Sea&Sea Compact dome port

I am about to invest in a domeport for my Sea&Sea dx-350d housing.

I have the Canon 10-22 wide zoom lens.

I am currently struggeling if I should choos the small comapct dome or if I should choose the larger dome.

I realise that the comapct dome has its limitations regarding half n half shots but this is not a desciding factor to me.

Hos is the smaller dome with the 10-22 lens, does it work as good optically underwater as the larger dome?

When I've discussed the two dome port options for Sea & Sea housings with Alan James photography in the UK it seems the compact dome is the prefered option for pretty much any wide angle lens. Whilst in theory the larger dome may have the edge optically it seems to be a rarely sold item.

In the UK it seems most wide angle shooters have invested in the compact dome. On your 350d housing the larger dome might be a bit of a large beast and being made of acrylic may be considerably more vulnerable to getting scratched.

From a borrowed D70 set up I found split image shots to be fairly easy with with the smaller dome.

It would be nice to hear from anyone that uses the larger dome.

I've used and highly recommend the large dome. It is excellent.

The smaller dome will work but it's really designed for use with specific fixed prime lenses as it can be positioned properly so that the center of the dome curvature lines up w/ the lens's nodal point.

With zoom lenses, the nodal point moves, so a larger dome is more forgiving.

Cheers

James

The Sea & Sea NX Fisheye Dome is a really good optic. It is plexi, though, and I prefer glass for multitude of reasons.

This would be my choice:

http://www.athena-opt.com/kougaku.htm

How many Yen is that Ryan? :-)

Cheers

James

This would be my choice:

http://www.athena-opt.com/kougaku.htm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Absolutely, Thats why I dot really consider the NX fisheye, Its a compromise.

But with the athena dome my budget will breakdown completely, thats really why I want to know if the compact dome will do the job. Or do I realy have to chip up for the much more expensive athena glass.

/Jonas

How many Yen is that Ryan? :-)

 

Cheers

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The good news is that it costs fewer dollars than yen . . .

If my recollection of price is correct, it's around $750, which is actually a bargain considering that the S&S fisheye dome goes for around $600 these days. Looks like Athena has really ramped up their product line!

Mike

This is all news to me. I did not realise you could get glass athena domes to fit on a Sea & Sea housing. The web link looks interesting.

I wonder if anyone in the UK imports the athena OPD 170 domes or if anyone here has ever bought one. How is it best to buy such an item?

We have the old OPD-170 for $795, but expect this new lens w/ the integrated shade will sell for between $750 and $800 (it is on the way now). The dome element is the same, just a slightly different form factor.

Sea & Sea is building a new optical glass dome that they will release in May, expected to look exactly like the dome pictured above, including the hood and travel case. The doem wil list at 98,000 JPY, about $860 USD. Rumor has it that Athena will stop selling this dome port at that time.

Jonas, the compact doem will do the job. It will require a strong diopter, and likely extension ring 40 instead of the sx, but the optics should be reasonable. Either the fisheye dome or the athena dome is usable with no diopter.

Attached is a link for the Athena site in english, http://www.athena-opt.com/

This is also the same glass dome used with a diffrent mount for the Olympus PT-E01 (E-300) and E02 (E-330) housings. I use this dome with the 8 mm fisheye and the 7 to 14 mm zoom with an extension ring. Olympus dome port appox. $800.00 and the extension ring with the zoom gear for the 7 to 14 mm, about $260.00. Very happy with the results. Zoom with dome at 12 mm.

Phil Rudin

Hi Phil,

This is a bit off the topic but I was interested to see on your attatched web link how you can conect a Sea & Sea strobe to that Olympus brand strobe bulkhead. I had previous thought the only option was one of those Heinrich Weikamp converter things that I seem to remeber you using on your PT-E01.

It looks like Athena have some suitable cable options for Olympus users as well as their glass domes.

Back on topic now - it is interesting if Sea & Sea really do make a glass dome available as it would make their housings that bit more desirable to some who are not so keen on the acrylic.

Trev

For the record

I use the commpact port UW with a 15mm Fisheye, works fine for me.

I have tried it on land with a 24-70mm zoom, but I have no zoom control so never took it underwater.

I'm not an image quality geek. If the image looks overall good I am happy.

I don't look at 100% crops of the corners.

But I'd tell you it would work, and sure there are other options, but i know nothing about them.

My original purchase came from what I was told by Alan James and Herb @ Cathy Church.

Hi Phil,

 

This is a bit off the topic but I was interested to see on your attatched web link how you can conect a Sea & Sea strobe to that Olympus brand strobe bulkhead. I had previous thought the only option was one of those Heinrich Weikamp converter things that I seem to remeber you using on your PT-E01.

It looks like Athena have some suitable cable options for Olympus users as well as their glass domes.

 

Trevor,

 

Two of the options for the Olympus PT-E01/E02 housings can be obtained from Reef Photo or Mike-dive.de. The first is a cord that attaches to the Oly bulkhead on one end and a Sea & Sea five pin cord on the other. This allows use of the Inon strobes which I use or the S&S strobes. The second is a replacement bulkhead connector that does away with the Oly and allows direct connection of the cord to the housing. This is what I have been using and it is a much better connector than the one sold with the housing by Olympus. The Cable options from Athena include a dual strobe cord which allows two Olympus housings for the Fl-20 or Fl-36 strobes to be fired in TTL, (not an option for me) or single cords which do not work with the E-300 camera or my Inon strobes. I would rather continue to use my dual Inon Z-220 strobes in manual until a better mouse trap comes along.

 

Phil

Hi All

I agree with Giles on this one.

I've use this port for every wide and zoom lens i own, and i'm totally happy with the image quality. NEVER had a problem or quality issue

regards

craig

Craig,

Are you saying that you have good results using the 10.5mm with the S&S compact dome? If so I will have to try it. Sure would beat traveling/diving with the big fisheye dome.

Thanks,