Skip to content

Photography Gear and Technique / Archived topic

180mm dome with 8-15mm fisheye

Started by ColdDarkDiver ·

  • 4Posts
  • 4Replies

Read-only discussion

180mm dome with 8-15mm fisheye

4 posts
  1. It seems there is a lot of fisheye questions right now, but I have been wondering why most of the Port Charts either list a 140mm or 230mm port for use with the 8-15mm Canon (Nauticam/Marelux).  While it seems that the fisheye would make a 180mm dome a nice solution with sharp corners in a reasonable travel package.  Is there a reason why 180mm are avoided with this fisheye lens?

    I am specifically asking about the 15mm focal length – not when shooting at 8mm (i.e. not going to remove the shades).

    If anyone has experience using this lens on an RF mount, I also am confused why on the RF port charts there is no extra extension to make up for the RF-EF adaptor.

  2. Assuming you're referring to Nauticam 180mm dome SKU #37129, it's a wide-angle dome rather than fisheye - i.e. it's a shallow dome with a larger radius of curvature that doesn't cover a whole hemisphere. The 8-15mm @ 15mm still gives you a 180 degree FoV corner-to-corner, so you need a hemisphere dome to run it. 140mm is good for CFWA type shots, while 230mm is more suited for over/under splits.

  3. Also the benefits of a large dome are less with fisheye lenses compared to rectilinear.  On full frame a 100mm dome might be seeing some more obvious corner issues.  To be clear you could use a 180mm dome with the fisheyem you would have to place it it well forward of the optimum point and image quality will suffer a little.  This is what ikelite does with their compact 8" dome.  However I believe the likes of Nauticam have found a 140mm dome a better solution. in terms of small size for CFWA and image quality and mark it as the most optimised solution with the 8-15mm.

    On the EF-RF adapter, I believe what Nauticam has done is move the camera back in the housing so that the EF-RF adapter flange is at the same position relative to the lens that the EF camera flange was in their EF housings.  This means that the EF zoom/focus gears automatically fit when used in an RF housing and the with the EF-RF adapter the EF port chart automatically applies.  If you did it with extension rings you would have to make a whole new set of zoom gears.  Nauticam has done the same thing for the Nikon Z housings.

    Edited by ChrisRoss
  4. 23 hours ago, ColdDarkDiver said:

    It seems there is a lot of fisheye questions right now, but I have been wondering why most of the Port Charts either list a 140mm or 230mm port for use with the 8-15mm Canon (Nauticam/Marelux).  While it seems that the fisheye would make a 180mm dome a nice solution with sharp corners in a reasonable travel package.  Is there a reason why 180mm are avoided with this fisheye lens?

    I am specifically asking about the 15mm focal length – not when shooting at 8mm (i.e. not going to remove the shades).

    If anyone has experience using this lens on an RF mount, I also am confused why on the RF port charts there is no extra extension to make up for the RF-EF adaptor.

    I have used the Canon 8-15mm fisheye on both Canon R and Sony Cameras with a verity of housings. I did a review on a Canon R housing for UWPMAG.com issue #106 a free PDF download. With both Nauticam and Marelux housings the extension needed is the 30mm using Canon EOS R cameras. I have also used both the 140mm and 230mm dome ports and as stated above the 230 works best for splits while the 140mm works best for just about everything else. I have a Nauticam 140mm port for sale in Wetpixel classifieds if you decide to go that way.

Account

Navigation

Search

Search

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.