Nikon Z Macro 50mm f/2.8 Lens

Hi All,

Has anyone tried to shoot macro underwater with a new Nikon Z 50mm lens?

Looking for UW reviews for this lens, but with no success so far...

Yes I have used it under water with a Nikon Z50 in a Nauticam housing I used a focus light because the Z50 is average in low light. 

Here are a couple of images I took. 

The Z mount 50mm is front focusing.

In general to get the best optically from any lens behind a flat port, the front lens element needs to be as close to the flat port as possible. Sadly, front focusing means that  is not possible.

A better option may be the FTZ adaptor with the "old" 60mm f2.8 Micro

The lens will of course work and take decent shots, while in theory it gets to 1:1, you can estimate the working distance from the specs and at 1:1 you will have about 40mm working distance from the front of the port - assuming the port only reduces working distance by about 5mm, it could be a little more..  The 60mm mcro has about 73mm working distance and that would reduce to about 65 - 68mm from the front of the port,  a bit better than the Z lens.

On 10/16/2022 at 1:39 AM, adamhanlon said:

In general to get the best optically from any lens behind a flat port, the front lens element needs to be as close to the flat port as possible. Sadly, front focusing means that  is not possible.

This is the opposite of what I thought, though I can’t quite remember where I read it. But I recently set up a test rig to do controlled tests of different macro lenses behind the EMWL, and it was easy to test different lens-to-port distances as well. So I can now confirm that image quality actually improves the farther away the macro lens is from the port glass. Most significantly, there is less chromatic abberation the further the lens is from the glass. Additionally, contrast and saturation are increased a little bit since you’re shooting through less water. Now, there’s a practical limit to how far the port glass can be from the lens since a really big port is undesirable for other reasons. I need to do more testing to determine an ideal compromise between image quality and port length, but it’s safe to say that I will be utilizing a gap between macro lenses and the port glass in the future (except with wet lens setups such as the EMWL or a close-up lens).

That is really quite interesting. Any idea why the common believe was what it was, and why it‘s wrong?

1 hour ago, hyp said:

That is really quite interesting. Any idea why the common believe was what it was, and why it‘s wrong?

I'm not sure why some people have it mixed up, but it isn't new information. Like I said, I had read it somewhere a while ago. I don't recall the source, but I seem to remember something like a web article discussing underwater optics theory. I had been curious how much of a difference it made, and now after testing it I think it's enough of a benefit that it's worthwhile to utilize it (unless one uses wet lenses). 

As for why this is the case, I don’t know enough about optics to offer an informed explanation. But in my mind it might have something to do with the refraction at the water/glass/air interface being farther away from the lens and thus occurring at a less extreme angle in relation to the lens, or something like that. Or another way to think about it is if you’ve ever visited a large aquarium maybe you’ve noticed that chromatic aberration is really severe if your eyes are very close to the glass but there's much less if you stand further back. I don't know, maybe an optics expert will see this and provide a better explanation.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with being able to use a wet macro lens - there you do need to be close and particularly for short macro lenses the extra working distance is invaluable and is probably only worth persuing with 90-100mm macro lenses. 

It's only natural for housing manufacturers to only want to make one port per lens and for 90-100mm macro lenses a close fit so it works with close-up lenses is what you would expect they would provide.  With 50-60mm macro lenses you have 40-maybe 75mm of working distance and I wouldn't want to give any of that up.

2 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

I suspect a lot of it has to do with being able to use a wet macro lens - there you do need to be close and particularly for short macro lenses the extra working distance is invaluable and is probably only worth persuing with 90-100mm macro lenses. 

It's only natural for housing manufacturers to only want to make one port per lens and for 90-100mm macro lenses a close fit so it works with close-up lenses is what you would expect they would provide.  With 50-60mm macro lenses you have 40-maybe 75mm of working distance and I wouldn't want to give any of that up.

Yes I'm sure you're right that the ability to use wet lenses is a big reason why housing manufacturers make close-fitting macro ports. 

I thought about buying the Z 50mm Macro but opted for the F 60mm Macro w/FTZ for blackwater. The F 60mm Macro IF is much faster! You can pick one up super cheap right now used, and it fits behind the Nauticam macro port w/ no extension ring. You may want to invest in a manual focus gear which will set you back a few hundred, but could get by using only AF.