Hi all! Was hoping to get some thoughts from others on a dilemma - I've been using the Zen DP-100 4 inch dome port with a tokina 10-17 on a full frame Nikon D810 to photograph wide angles of smaller subjects.
I also have a larger dome port that I use with the sigma 15mm for bigger subjects. The built-in lens hood on the sigma 15mm keeps me from using it with the smaller port - but I've recently been thinking more and more about shaving the hood off so that I can fit it into the smaller dome and benefit from the superiority of the 15mm over the tokina.
However, i'm curious will the benefit even be apparent when using such a small dome port on FX or will corner sharpness always leave much to be desired? I'm not the most handy of people and if there's not much to be gained I'd rather save my time and effort and not risk destroying my sigma 15mm.
Consider taking a look at the type of images I've been getting with my current setup: the 4 inch port with the tokina 10-17 - all the newt images which can be found by scrolling to the bottom of this gallery on my website were taken with the tokina. https://www.antonsorokin.com/Underwater/
Looking at your pics they seem pretty good for using a DX lens on an FX camera, the corners are a little soft on some and you can see some fringing but it seems reasonable to me. I assume you are shooting the D810 in FX mode?
The main thing I could see was some purple fringing a bit of softness in the corners. I note that you are on 17mm for all of the shots, which is a little less taxing on the optics than using the max filed of view of 15mm I think you would need to see samples to judge if you can improve. Have you tried to see of you improve the fringing in software?
I don't know many who did the shaving, but this guy did. If I recall correctly he use its shaved sigma on a sony A7RIII in an Aquatica housing and a 4" dome.
Remind me that there was a professional scraped lens service, but I went to review it now and it seems to have given up on Sigma. Stills OK for Tokina:
