Chris Ross

If you need to remove the Sea Frogs vacuum system, it defeats much of the benefits of a vacuum system. A vacuum system does two things, it allows you to check for leaks and it pre-loads the o-rings. However, if you need to remove the vacuum valve what happens if the plug you replace it with is not installed properly? Pre-loading the o-rings is important, leaks are most common at the surface when the o-rings are not loaded, it's easy to bump the housing and lose the seal. Far better to have a system that keeps the vacuum on the housing the whole dive. The Leak sentinel is a much better option and is quite popular with people here.

If you want to use a WWL you get the nauticam port and lens combination and change the lug ring over. Regarding your shots, what are you focusing on? Depth of field is 1/3 in front and 2/3 behind your focus point. If you focus on a closer point you may get a little more in focus. Also try shooting at f13/14/16 and compare corner performance. A further option is using a fisheye, you would need the Nikon 8-15 as the the most straight forward option and you could use your existing dome and only buy a different extension ring.

Right, i see how that would help - do you need extra care placing the o-ring compared to the smooth surface of something like an aluminium port? Seems like it might drag a little on the grooves? or does it work out OK in practice?

The bottom ledge looks a little narrow, I would think having it sit flush on top of the ring would be best if the design allows. What is your o-ring cross section? The force pushing the dome and adapter combination into a 90mm ID port is equal to the differential pressure multiplied by the cross sectional area. I calculate the inward force at 40m to be about 250kg. This places the adapter material in compression pushing it inwards so you want to spread this over a reasonable cross sectional area.

That should work, do you need a lip to limit how far it will slide into the extension ring?

Yes sucking the air out is probably a better representation, however as I understand it one of the issues is stability when materials are subject to compression, so for example if you press in lightly on the sides of the can it collapses even more easily. I have never done any 3D printing but it seems to me that the properties of the material are quite dependent upon the way the individual beads of plastic are laid down - does that vary with material and with the type of printer used? I've handled quite a few 3D printed items and they never struck me as something that would readily make an smooth surface to get an o-ring to seal upon. I assume different materials and print setting get around that? On the o-ring groove issue I would think you could make the walls thicker around the groove if needed just by reducing the ID of the port. The Tokina is 70mm OD and your port opening is 90mm - so the you could make the port 100mm OD at the base which would give a 5mm ledge where you insert port into the housing. My o-rings are 2mm OD with a groove ~1.5mm deep, so if you have 5mm wall thickness behind that, the ID would 100-2x(5+2+5) = 76mm ID and the top would be 80mm ID to take your port. You could taper the port out to that ID up at the top potentially. That ID is about equal to the N85 port of the Nauticam ports. Whether 76 mm ID is too small would depend on whether the zoom gear needs to fit through that hole or not. If you don't use mounting lugs and rely upon vacuum to hold the port in you can make the bottom of the o-ring groove a little thicker as well.

Designing things for external pressure is more problematic as the stresses are different. Issac's thin port withstood the pressure however a thin walled cylinder like that is not inherently strong under external pressure forces and may have collapsed if you grabbed the cylinder for example. Cylinders are not inherently strong under external pressure, only spheres are. Similar to the trick where you can stand on an aluminium drink can and it supports your weight until you flick the side walls and it collapses or the titan submersible where it was the cylinder that failed. I'm sure it can be done but I think one of the issues is probably going to be getting reproducible strength and water tightness from your print and couple that with the need to get smooth o-ring sealing surfaces. Properties of injection moulded plastics and metals are predictable, but I would suggest that similar to composites, 3D printed parts are not. If you want something custom I would think that machining it out of aluminium would be a better proposition. You can also machine acrylic or polycarbonate, if you could find tubing with the right dimensions to allow you to machine the part you need. regarding the entrance pupil, the 10-17mm is listed in this table of entrance pupil locations: https://wiki.panotools.org/Entrance_Pupil_Database#Third_party_lenses

I think the filter size is perhaps a proxy for front element and entrance pupil size. What has to happen is that the light bundle that corresponds to a 130° field has to fit through the entrance pupil. The entrance pupil is generally much smaller than the front element, so the front elemnt needs to capture the light bundle and as it passes through the elements in front of the entrance pupil it needs end up at a size that fits through without vignetting. The 14-35 is mentioned and that is on the FCP port chart and it was mentioned it works with the WACP-1 - presumably this is at 28mm focal length. The combination of front element and entrance pupil size and location would be allowing the light bundle through. The point of all this is that the lens in question 24-50 would potentially work with the FCP but the WACP-1 is probably less likely as it seems to favour 28mm f3.5 or f4 optics. We won't really know until someone tests it.

I've seen people do stuff with big heavy lenses that would make you wince, but throwing a mounted 500mm f4 on a Canon pro body into a backpack and driving thousands of km of corrugated roads I've done many a time and it's all still tight - in that you have two big masses joined by the lens mount and the lever arm of the long tele lens is much greater than what you have with the Sigma fisheye. The Sigma lens is 160mm long and weighs 1.3kg, a lot of that weight in the front element. The Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens is 130mm long and weighs 1kg - not too different to the Sigma fisheye and people wouldn't think twice about using that lens cantilevered off the lens mount. Similarly the Sigma 85mm f1.4 is 150 long in Sony mount and 1.2kg and 105mm f1.4 is 155mm long and 1.7 kg and both must be cantilevered to tripod mount. Regardless of the weight issues, it's all moot as the min focus and probable need for a large dome make it less attractive.

It's not ideal, but I have big tele lenses and the mounts are actually surprisingly robust, the bigger concern is the min focus distance and you probably needing the 230mm dome.

I think the only solution for the Sea Frogs port is to use the m67 version, the rim of the port is too wide to take the Nauticam bayonet adapter. This means the lens needs to be screwed in to the port everytime which is not as convenient. The other question if how well the Sea Frogs port fits the 28-60 lens, it needs to have the lens quite close to the port glass to allow the combination to achieve the maximum field of view.

Assume it's full frame but yes looks quite sharp enough to me - of course at 1200 px or so you aren't pixel peeping but looks every bit as sharp as any other pic I've seen at this resolution.

Yes you can upload pictures - just click where it says choose files or you drop them in that area. It will show as a thumbnal and you can click insert to place it inline.

Well the tripod collar looks to be removable, but it is a big lump for sure. The killer for UW use is the size: 104mm diameter won't fit through an N100 mount, presumably it would get through the ID on an N120 extension/dome. but the minimum focus is certainly a problem, close focus is 207mm from the front of the lens. The Sigma lens adapted is definitely more interesting as it is reported to AF quite well.

Neoprene has some advantages in that it's easy to leave on the dome while getting in and out of the water and easily clipped off once you are in the water. It also can serve to keep the dome surface from drying out between dives. There have been a lot of discussions on this topic with regards to water spots forming on the glass surface. Water spots occur when salt water is allowed to dry on the dome surface, the salts become more concentrated as the water evaporates and this eventually etches the glass. If you keep the dome cover on it slows down evaporation considerably until you can soak your housing in fresh water at the end of the day. Unfortunately the standard design of neoprene cover can easily be lost on entry/exit when shore diving I got one of these: https://www.bennimarinedesigns.com/gifts/cameraportcover It seems to fit the port well but not tightly covering the surface, haven't tried it wet as yet but seems to be well made.

This is exactly the point we are hoping to clarify. It sounds like Alex says the FCP is a touch better than a fisheye in a dome then he says it's more like a WACP-c. It depends if he referring to the difference between fisheye and FCP and the difference between rectilinear and WACP-c or not. Others have clearly stated that the fisheye in a dome is better than the WACP. It's problem of semantics, English language is so easy to give convoluted explanations that can be hard to decipher.

Most of the Nauticam listings for such primes seem to be for special purpose applications like the 28mm with WACP-1 or the Canon 35mm macro has a note that it is for blackwater applications for example. For me I think flexibility is the reason most people use zooms.

Yes clearly he talks about margin between fisheye and FCP but then says it's not as good as a WACP, more like a WACP-c but is that for margin over non water contact or absolute image quality? Hopefully @Alex_Mustard will chime in to clarify.

I would expect you would need a custom dual dome for it. It is also 121 mm wide so no way it would fit through the dome port opening of an N120 port. You would need to mount a dome base first install the lens and then place the dome itself on top, so you would need an o-ring joint at the base of the dome element. I don't know if I can explain it optically but the dome relies upon symmetry to render everything the same across the frame having a single dome would no longer be symmetrical for each individual lens as the left side of one of the lenses would be a different distance and angle from dome surface compared to the right hand side of the lens. Basically this is because the entrance pupil of either of the offset lenses won't be at the centre of curvature of a single dome. This would mean I think the images are not identical but would be flipped with respect to each other. I would imagine that the 3D system relies upon the image from each lens being identical apart from the perspective change. It would need I think two domes at 60mm centres placed over the lenses, so they could at most be 60mm diameter. The minimum focus distance would be about about 125mm from the lenses so probably could not focus particularly close due to the very small domes.

Good choice I think, but it's always fun to speculate and dream of an upgrade!

See @Interceptor121 post above here linking to a video by Alex Mustard where he comments on the image quality being good but not as good as a fisheye behind a dome. Answers at least part of your question.

You need to be able to burp the lens if it doesn't clear all the air between the WWL and the port, some people report it works without this but be aware it might be needed. The M67 WWL-1 (not 1b) can work on any port and also work with third party bayonet systems potentially however the bayonet need to be designed to get the back of the WWL very close to the port glass. This avoids vignetting which you would need to zoom in to remove and lose field of view. You would need to experiment to see if it works. How you can make it work depends very much on the port you are attaching to. Any port can use the m67 version, select ports can accept the Nauticam bayonet adapter and so be able to use the WWL-1b and WWL-c. It would be easier to answer if we knew which port you were contemplating using.

I think a good first step is next time it happens adjust your exposure to what the camera thinks is the correctly metered exposure and take a shot (without flash) and then go back to your usual settings and take another shot. You came up 5 EV and recorded some detail in your image but I expect if you are indoors you might need quite a bit more than 5EV to get the exposure in the right ball park for an ambient light shot. If it does it on land take the rig outside to take the shot. Just dial your shutter speed down until the meter says exposure is right, don't be concerned about camera movement we only looking to see if it exposes correctly. The main thing is to take an exposure that the camera says is correct. If it can do this it points to the problem being a strobe/sync issue. Take a second shot immediately afterwards at your usual settings just to show the issue is still present and didn't fix itself as you changing settings or moving the camera. If the camera is able to take a correctly exposed ambient shot it narrows the problem down to the strobe/TTL converter issue and additional trouble shooting steps are needed. It is important to be methodical when doing this type of trouble shooting.

The Canon converters won't fit due to the extended nose, but people regularly use the Kenko 1.4x converters with the 8-15 zoom fisheyes. Several housing makers provide zoom gears to use with the 8-15/1.4x combination.

I think this highlights another saying: "horses for courses". Chip, you mention wrecks are a favourite and that fisheye gets less use now except for certain subjects. The phrase certainly subjects highlights why I think a different approach will be very helpful. Start with your subject and work backwards. If you are doing wrecks a lot a rectilinear may make sense or a WWL, if you are doing CFWA on tropical reefs or sometimes even in temperate waters a fisheye comes into its own by bringing the subject forward in the frame and giving it prominence while the background is sent backwards and this creates a unique look. Fish portraits depending on their size will have a different solution. Scientific photography may demand low distortion for some applications, the list goes on. So subject will define the lenses you want, then work out which port of if you want a wet optic. Next work out what camera you want to use and based upon lens/port selection choose a housing that will support the ports and/or water contact optics you want to use. All of these choices have various pros and cons to weigh up. Before jumping in and buying lots of optics think hard about what you want to shoot with them, then ask what is the best solution for that. Next ask how much flexibility do you want, this may push you in a different direction.