Close focus issues

Hi

I have a canon S120 compact with Inon WA Wet lens, and 2x Inon S2000 strobes, with Fantasea Nano focus light. I do not use a dome port (can't quite run to it at the moment...but happy to know if that addition will in fact substantially improve photo quality)

[i also have Inon Macro wet lens - which I'm having to learn to change with WA lens, with some degree of dexterity underwater, plus with 5mm gloves..but that is a 'by the way']

To do a close focus WA shot of small subject (e.g.nudibranch) at say approx 12" distance, in mucky water where sediment in the water reduces vis to 2m with concomitant high problem of backscatter, and to get good background, would I zoom in manually using the lever on the housing?

Or should I just be thinking Macro wet lens and forget the WA and background??

Nor do I quite understand the difference between manual and digital zoom.....all and any help appreciated?

many thanx

The difference between "manual" zoom and digital zoom is:
Manual Zoom is a optical zoom where lenses inside the lens are moved to zoom in
Digital Zoom is the camera zooming in digitally, basically blow-up the picture and crop it

Digital Zoom made by the camera is usually mostly useless and lead to high noise and artifacts;

you rather "zoom Digitally" by your self using Lightroom, Photoshop or GIMP.

CFWA is usually much more near than 12 inch and this would solve partially the bad image quality caused by particles.

I am used to shoot in the Pacific with very high plancton and algea load and the only way to take reasonable pictures is a distance of 3-6 inch

You have a very nice small rig and it should be able to focus at a bot more than1 inch!without the WA wetlens!
Using a WA wetlens will probably make the Nudibranch too small to bee noticed inside the picture ...

You may try to shoot Nudibranch and similar small critters without the WA wetlens.

Chris

As Chris says, you should try to avoid the so-called "digital zoom" - basically, you are throwing away information. I always turn it off on any camera that I can. If you need to, you can always crop later in post.