Hi everyone. I have enjoyed reading everyone's ideas about, well everything. I just returned from a great photo course in Key Largo given by Tom & Theresa Stack. I would love to go back and pick there brains for about a month!
I met a great diver/photographer there ( yeah you Don) who suggested that a domed port was better than a flat port. I have not tried this yet for my 60mm lens but I will (lord knows I need something to make my pics better !)
Any feed back ? thanks Dan
Try a search on this topic. It has been discussed here before.
I bought the flat port for my 60mm but based on the discussions and images posted here I will definately try the dome next time. If the same results can be achieved using the dome it's easier to travel with only one port for WA and macro.
I have not read all the stuff before, but as far as my understanding goes it has a to do with the focal point of the lens and how far the light from the port has to travel to reach it.
(It should be all exactly the same) No?!?
You'd have to check the exact data of the lens and the port but I would imagine that a flat port gets closer to ideal as a WA dome.
How would you say,
My 0.02$
thomhard
In most cases you will lose you ability to manually focus the 60mm in a dome port. That, to me, is a key feature of the lens. There are other ways to focus, like estimate distance on a rock, switch to manual focus and move the housing in and out, but I would rather have the full monty to maximize my photo opps. For example, when you are sneaking up on a fish or small critter, you often want to get as close as you can, but a pre-focus lock in a dome port means you are stuck with what you get, and you may miss a better opportunity. Here is a picture where manual focus came in REAL handy. As I belly crawled on the sand at a mm at a time, I slowly manyally re-focused time and time again until I had the composition I wanted. So in my opinion, you will possibly lose a slight amount of quality in exchange for a large amount of opportunity. The choice is really yours.
Using the 60 behind a dome gives it a similar angle of view to what the 60mm lens had on full frame cameras behind a macro port. Many experienced shooters I deal with are doing this to prevent teaching an old dog new tricks...
Seems to me that with the D70 in an Ikelite housing the #5503.50 dome port for the Nikon Normal Macro 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro Nikkor Autofocus Lens will let me use the lens in auto focus mode or manual focus mode with the port zoom gear and the camera set to manual focus.
