I just finished building a new housing for my D3 using the new 14-24 Nikkor Lens. I ‘m using a 8 inch mineral glass dome port. I placed a spacer between the body of the housing and the dome. I started out placing the Lens just inside the dome so it was not vignetting and did my usual pool test, results were soft corners. Back to my lathe and cut the spacer down about a 1/8 inch and tried again, same results. This went on till I was more than half way through the dome with little change to the soft corners. The only time I got reasonable sharp corners was when I used very small f stops, f11 and up . My conclusion is this Lens probably needs a diopter. The problem is theirs no filter adapter threads or way to mount one.
I'd be most appreciative if anyone had any suggestions before I bail on this Lens ?
It's a shame because this Lens is fantastic out of the water.
Marc
Marc
If you search through wetpixel you should find numerous posts about domes and lenses with a field of view exceeding 90 degrees (ie 20mm on full frame 35mm). In essence you will find that it becomes increasingly difficult to correct corners as angle of view increases and that, whilst a diopter will potentially help, the problem is actually image field curvature which can currently only be improved by using as small apertures as is possible. I personally use a 24mm as my 'standard' wide-angle because I use a smaller dome in the UK's less than kind waters (I would rarely dare to use a bigger dome in our conditions as it would not survive unscathed for long) and even with a larger dome would think that my real 'limit' for critically decent corners would be 20mm or at a stretch 18mm on full frame. You might be chasing your tail on this one!
The D3 sounds like a very nice camera (haven't played with one yet) and especially useful underwater with the new 60mm Nikon macro.
