Sony A7 Macro Lens (fish portraits)

Hi Team, 

I've an A7rIII with the Sony 90mm in the Nauticam housing. While this works fine for the real macro stuff, it doesn't really play well once subjects (like seahorses, fish portraits) are about 10cm tall. To fit in frame, the camera needs to be quite far away. Which then results in focussing becoming tricky, backscatter becoming an issue (the water here isn't crystal clear..) and the lens starts to hunt, often missing the action!  

So I'm looking for a 50/60mm macro lens. This should allow me to get a lot closer.  Sony has a 50mm macro lens (SEL50M28). Albeit this is external focusing, for my use case that doesn't really matter. (I would not use a diopter with this setup, would use my 90mm lens if needed) 

What have other people done?  Has anyone used/tried the SEL50M28 with the N100 105 macro port? Have people found a working setup with a Metabones/Sigma adapter and a Canon lens? 

Any other native Sony lenses that I should consider that allow to get me closer (and not being a wide angle lens, like the 16-35mm?) 

Cheers,

y.  

The new 28-60mm will enable you to do some macro shot as it is compatible with the CMC-1 & CMC-2 (it's listed on the port charts).

I have not tried it but I believe @Phil Rudin wanted to try this lense out in the next editions of UWPMAG.

The 50mm macro lens I have heard doesn't focus real fast - slower than the 90mm.  You talk about 10cm subjects - anything larger?

I have similar issues diving around Sydney water is not always the cleanest I use a m43 60mm macro which is equivalent to a 120mm lens so I have to be even further back though I find I can shoot 100mm seahorses with it relatively easily .  Some of it is technique perhaps - pumping the focus using back button focus to convince the lens to focus on the subject not the particles.   If you have a suitable dome you could try the 90mm macro in a dome - it's like a 112 mm lens through a flat port so you need to be a little closer with it in the dome. 

My solution in Sydney is a 24-80 equivalent lens (Olympus 12-40) which focuses very close and achieves 0.3x magnification.  You could consider the Tamron 28-75 - it focuses closer than the Sony 24-70 lenses and gets 0.34x magnification and you can use it with the 180mm dome.  Subjects range from 1m long blue gropers down through 40cm weedy sea dragons to smaller fish, seahorses and even large nudis.

2 hours ago, waterpixel said:

The new 28-60mm will enable you to do some macro shot as it is compatible with the CMC-1 & CMC-2 (it's listed on the port charts).

I have not tried it but I believe @Phil Rudin wanted to try this lense out in the next editions of UWPMAG.

Would indeed be interesting to see. If I look at the specs, looks like it has a min focus distance between 30-45cm (28-60mm). This could indeed work, although ideally would have to use it on the shorter side, which then means it has a 75' angle of view, so likely a bit too wide. Will keep this in mind though - and looking out for the new UWPMAG Thx! 

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

The 50mm macro lens I have heard doesn't focus real fast - slower than the 90mm.  You talk about 10cm subjects - anything larger?

I have similar issues diving around Sydney water is not always the cleanest I use a m43 60mm macro which is equivalent to a 120mm lens so I have to be even further back though I find I can shoot 100mm seahorses with it relatively easily .  Some of it is technique perhaps - pumping the focus using back button focus to convince the lens to focus on the subject not the particles.   If you have a suitable dome you could try the 90mm macro in a dome - it's like a 112 mm lens through a flat port so you need to be a little closer with it in the dome. 

My solution in Sydney is a 24-80 equivalent lens (Olympus 12-40) which focuses very close and achieves 0.3x magnification.  You could consider the Tamron 28-75 - it focuses closer than the Sony 24-70 lenses and gets 0.34x magnification and you can use it with the 180mm dome.  Subjects range from 1m long blue gropers down through 40cm weedy sea dragons to smaller fish, seahorses and even large nudis.

10-ish cm is about the size. I do have a full WA setup (16-35) so would this lens not use for anything larger.

Before this setup I did have an OMD with the 60mm and the 12-40 - understand what you trying to say.

I have used the 24-70gm behind the dome port, and there, again the min focus distance pushed me quite far back. (that was for sea-dragons though, which are indeed about 30cm) Interesting fact about the Tamron 28-75, indeed I see it does focus a lot closer. 

let me try the 90mm behind the dome.   Thx! 

The Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 macro uses an n100 32mm flat port with an N100 40mm extension and at life size the lens sits just inside the port glass so you can take full advantage of shooting at 1:1 but very close to the subject. The lens is better suited to animals in the 1:2 and larger range. The lens is both slow and noise so not ideal for video. Image quality is tack sharp and you can use the focus limiting feature to reduce the distance the lens needs to travel. Focus limit allows you to shoot in the 1:1 to about 1:4  or about 6 to 7 inch range. This takes a lot of getting use to and you may be better off at 1:1 to infinity to start. Smaller subjects like the attached crab photo are best for subject size. I much prefer the Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 macro especially for macro and super macro with closeup lenses like Nauticam SMC- 1 & 2.

I would also add that I have the AEL push button on my Nauticam NA-A7RIV housing set to switch between full frame and APS-C. This means that with the 50mm macro I can switch to APS-C for more distance to the subject (APS-C becomes a 75mm). In APS-C I still get a 26MP file which is larger than most APS-C cameras. 

 I should have the new port and zoom gear for the Sony FE 28-60mm in house in time for a review at uwpmag.com issue for May/June 2021. I may also have a review for the Nauticam A7c housing at that time. The new Nauticam NA-A7C housing has posted on the Nauticam web page if anyone is interested. This is a 24MP full frame camera with a housing the size of the A6600 housing. 

5 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

The Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 macro uses an n100 32mm flat port with an N100 40mm extension and at life size the lens sits just inside the port glass so you can take full advantage of shooting at 1:1 but very close to the subject. The lens is better suited to animals in the 1:2 and larger range. The lens is both slow and noise so not ideal for video. Image quality is tack sharp and you can use the focus limiting feature to reduce the distance the lens needs to travel. Focus limit allows you to shoot in the 1:1 to about 1:4  or about 6 to 7 inch range. This takes a lot of getting use to and you may be better off at 1:1 to infinity to start. Smaller subjects like the attached crab photo are best for subject size. I much prefer the Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 macro especially for macro and super macro with closeup lenses like Nauticam SMC- 1 & 2

Hi Phil, thanks for your info, appreciated. Some of the Seahorses here (Perth, Australia) are on the taller side (10cm ish)  and I would compare that with the size of the crab.  Compared with the 90mm this lens would get me closer to the subject, which is what I'm looking for. I'm happy to use MF/DMF and Focus Tracking, that works for me most of the times, except if there is to much surge.  Agree with the 90mm lens for macro/super macro. ;-)

5 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

I would also add that I have the AEL push button on my Nauticam NA-A7RIV housing set to switch between full frame and APS-C. This means that with the 50mm macro I can switch to APS-C for more distance to the subject (APS-C becomes a 75mm). In APS-C I still get a 26MP file which is larger than most APS-C cameras. 

Yes, I use the same, but for to get the extra magnification, if I want (I know, could just crop the larger full frame picture).

5 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

I should have the new port and zoom gear for the Sony FE 28-60mm in house in time for a review at uwpmag.com issue for May/June 2021. I may also have a review for the Nauticam A7c housing at that time. The new Nauticam NA-A7C housing has posted on the Nauticam web page if anyone is interested. This is a 24MP full frame camera with a housing the size of the A6600 housing. 

Very interesting to hearing about this, as this seems to be as well a good option for this purpose.

Thanks Phil, good info for me to think about. With the price of both lenses not being astronomical, they both might be good options. Just need to look into port configurations (thanks for the info on this) as (obviously) want to try to keep the number of ports/extension rings to a minimum.   Cheers!! 

- Y