sighting perpendicular to the dome across the section of the dome shade that I circled. Did you buy this one new? I'm not sure which model it is but it doesn't seem to be a DP-100 N85 model.

It depends, if you dial in really close on buoyancy then changing to a medium size dome can end up positive. I know I've had it happen. Two INON mega float arms S are just perfect when using a 60mm macro port. I changed to a Zen 170mm dome and it was positive. My little 100mm Zen port is fine with the bigger float arms.

I think the risk of a problem is very low, a little bit of awareness is needed is all I'm suggesting. Just be careful to dry the cap before removing, check the cap and o-rings for contamination before re-installing it. A tiny, tiny smear of grease once or twice a year - that's it. A blower bulb is quite useful for clearing water droplets away and moving any grit that you find. I raise this as I see people being very casual around opening their housings and can see that translating to these caps.

Not exactly, the o-ring in the cap is your primary protection. The press button vacuum valves can be pushed in by water pressure if you are deep enough, maybe 30m deep or more. The old style Nauticam valve that you screwed in to seal I don't think will leak but the valve will have water inside which will get into the housing when you release the vacuum. On the topic of bulkheads they are vacuum sealed and need to be tight against a 200 mBar differential pressure. Are they good enough to be tight against a 3 bar differential at 30m depth? Maybe? - maybe not? The actual USB connector is not resistant to salt water corrosion. The o-ring on the cap works by screwing the cap on and as it lowers it tends to push away debris, if you only leave the cap off when vacuuming or releasing the vacuum, the chance of contamination is low. I think checking the o-ring briefly before re-installing the cap is enough, you might want to add a miniscule amount of grease before a trip or once a year or something like that. A piston style o-ring such as this needs some lubrication to be able to slide past the sealing surface cleanly. Many people probably get away with not being too careful - but it certainly is a risk that can be mitigated with a little care. On the topic of shorting - best avoided of course. Just blow or wipe away any water droplets before you open the cap. When charging find somewhere clean to keep the cap, a ziplock if you are on a boat and somewhere dry to leave the housing. Don’t leave the housing somewhere where it can be splashed while charging it. Opening it to charge while on a Zodiac or similar open boat would be asking for trouble.

Just weigh it, the maths is not hard, the UW weight is equal to the required buoyancy. Salt vs fresh doesn't really matter that much, it's a 3% difference, just make sure you are slightly negative. A great many accessories have their UW weight listed, for example the MF-2 is 150 grams UW. INON has a page with the UW weight of all their gear. here : http://www.inon.jp/underwater_weight/index.html Housings generally don't have it listed as it varies with the attached port. Once you have the weight of your rig work out a float combination that has a buoyancy slightly less than the the measured UW weight. For example if your rig weighs 800 grams UW then you could add in two INON mega float arm S with 390 grams buoyancy and your rig will then be 800 - 390x2 = 20 gram negative UW. Just be sure to err on the side of slightly negative, you don't want a positive housing. Also it may be obvious - changing ports will change buoyancy a dome port is more buoyant , you can work out a float combo for each port/lens or just set it up to be OK with the dome and live with the macro setup being a bit more negative.

I should add that the bulkhead, in common with any sort of cable bulkhead is waterproof because of the o-ring in the cap. This one is vacuum tight meaning that water won't get inside but the salt water can short out the connections in the plug and will also destroy the terminals by corrosion. So I wouldn't be opening the cap unless there is a dry area where you can charge without risk of salt water dropping on things.