WA Lens Comparison

Hi all, this is my first post on this site. I've never had a wide angle lens for a housed camera, always relied on the Nikonos V and 15mm. But now that I've seen the wonders of macro with a digital camera, I want to get a WA lens for reef scenes and the whale shark when it comes floating next to me. I have a D100 in Subal housing. My choices are narrowed down to either the Nikon 16mm or the 12-24 zoom. I like the flexibility of the zoom, not so sure of the soft edges for reef shooting. Also, the zoom entails a port extension, zoom gear... more STUFF. I like the simplicity of the 16mm and the crisp edges (also cheaper, if such a thing is possible in underwater photography)... but it's not as flexible, I'll get only the head of the whale shark. Any thoughts?

Take a look at the 10.5mm

Karl

Take a look at the 10.5mm

 

Karl

So in your opinion, if I have to choose one WA lens, the 10.5mm is the best choice to use with a D100? How come?

Here's one of my favorite reasons

Oh. Point taken.

And on land, the 10.5 can gather some big stuff too:

I think the full frame fisheye is a specialty lens and should not be considered as your first and only WA choice. The 16mm gives great quality with the D100 as does the Sigma 15mm fisheye but it's hard to beat the versatility of a zoom. The 12-24 would be my first choice. You can pick either of the fisheyes next depending on whether you want the 180 field or not.

Many thanks for the guidance. Keeping in mind that the D100 has a 1.5 factor effect on the lens, I figured that the 10.5 would be the equivalant to the Nikonos 15mm, the 16 mm on the D100 would be the equivalant of the 20mm Nikonos, etc. The 15mm Nikonos has a 93 degree field, does the 10.5 fisheye really have 180?? That's too much for me.

I want one "go to" Wide Angle lens, that I can use in many situations. I shoot in the Florida Keys a lot, also the California Channel Islands. (bi-coastal).

Rand, that's a spectacular photo. That must have put a smile on your face!

I agree that the first lens to purchase for underwater shooting with a Nikon DX format camera is the 12-24DX. The fisheye is GREAT but you can only use it in certain situations. You can use the 12-24 literally ALL the time - I hardly ever take/took it off the camera.

Now that I have a FF camera, I'm really glad I have a FF fisheye, but I don't use it when I need to take "realistic" photos topside. It is really cool for making the world look round and not flat though:

Cheers

James

I'm with Craig on this. I've had the 10.5 for several months now. It's great for certain situations, and I expect to use it more now that I feel I've pulled past the steepest parts of the learning curve.

But the 12-24 mm is still the lens I rely on most for w/a, and would definitely be my only choice if I had to pare it down to only one w/a lens. The 12 mm end is definitely is wide enough for your whale shark, and not just the head - unless you're thinking of swimming inside its mouth. (See below).

Edge-to-edge sharpness with the 12-24 is excellent at all zoom powers, and it is very rectilinear too. Of course, your results may vary depending on the port combination. For Subal housings, the 12-24 mm works extremely well with their big dome port, but not with the smaller SWB, which led to some very misleading reports last year that the 12-24 mm was not suitable for use in an underwater housing..

Re: your second posting, I've never used the Nikonos cameras, but my understanding is that 20 mm would be the FF housed SLR equivalent of the Nikonos 15 mm. I don't have the acceptance angle numbers with me here, but the wide end of the 12-24 mm on a digital is certainly a lot wider than the 20 mm on a FF SLR. The 12-24 mm works out to almost exactly the same range of fields of view as the 17-35 mm on a full-frame camera. So, in other words, I think the wide end of the 12-24 is actually considerably wider than the Nikonos 15 mm.

Port extension rings are among the least expensive components you will ever buy from your housing manufacturer. For the Subal housings, at least, the ring used with a dome port for the 12-24 mm is the same one you need with the 17-35 mm, so if you happen to have (or acquire) one of those, you've got a two-fer, and a wonderful lens for things like sharks and large pelagics which can't be easily approached close enough for optimal use of the 12-24 (not to mention the 10.5).

With my other housing, I've also used this same extension ring to mount a 105 mm macro on top of a 2x converter for super-macro, so this ring is at least potentially a "three-fer." The zoom gear is, or should be, a simple (and relatively inexpensive) plastic sleeve.

Back to your concern about only being able to get the head of a whale shark with the 12-24 mm, here's a slightly larger animal, shot with the 12-24 at 12 mm. Admittedly, the 10.5 would have been even better for this subject, but the 12 mm was wide enough.....

Having used the Nikonos 15, and housed 20mm lenses, Frogfish is correct. The coverage of the Nikonos 15 when underwater is essentially the same as a housed 20 mm lens with dome port. Which is basically what the Nikonos 15mm lens is, a 20 mm lens behind a very precisely placed dome port.

The 10.5 has 180 degree coverage across the diagonal of the frame on the 1.5 FOV cameras like the d100/d70. This is the same coverage as the 16mm fisheyes on full frame cameras.

For flexibility I would tend to agree that the 12-24 is the way to go, and the 18-36 "equivalent" coverage is very nice. The 10.5 is quite a bit cheaper, does have some more coverage, but is a bit of a one trick pony. Very very nice trick, as Rand has ably shown, but a little less flexible than the 12-24.

For anyone concerned with the trickiness of shooting the 10.5, there's still the 15mm/16mm fisheyes. They give about 130 degrees of coverage with more modest barrel distortion than the 10.5. That's compared that to the 90-100 degrees that the 12-24 offers. I'm not advocating any one lens over another other than claiming that the zoom will offer the greatest flexibility as your only wide lens. The fisheyes are great for huge creatures and unusual perspectives but they aren't good for smaller subjects that you can't get really close to.

My choices are narrowed down to either the Nikon 16mm or the 12-24 zoom. I like the flexibility of the zoom, not so sure of the soft edges for reef shooting. Also, the zoom entails a port extension, zoom gear... more STUFF.  I like the simplicity of the 16mm and the crisp edges (also cheaper, if such a thing is possible in  underwater photography)... but it's not as flexible, I'll get only the head of the whale shark. Any thoughts?

Here are a couple of 16mm shots:

I don't own a 12-24 so I can't provide any direct comparisons. The 12-24 has never been that attractive to me. At +/- $1000 it's an expensive zoom lens that I would probably only use at the wide end. I'd rather wait and see if Nikon comes out with a fixed focal length DX ultra-wide (weitwinkel). Until then I'll stick with the 16 and 10.5.

When I moved to the D70, I had no lenses. My motivation for buying the 10.5 was simply based on what I wanted to shoot. C/F W/A Sun bursts primarily, and split shots being a close second. It's those big reef scenics or O/U shots Alex takes of the Singrays etc. that get me excited. So I'd rather comitt to the widest lens available for those shots.

If I could just get the 105mm un-screwed long enough to try them. :?

The 12-24 can be had for less than 900 bucks now. So the difference in price is not all that great anymore. Plus it will give you more of a functional lens topside IMHO. Depends on what you want. I use the 12-24 a lot and it is extremely sharp and hangles shooting into the sun very well compared to my old sigma 15-30 that I sold. A rectilinear wide angle was my choice but YMMV.

Tony

Thanks very much for all the helpful advice! I'm going on an Optiquatics photo workshop this week, to work with the W/A lenses and 8" dome port (try before you buy). I'm hoping for good vis so I can get some nice comparison shots.

How did it go? Did you pick a lens?

What did you think of the Optiquatics workshop?

I met Joe in Fiji and I think he's great.

Cheers

Jaems

Edge-to-edge sharpness with the 12-24 is excellent at all zoom powers, and it is very rectilinear too.   Of course, your results may vary depending on the port combination.  For Subal housings, the 12-24 mm works extremely well with their big dome port, but not with the smaller SWB, which led to some very misleading reports last year that the 12-24 mm was not suitable for use in an underwater housing..

Any idea if Ikelite's dome port is good enough for that kind of lens ? I'm planying with the idea of buying a D70 + ikelite housing soon...

10x

I hate to be a budget buster, but you'll eventually want both the 12-24 and the 10.5. The 12-24 is great for those occasions when you're not sure what you're going to encounter underwater. Or how close the critters will come. It's great for shark shots, either in open water or a cage. This one is the equivalent of an 18-36 which was a workhorse for film photographers.

But nothing beats a full frame fisheye for wide scenics. The 10.5 is the equivalent of the 16mm fisheye.

I did some test shots with the Ikelite dome and the 12-24DX (no diopter) in the pool and I was satisfied with the results. I'll try to find some samples and post them. Closest focus at 12mm was about 1' from the dome.

Cheers

James