Gates Ports & Zoom

Hi Guys,

Forgive me, but as a beginner with higher end video I may be asking a silly question.

I have been looking at Gates housings and ports and have become a little confused about the use of the zoom. It states that the standard flat and the wide angle ports allow little or NO "zoom through". I presume this means that I could not use the camera zoom for framing which would be very limiting. I am also assuming this is due to limitations in the optics.

Some of their other lenses and the up market Fathom lenses do allow "zoom through".

Am I correct in this assumption, and I would presumably have to go for the more expensive ports to get what I already have on my much cheaper, lower performance Sea & Sea PC300.

I would be most grateful for the benefit of your experience.

Thanks

Roger

You should be able to zoom in a certain amount with them and then they will dramatically go out of focus at some point.

On my VX2000 Gates housing I have standard and flat ports and I can zoom in a fair bit with them before losing focus. I'm forever taking closeups by zooming until focus goes and then zooming back out a touch.

I believe the more expensive Fathom ports have multiple glass elements and aspheric surfaces to allow a wide angle without distortion and to let you zoom in more.

Which model are you looking at? If you ask the people at Gates your question direct you'll probably get a quick and complete reply. They're very helpful.

So on your Sea & Sea PC300 you can zoom all the way in and still maintain focus? Is the port flat or?

I thought the flat port allowed full zoom ? I can fully zoom with my Gates flat port.

My camcorder has a minimum focus distance for full zoom. If I want to use full zoom and get closer than the camcorder minimum focus distance, I use a diopter.

on my Gates and Sony 950 with the standard wide i get zoom of about 3/4 on the zoom bar

Ron you're probably right about full zoom with a flat port, it's just that you'd have to be so far away from the subject to get a focus that it's fairly irrelevant (i.e. milky, washed-out shot).

Hi Nick and others,

Sorry not to respond quicker, but we have been in Angaga in the Maldives for 12 days. Wonderful diving and some good stuff to photograph :-)

My PC300 does allow a full zoom, but the restriction is the focal length on full telephoto. I use a close up lens for the macro stuff.

I am looking seriously at the HDR-FX7E, so until Gates come up with a housing there is little point in talking to them.

It sounds like most of you have a certain degree of zoom available to you with the Gates housing flat ports.

Thanks for your help

Roger