GH4 - Nauticam Macro Lens/Port Thoughts

A lot of airlines allow for a "personal item" in addition to your carry-on. Typically if it could fit under the seat in front then it can be classified as a personal item. For my next trip I'm deciding whether my personal item (in addition to backpack) will be my laptop or my bare housing (like EunJae) or a very large bumbag. Or maybe I'll try for 2 or 3 of those. It's always a gamble and it's totally airline-dependent. You need to have a plan in case they enforce the rules. Taking a bare housing like EunJae has the benefit of distracting the staff and making them forget what they should be weighing and charging for. The best thing is if you have someone accompany you to the airport and hide around the corner with some of your carry-on gear while you check in.

Been thinking about the Shogun and how to mount it behind the GH4 to help with the pitch issues...

Yesterday I broke (or it broke) my GorillaPod, not sure they like saltwater.

Anyway...started looking at a replacement and revisited the XIT404 tripods, at the time they were a bit steep for my pocket, buy cheap..buy twice - I see they have a rear balljoint.

Would this not work with a triple clamp to mount the Shogun behind the GH4 ? Saves having to use the massive tray? Plus it's an integrated tripod..?

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Nice idea! You could do that with the Tripod Leg w/Ball Adaptor Kit and a triple clamp and a ball on the bottom of the housing. But the problem is that when you loosen the clamp to move your tripod leg, the monitor will also be loose. You'd need some sort of brace linking the top of it to something else on the housing. It wouldn't have to be much. Just to stop it flopping about.

If you have the more expensive twist leg it would get a bit clumsy because you'd need a triple clamp then a short arm, then another clamp. Quite a chain.

I'm very interested to see what Nauticam come up with as a mount.

What type of Gorillapod did you break?

It was a SLR-Zoom type. It (was) always connected to my flexitray and so was washed with the housing, so you would think the saltwater would of got washed out/away.

However I tried moving one of the legs, which was stuck - a slight 'click' and then the leg became quite floppy and useless and water came out, looking at it its cracked the ball joint - and there was quite a salt build up. - didn't think too much about it - I thought I would just remove the broken one, however on closer inspection of the other legs, the actual base 'cup' on one of the legs is cracked too - so don't think it will last...

Yeah the triple ball joint will become loose when adjusting the legs - perhaps not the best solution - but the only one I've found so far! The only thing I can think of doing would be to epoxy the ball of the shogun and the tray to the triple clamp, so only the leg would come loose on adjusting...

Better to have 2 balls sticking out of the back of the tripod plate using something like the Xit 404 Quad Ball Adapter Kit. Might need a T groove plate with it. Not sure.

I've spoken with XIT404 to see what they say -getting back to me later...

I did look at their quad adaptor - but don't know if you can remove the current rear ball mount? If you can, this is the solution! - I think :-)

Looking at it, having the adaptor on its side (so facing backwards) this would be the ideal config - Backscatter Linky

What about this configuration:

Trying to keep it as clean and clutter free as possible!

That's actually not so bad is it. Nice mock-up! In that configuration the triple clamp could just be kept really tight unless you need to move the Shogun, although if I was running that setup I'd probably have the short ball arm sticking out backwards or upwards a lot of the time. I like to get the camera really low to the seabed a lot to get a low point of view and lots of distant background. A possible downside is more allowance for movement and vibrations because of the extra linkages. Important when shooting super macro like I want to do. A specifically-designed tray would be better, but nevertheless this is a reasonable workaround.

I was looking at the Xit 404 camera tray. There are actually 2 holes off to each side on it, presumably to allow you to use 4 legs. That would free up the one in the middle at the back for just the Shogun. However those holes are in a vertical orientation to the balls would be pointing straight down under the tray, preventing the low positioning I was just talking about.

I expect I'm going to end up designing my own tray and getting it built, unless someone comes up with just the right thing. There's a lot of personal preference involved.

Where I am, getting custom made stuff is hard (then there is the anodising finish etc) - so making the best of off the shelf stuff is my only option!

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and go for it! Barring any better suggestions!

There is a great review of the Shogun from a 'Stefan Czech' -

http://vimeo.com/stefanfilm/atomos-shogun#t=1423s (GH4 part starts at 23:43mins)

And a good example of the benefits of 4:2:2.

Have you experiment with this technique?

http://www.eoshd.com/2014/06/cure-banding-dslr-footage-gh4-4k-holds-key/

Also, there was a rumor that GH4 may get internal RAW recording through firmware update. But that was a while back ago.

I really don't see the GH4 getting internal RAW video (I mean I would love it thou!) when its bigger brother the X1000E doesn't do it either, and that has twice the processing power.

Great link. Will have a play with that!

Just ordered the whole tripod set from Jack at OpticalOceanSales, who has been excellent with email help, it was near on 800€* for a tripod - I hope its worth it!!

*Delivery was 150€ !!

I just came back from Raja Ampat where I used my GH4 for the first time. I have an Olympus 9 - 18 zoom which was fine for wide angle. For macro I had the Olympus 60mm macro lens and I too had tremendous problems getting it to focus. I though I was going crazy until I read your thread here. I too found the minimum focus length to be too far away. I was told that the lens would focus as close as 8 inches from the subject underwater. That was not my experience. I had to be about 2 feet away in order to get any sharp focus. To me this 60mm lens is a close up lens but not what I would consider macro. I was also told that I should get a diopter either +7 or +10 to shoot small stuff. Does anyone know how close I could get to the subject with a +7 diopter?

I just came back from Raja Ampat where I used my GH4 for the first time. I have an Olympus 9 - 18 zoom which was fine for wide angle. For macro I had the Olympus 60mm macro lens and I too had tremendous problems getting it to focus. I though I was going crazy until I read your thread here. I too found the minimum focus length to be too far away. I was told that the lens would focus as close as 8 inches from the subject underwater. That was not my experience. I had to be about 2 feet away in order to get any sharp focus. To me this 60mm lens is a close up lens but not what I would consider macro. I was also told that I should get a diopter either +7 or +10 to shoot small stuff. Does anyone know how close I could get to the subject with a +7 diopter?

 

 

However at those distances the magnifications is so high that depth of field is really small and focus gets difficult (you have probably experienced that already)

The 60mm makes a fine lens for stills but for video I would think you need to use it on a tripod and in raja except few places there is nowhere to position a tripod

I just came back from Raja Ampat where I used my GH4 for the first time. I have an Olympus 9 - 18 zoom which was fine for wide angle. For macro I had the Olympus 60mm macro lens and I too had tremendous problems getting it to focus. I though I was going crazy until I read your thread here. I too found the minimum focus length to be too far away. I was told that the lens would focus as close as 8 inches from the subject underwater. That was not my experience. I had to be about 2 feet away in order to get any sharp focus. To me this 60mm lens is a close up lens but not what I would consider macro. I was also told that I should get a diopter either +7 or +10 to shoot small stuff. Does anyone know how close I could get to the subject with a +7 diopter?

 

 

Check your focus range switch. This lens focus very close.

It's weird this lens.

Everything i read about it. Says it's brilliant. Not quite on par the 50mm from the E-1 era, but still an amazing lens.

Yet I've heard elsewhere about it focusing poorly underwater and I was actually recommended to swap it out for the Panasonic 45mm. Which is weird as topside it's pretty quick....

I just leave it on 0.19-0.4. Otherwise it hunts for focus really badly. Going in/out, in/out.

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I just came back from Raja Ampat where I used my GH4 for the first time. I have an Olympus 9 - 18 zoom which was fine for wide angle. For macro I had the Olympus 60mm macro lens and I too had tremendous problems getting it to focus. I though I was going crazy until I read your thread here. I too found the minimum focus length to be too far away. I was told that the lens would focus as close as 8 inches from the subject underwater. That was not my experience. I had to be about 2 feet away in order to get any sharp focus. To me this 60mm lens is a close up lens but not what I would consider macro. I was also told that I should get a diopter either +7 or +10 to shoot small stuff. Does anyone know how close I could get to the subject with a +7 diopter?

 

In the case of the Olympus 60mm, I decided that it was just not the right choice of lens for what I was doing. The plane of sharp focus is quite narrow and quite a long way from the front of the flat port. For good results, it must be very stable and focused exactly right. That might be doable for still photography when it only needs to be still for the 1/10,000 of a second during the strobe flash. But for a 10 second video clip, keeping it still enough and the subject in focus is very difficult, even with a stable tripod. If there is any subject-camera distance movement, it'll move out of focus.

It’s a great lens but not for video macro...

Regards

Peter

 

In the case of the Olympus 60mm, I decided that it was just not the right choice of lens for what I was doing. The plane of sharp focus is quite narrow and quite a long way from the front of the flat port. For good results, it must be very stable and focused exactly right. That might be doable for still photography when it only needs to be still for the 1/10,000 of a second during the strobe flash. But for a 10 second video clip, keeping it still enough and the subject in focus is very difficult, even with a stable tripod. If there is any subject-camera distance movement, it'll move out of focus.

 

It’s a great lens but not for video macro...

For macro, I went a different way. I bought the Panasonic 14-45mm PZ lens and then added a +5 Subsee wet lens on a flip holder. Works very well for video macro. I usually set the zoom to about 35mm then focus as close as possible. The +5 works for “nudibranch-sized” critters. I have an Inon +10 for the more tiny stuff but rarely use it. With the zoom set to 14mm and the wet lens flipped out, it can shoot fish and medium sized critters.

Regards

Peter

Hi Peter,

Do you meant Panasonic PZ 14-42mm?

I might try that lens.

Cheers,

 

Hi Peter,

Do you meant Panasonic PZ 14-42mm?

I might try that lens.

Cheers,

Hi EunJae,

Yes, you are right. I did mean the PZ 14-42mm. (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?N=10818962&InitialSearch=yes&sts=pi)

It works fine as a macro lens with video lights providing enough light to shoot in the middle of its f-stop range.

And, if a larger critter comes along, you do have some options for catching some footage - although it is definitely not a substitute for a good WA lens and a dome port.

The only downside is that the PZ does not have manual focus underwater. So, you have to do an AFL and nudge the housing to fine tune the focus. (hopefully, with the Shogun and its big screen / focus tools, small focus adjustments are going to become much easier for people like me with ageing eyes)

Regards

Peter

PS. Love your "Christmas eve in East Sea of Korea" video. I was driving down the east coast of Korea around Gyeongju last year and saw some people going out in a dive boat. If I had have known that the diving was that good, I'd have brought my dive gear and camera. The visibility looks great and the water is such a rich, deep blue.

I can confirm what Peter said. I recently tried out the 14-42mm pz lens, with a +5 and +7 diopter. I even tried stacking the +5 on top of the +7, it's very usable, and I will have a video up soon so you guys can check it out. Focus distance could be as close as 8 inch. The 14-42mm lens is versatile enough that it could function just like a point and shoot, for macro and wide angle. As for super macro, that probably would be another story.