WACP - I have got these numbers right ?

Going through the planning stages of which way to be heading for the longer term outlook optics/housing wise.

WACP with 24-70 FOV is 130 to 57 degrees.

Seacam Nikonos 20-35 is 79 to 51 degrees

if my numbers are right then the Nikonos gets closer to a subject when zoomed in ? (more reach). But this does not seem right to me so I am guessing my numbers relating to FOV are off.

Anyone have the right numbers or can confirm what the FOV for the above optic setups are?

No one....come on guys, there are some amazing experts on here, surely someone knows the answer to this ??

The issue here is that the WACP is a conversion lens, so the focal length of the lens used with it is not relevant in terms of a comparison. I'm not sure how many people use it with the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 as most use it with the Nikon 28-70 f3.5-4.5. I'm not sure there is much info out there about its use with the 24-70?

If your query is whether the WACP has enough reach for big subjects, the answer is yes it does!

In common with many (apart from those that shot it Nikonos RS cameras), there are very few people around that have shot the Nikonos 20-35mm lens underwater. I guess give its  year or two...

Adam

John,

I have a Seacam modified 20-35 and shot the 20-35 as well with film "back in the day" with the RS. The minimum focusing distance of the lens is 0.38m which limits how much "reach" one will get at 35mm if I understand your use of this term. Filling the frame with something small? I use the lens mainly at 20mm but do have a few at 35mm on my website from HI. Such as this one:

https://www.salmonography.com/Aloha/Hawaiian-Invertebrates/i-ktJSpXN/A

I do not know if this was shot at minimum focus distance or not but probably not as I did not want collide with lava rock as I was drifting along the backwall of Molokini! The Pencil Urchin is fairly large but there is a smaller species above it. The images to right of this are also with this RS lens. The exif data report it as the 16mm fisheye but this is incorrect. The focal length, however, is correct. Exif data can be seen my clicking on the three-line symbol below the arrowhead symbol in the upper left as seen on a computer.

To properly answer your question likely requires using the RS lens side by side with the WACP in a controlled situation such as a pool like Alex Mustard did in his excellent video on dome ports. A point he makes in it is that some wide angle options limit ones ability to get close to a subject because the optics get in the way, hence the need for the 10cm/4" macro domes. Maybe the answer to your question is "none of the above" like in multiple choice questions ;->>

Tom

Thanks for the input Adam/Tom.

Tom, I have much admiration of your work !!

Guess I am not explaining myself well.

Look at this photo of Tom's. https://www.salmonography.com/Aloha/Hawaiian-Invertebrates/i-sDTfBJv/A

Exif data says shot at 35mm. Will the 28-70 in the WACP zoom in closer and make the fish in that picture appear bigger? Or is the 20-35 zoomed into its 35mm setting as big as that fish can look in a picture taken from the distance it was??

Either optic is an amazing bit of glass ! I keep going back and forth on the Seacam Nikonos lenses...yes....no...yes...no....yes...ahh Maybe WACP...er...maybe Nikonos....er no...er yes...endlessly ! First world problem I know.

I suppose another way of saying it is I want it all. I want to go as wide as possible when I need it and I want to be able to zoom in for a fish portrait when I need it. I want to do it all on one dive. I also want my cake and I want to it eat too :-)

This is the 21st century. It's time we could do this in these times of amazing tech advances...for goodness sakes, we can now do more with a phone than just talk on a phone with Android/Apple smart phones, so ......

P.S anyone here old enough to remember Dick Tracey? He used to have a device on his wrist that he could talk into and see video footage of the person he was talking too...as kids we said...one day we will be able to do that. 

John,

Yes I remember Dick Tracy which I read almost daily in the Stars and Stripes newspaper in Germany as a child 50 years ago!

Adam reported elsewhere that the minimum working distance of the WACP is zero whereas it is about a foot or so with the 20-35 (my recollection from film days). Therefore one might be able to get a slightly better fish portrait of a small fish with the WACP but this needs to be confirmed in a pool test with something like the rubber duck in:

That said I think this answer is academic as really neither lens will be good for a portrait of a small reef fish which are better shot with a 50 to 200 mm macro lens with optimum focal length being inversely proportional to fish size.

They are OK for larger fish as well as schools of fish. I got in a manta at a cleaning station with the RS lens at 20. I did manage to chop of part of a wing in a few shots so wider could have been even better. https://www.salmonography.com/Aloha/Hawaiian-cleaning-symbioses/i-mSDXvcV/A

Tom

I've used the WACP with 28-70mm on several trips over the past year and am impressed with its versatility of FOV range. I believe that is about as close as you’ll get to having your cake and eating it; for now, with full frame.

Some examples.

At the narrow end (70mm->75degrees): 

http://www.underwaterdisplay.net/dive63/FJ190513_3215.jpg

http://www.underwaterdisplay.net/dive63/FJ190514_3382.jpg

At the wide end (28mm->130degrees):

http://www.underwaterdisplay.net/dive64/MOR20191007_5670.jpg

http://www.underwaterdisplay.net/dive64/MOR20191004_4678.jpg

Downside is weight in lugging this beast down a beach but once in the water it’s a thing of beauty. In Moorea recently we did a lot of swimming in the blue and there wasn’t much difference in water resistance (possibly less) between my rig and those using large domes.  

Thanks Colin for the zoomed/not zoomed pictures. I like numbers but I'm struggling to picture FOV metrics because it's not how I've thought about photos before. But being able to photograph a reasonably sized reef fish in a nice portrait and then turn around and take a picture of a whale on a single (perfect, obviously  ) dive would definitely be two handfuls of cake for me! Are those shots uncropped?

The nauticam multiplier of 0.36x is misleading as the port is not rectilinear

If you take 28-70 x 0.36 you think you have a 10-25 rectilinear lens but you will find out that a true rectilinear lens had the same diagonal of the wacp but is wider horizontally and vertically

In terms of horizontal field of view the WACP will be like a 14-24 lens with wider diagonal and narrower vertical field of view

You would not take a portrait at 24mm I guess

The WACP like the WWL-1 are an alternative to super wide rectilinear lenses if you can accept the barrel distortion

The sharpness in corners is not real but it is an illusion generated by the compression of the pixels and the barrel distortion compensates the perspective distortion of a rectilinear lens at close range (objects look straight in corners of the wacp wwl-1 while center is bent)

In terms of shooting

For a cropped sensor user the same field of view can be obtained with a tokina fisheye and a tele converter. Probably the Wacp performs better but I dont see why I would take that option on cropped

Wacp really is for full frame

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Thanks for the replies on this.

@Colin. Impressive shots there! Very sharp from edge to edge and this is the allure of the WACP.

When you need wide angle you need it. But historically its been hard to have sharp edges as we all know. Two optics address this very nicely...Nikonos and now the WACP.

But when a unique opportunity arises and I need to zoom in to crop as tight as I need ...well then I need that ability to do so ...but optically on the spot , not afterwards throwing half my res away.

So very nice examples of the WACP and it helps immensely to visualize what it can do. Thanks for your input.

@Tom. It is true that neither is ideal for a portrait but its the best compromise to date I think. I need longer more than I need wider for my application but I do need wider at times. Not easy. But I guess this business never was.Nice shot of the Manta Ray! Do you have the WACP? If you were starting again which way would you go? Stars and Stripes in Germany..... that most likely means an Army brat. I was lucky I never had to live on base and drag my kids around with me as my posting never moved.

@Interceptor. You are right, 24mm is not a portrait length at all. It's a quandary. I suppose one answer is to carry two rigs at all times.....

OK so that's the part that I was missing.....X 0.36. Now it makes much more sense. I will only be shooting full frame from here on out. I will keep the D2X for macro only. I just bought Ian Marsh's old Seacam D800 setup to get some bubble time on before I go into a higher end full frame. One cant argue that the D850 seems to have some sort of mojo to the images that anything else so far seems to lack. So yes my application of WACP is for full frame. I have another need as well...video. So the WACP kills two birds with one stone, so there is that. The Nikonos wont help me with video and it's a pricey optic. Its a dilemma for sure. I do need those head and pectoral fin shots but I also need environment shots as well. Seems there is no answer for this yet.

Going  a little off topic but while I have the brightest minds here, I have the 105mm for the D800. Is the 60mm of much use on full frame for portraits? I have the D2x for macro with a 60mm on it already.

Is there a good reason why we can't have an SCP port (Super correction Port)? You know, from 10mm to 105mm, super sharp from edge to edge at all focal lengths? We have super computers that could crunch the numbers for weeks or months to get the correct optical formula after all. If Dick Tracey could talk into his smartwatch 50 years ago already, why can't we have this in the 21st century ?

JDII

Your question on the FF 105mm and 60mm: with the DX sensor D300 I used a mixture of the two lenses. Moving to the D800 a few years back, I found I never used the 60mm. With, now, the DX-based D500 I still never use the 60mm and just prefer the 105mm.  I'd suggest if you are sticking with FX and a D850 you won't get much use for the 60mm.

You mention two options for wide-angle sharp edges. I think there's a third: although I've not used one, there have been a number of posts here about how good the the Sea&Sea optical corrector is for wide-angle. Maybe worth checking out?

Hi TimG,

Thanks for the input. Yeah this is what Ian keeps telling me. I keep trying to buy his 90 Seacam port and Ian keeps telling me I wont get any use out of it. 

OK so time to put the 60mm question to bed for now and ever more. I pledge to never mention it again..dib dib !

Re the wide angle..I dont have a Superdome and If I dont have to buy one so much the better. Its big and unwieldy  - or so I keep reading from those who know better. So its either the WACP or the Nikonos route. Pros and cons as always.

I need my head and pectrols shots and I need my wide shots. I prefer not to have two rigs with me on a dive. What to do, what to do.....

JDII

I agree on the unwieldyness of the 230 domes - for travelling at least. I've not used a WACP but had a play with one at the Nauticam stand at the Boot exhibition in Germany in January. Not exactly travel-friendly! That is one chunky, heavy beast. 

I can truly understand you wanting to be able to do wide n'macro on the same dive. But, honestly, if you are serious about the images you create - and you sound like it - I'd suggest covering all or most of the bases is not an ideal way to go. Pick the lens/port combination based on what you think might be at the dive site and what, ideally you want to photograph. And stick with it. If the whale shark swims by whilst you have macro, just enjoy the scene and tell the story of frustration afterwards. Although maybe it was a pygmy whale shark.....

13 minutes ago, TimG said:

 

I can truly understand you wanting to be able to do wide n'macro on the same dive. 

 

Macro and wide on the same dive is not an option on full frame because the WACP is a dry mount.

The only set up that allows this level of flexibility at present is the Micro Four Third N85 mount with kit lens where you can use the WWL-1 and the CMCs or other close up lenses. 

Coming from a compact background and before then from videocameras the experience of one fits all is much more useful for video than it is for stills. For photos really having too many options is confusing and in most cases you do not have great subjects at both sides of the spectrum furthermore even if a wet lens beats a rectilinear lens a dedicated fisheye lens and macro lens always outperform a kit lens with wet lenses. This is not visible at 4K or 8 Megapixels but becomes apparent at 20 Mpix

14 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

The only set up that allows this level of flexibility at present is the Micro Four Third N85 mount with kit lens where you can use the WWL-1 and the CMCs or other close up lenses. 

Sony APS-C with kit 16-50mm does that too. Nikon FX with 60mm macro, or DX with 40mm macro and MWL-1 is another option. Sony or Fuji APS-C with a 50mm macro also work with MWL-1, albeit with a reduced FoV.

MWL is not the same of zoom through
Good point about 16-50 though 75mm is just a tad short

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17 hours ago, John Doe II said:

@Tom. It is true that neither is ideal for a portrait but its the best compromise to date I think. I need longer more than I need wider for my application but I do need wider at times. Not easy. But I guess this business never was.Nice shot of the Manta Ray! Do you have the WACP? If you were starting again which way would you go? Stars and Stripes in Germany..... that most likely means an Army brat. I was lucky I never had to live on base and drag my kids around with me as my posting never moved.

 

Thanks for the compliment. No on the WACP as it is a non-Seacam solution. I am not sure what I would do starting over. Since it is apparent that we are at the start of a new paradigm, i.e., mirrorless for all major brands, this is particularly challenging. My gear collection is largely a result of the last 15 years of digital history and no real planning on my part. Correct on army brat.