Aquatica 8" Acrylic Dome versus 4" mini dome for WA

Hi All,

I am off to the southern red sea shortly and as normal i am looking at the amount of luggage that i will require to take with me.

i have an Aquatica 8" dome and the Aquatica 4" mini dome. i plan on taking my 10.5mm FE and my 10-17mm FE for wide angle work and teleconvertors for CFWA. if i use either lens in the mini dome with the correct spacers for full WA will it be as sharp as using the 8" dome for that WA and keeping the 4" for just CFWA?

thanks in advance for any help!

Alastair, A 4" being a smaller radius dome than the 8", you will need to stop down to get the edges sharp, most of the time, I pretty much shoot the Tokina 10-17mm behind the 4" dome port, I still carry the 8" for splits shots and for shooting super wide lenses, but I could live without it if I had too.

I echo Jean's comments after using the mini-dome on my last trip. I didn't bring the 8", just the 6" but since I do stop down when shooting wide, I cannot tell the difference between domes.

S.

Jean /Stewart,

thanks for the reply i had noticed the same thing (hence my query) but i hadn't put 2 and 2 together and just assumed that it was perhaps not as sharp! i am lucky that i will have a few more practice dives here in the musandam this weekend to try and make sure that i can stop down and get the images that i am after although the vis is not as good here it should tell me if need to take both. i can always where the same shorts for the week right?

Thanks.

AM.

Any recommendation on how much it should be stopped down? I normally shoot at f.8 and smaller, would that be sufficient?

-Morten

Any recommendation on how much it should be stopped down? I normally shoot at f.8 and smaller, would that be sufficient?

 

-Morten

f/8 is a good start, but it does improve as you get smaller aperture,.

well tried it this weekend in the musandam i was lucky with the vis. Even at f8 i could still see softening in the corners but at f9 and f11 things improved and are barely noticable. so i think i will leave the big port behind and save me some weight!

Thanks for the tip jean...

Enjoy the trip! :-)