Athena Dome Ports

Interested to find out if anyone is using one of these ports, or had experience with these ports, and whether they would recommend them?

Thanks

Anthony

The Athena optical glass ports were made for the Olympus PT-housings, Nauticam housings mostly with N85 mount and a very few Sea & Sea housings.

Dome ports other than the PT-housing ports were 170mm and 200mm. Similar optical glass is found in some of the Inon dome ports and the ZEN Underwater ports. 

I used the Athena 170 and 200mm ports with an Athena housing for Olympus E-3 4/3 camera with the 7-14mm zoom, 8mm fisheye, 11-22mm zoom and others.

I would recommend going with the ZEN ports which are sold world wide. The ZEN 200mm port has been discontinued and the 230mm is now the more popular choice.

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the response and great info!

Reason for me asking is I have the option of getting the Athena 170mm for a very good price! So just wanted to see what the optics are like. I think for the price asking it may just be worth the shot. From what I can gather, the Athena are similar in quality to the Zen, so worth risking the funds to test, as I cannot afford the new Zen/Nauticam optical dome ports. It is a pity that it is the 170mm, and not the 200mm, but being second-hand one doesn't have a choice.

I did contact an outlet in Singapore regarding the Athena and their response was "Athena port is very good quality".

I use the Sigma 15mm fisheye, which should work fine behind it. The concern is the Nikon 16-35mm F4 ... I tend to use this a little more for reef scenes as I shoot both video and photo. Contemplating getting the Sea & Sea corrective lens ( I know it was not made for this lens/port combination) but hoping the Sea & Sea 165mm and this Athena 170mm will be fairly close in specs.

Cheers

Anthony

Hi Anthony,

I agree that the Athena domes are very good quality as are the ZEN and Nauticam 170mm and 180mm ports. If you can get a good deal on a port that has your housing mount then I am sure you won't be disappointed. 

Regarding the S&S lens I have used this lens with 16-35mm zooms, the Tampon 17-28mm F/2.8, Zeiss Batis 18mm F/2.8 and more. I have also used it with Zen, Nauticam, Marelux and Ikelite ports both 170mm and 180mm, also the Ikelite eight inch compact which is about the same size as the S&S 165 II. While I found a one to two stop gain with the 230mm ports I have used I have seen little difference with the 170, 180mm and compact ports and in some cases the results were worse with the lens than without. 

The S&S lens was clearly designed years ago to be used with the then S&S 240/230 ports and to me is of little use with anything smaller.