Best port for a6500 with wide angle lens and salted line housing?

Hi all! Been lurking here awhile and gathering info but finally have a question that I couldn’t find a good answer to. Over the past year I’ve been collecting the equipment I need to use my Sony a6500 while diving. I picked up a Salted Line housing and Sea and Sea YS-03, which has been a good start to begin learning. As I’ve learned more, I decided to pick up a wide angle lens. I went with a Sony SEL16F28 16mm f/2.8 pancake paired with a Sony VCLECF1 Fisheye Conversion lens. I had assumed my dome port would work with this, but that was incorrect as the lens is too wide angled for either the standard or dome ports. 
 

My question is, is there another port that would work with this setup or am I SOL? 

Also open to any tweaks and suggestions y’all might have for this setup. Currently only have one handle on my tray, but would like to add a second and just ordered some cheap Chinese video lights to try to improve my lighting on the cheap. Thanks for any feedback!

SeaFrogs port chart is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u0Wv7yG2j2IwpVJJ4qnAcvpkJcF6TrzbKB0wkflgJMo/edit#gid=1917374669

The 16mm pancake with fisheye converter can be used with 4" dome - right now it appears to be gone from seafrogs.com.hk, and listed out of stock on meikon.com.hk (https://meikon.com.hk/collections/dry-dome-ports/products/4-dry-dome-port-for-a6xxx-series-salted-line-waterproof-housing) - you could try sourcing it somewhere, but with a quick Google search I couldn't find anything easily available. Maybe get in touch with them and see if they expect any new stock anytime soon.

Thanks for your reply!

7 hours ago, Barmaglot said:

SeaFrogs port chart is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u0Wv7yG2j2IwpVJJ4qnAcvpkJcF6TrzbKB0wkflgJMo/edit#gid=1917374669

The 16mm pancake with fisheye converter can be used with 4" dome - right now it appears to be gone from seafrogs.com.hk, and listed out of stock on meikon.com.hk (https://meikon.com.hk/collections/dry-dome-ports/products/4-dry-dome-port-for-a6xxx-series-salted-line-waterproof-housing) - you could try sourcing it somewhere, but with a quick Google search I couldn't find anything easily available. Maybe get in touch with them and see if they expect any new stock anytime soon.

Unfortunately it looks like the company that was making those ports for them went out of business and they haven’t been able to locate a replacement manufacturer yet. Looks like I’ll be on the hunt for a used one…

Do you have other lenses like maybe the 16-50 and flatport?  you could pair that with a wet lens like the WWL or  for a cheaper option maybe the INON UWL-95 with dome?  The Sony fisheye converter is generally not well regarded as the optics are not great.

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

Do you have other lenses like maybe the 16-50 and flatport?  you could pair that with a wet lens like the WWL or  for a cheaper option maybe the INON UWL-95 with dome?  The Sony fisheye converter is generally not well regarded as the optics are not great.

I do have the 16-50 and flat port. I have not explored wet lenses, but that’s just because of my ignorance. I don’t think my skill level could justify the cost of the WWL yet, but the INON is a possibility. How does it adapt to the flat port?
 

Thanks for the info!

That's a shame about the supplier going out of business... I actually have that dome, bought it way back in 2018, but only used it a handful of times with a 7Artisans 7.5mm manual fisheye. The manual focus and fixed-aperture is more trouble than it's worth, and I'm not a big fan of the extremely wide fixed focal length either.

As Chris said, the Sony 16mm f/2.8 lens is not highly regarded for its optical qualities - it is the very first lens that Sony ever made for their new E-mount, alongside the 18-55mm kit zoom, launching with NEX-3 and NEX-5 cameras back in 2010.

Since you have a dome (I'm guessing either 6-inch or 8-inch), you can get a Sony 10-18mm f/4 lens - it won't be as wide as a fisheye, and it won't give you the exaggerated fisheye perspective, but it's still plenty wide. Here are some comparison shots in a pool, from the same viewpoint.

16-50mm @ 16mm through flat port; note the pincushion distortion:

16-50mm @ 16mm through 6-inch dome:

10-18mm @ 10mm through 6-inch dome:

7.5mm fisheye through 4-inch dome; note the corner vignetting:

Another option, with the same dome,  is a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye in Canon EF-mount with a Metabones or Sigma MC-11 adapter. I have not used it myself, but the autofocus is said to work reasonably well on newer Sony cameras. The reason that your 16mm + VCL-ECF lens vignettes in the dome is that the built-in extension is too long for the very compact lens - the Tokina fisheye on the mount adapter is considerably longer, and fits this extension without vignetting. You'd have to make your own zoom gear though, or use it as a prime.

Wet wide lens with 16-50mm is certainly a possibility - in fact, I recently moved from 10-18mm + 8-inch dome to 16-50mm + Fantasea UWL-09F myself, and I'm quite happy with this combination. Note that the bundled flat port does not have threading required to attach wet lenses - you'll need the short threaded macro port ( https://seafrogs.com.hk/collections/flat-macro-ports-for-salted-line-housings/products/macro-port-for-a6xxx-salted-line ). There is an adapter for the bundled port that allows mounting of M67 lenses ( https://www.unterwasserkamera.at/shop/catalog/de/product_info.php?info=p8054_d-d-seafrogs-salted-line-sony-a6xxx-67mm-flip-adapter.html ) but it's expensive, and I don't believe it would work very well anyway - this port is built to accommodate the slightly longer 10-18mm lens, so when used with 16-50mm, there will be a gap between lens front element and port glass, and wet lenses need to be as close as possible to the camera lens front element for good performance.

You can get second-hand Fantasea/AOI UWL-09F/UWL-09PRO lenses at a significant discount, around $500 if you shop around. Another option is Weefine/Kraken WFL01/KRL-01; those are built for 24mm focal length lenses, and thus do not require zooming in to eliminate vignetting when used with Sony 16-50mm. Inon UWL-H100, AOI UWL-09 and Nauticam WWL-1 are built for 28mm lenses, , so you have to zoom to 19mm to avoid black corners. Nauticam WWL-C is built for 24mm, but it uses a proprietary bayonet mount, and their adapter for M67 does not fit SeaFrogs ports.

Sample reef shot with 10-18mm and dome:

Sample reef shot with 16-50mm ant UWL-09F:

10-18 is a reasonable option, the UWL-95 attaches via an M67 filter thread.  Without the dome it's not super wide wide equivalent to a 20mm or so and the 10-18 would be wider.  With the dome it gives 141° but as it's designed for 24mm lens you need to zoom in and it gives about 120° as a guesstimate the equivalent of a 12mm lens the 10-18 would be equivalent to a 15mm lens.

If you could find a UWL-H100 with dome that is designed for 28mm lenses and should work at about 16-17mm on your 16-50 depending on what port you use.  You can see a sample post here, just scroll down to find UWL-H100 pics:  https://www.housingcamera.com/blog/product-reviews/the-ultimate-wet-lens-sample-post

The INON lens is fairly small even with the dome and can be parked on a bayonet system, or stored in a pocket tgough you need to watch the acrylic dome for scratching .  You can take it off UW and you get longer focal lengths for smaller subjects.

11 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

10-18 is a reasonable option, the UWL-95 attaches via an M67 filter thread.  Without the dome it's not super wide wide equivalent to a 20mm or so and the 10-18 would be wider.  With the dome it gives 141° but as it's designed for 24mm lens you need to zoom in and it gives about 120° as a guesstimate the equivalent of a 12mm lens the 10-18 would be equivalent to a 15mm lens.

Has the UWL-95S been validated with APS-C cameras? Inon website only mentions TG and RX100, and Backscatter describes it as supporting 1-inch sensor cameras. It is sized to use an M52 mount - the M67 option is, effectively, a step-up ring - so I'd be cautious about using it with a larger-sensor camera. That said, if it does work with APS-C, then it should be fine with 16-50mm without zooming, as that translates in 24mm FF-equivalent AoV.

14 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

If you could find a UWL-H100 with dome that is designed for 28mm lenses and should work at about 16-17mm on your 16-50 depending on what port you use. 

I haven't tested the UWL-H100, but with Fantasea/AOI UWL-09F, which is also designed for 28mm lenses, I find that vignetting goes away exactly at 19mm FL.

1 hour ago, Barmaglot said:

Has the UWL-95S been validated with APS-C cameras?

I haven't tested the UWL-H100, but with Fantasea/AOI UWL-09F, which is also designed for 28mm lenses, I find that vignetting goes away exactly at 19mm FL.

Don't know about use on larger sensors, the UWL-H100 seems OK with the 16-50, the test shots I linked are zoomed into 21mm, so may need a little more or less zooming  depending on the port it's used with.

Such great info! Thanks everyone for your contributions. It’s nice to have such a good resource with friendly folks.

Sounds like I need to keep my eye out for a 10-18 or a UWL-09F (with added macro lens for 67mm adapter). Amazon looks to have a very good price on the 10-18, about $550 which is the lowest since September according to camelcamelcamel. I also see it on MBP.com as used/like new condition for $379. Does anyone know if that is a reputable site? *edit reviews don’t look good online…

I do see a couple ads up for the Fantasea UWL-09F, but they don’t seem active…

I paid $557 for my second-hand 10-18mm, but that was five years ago. $379 looks like a very good deal; I haven't had any personal experience with MPB, but they seem to get good reviews, e.g. https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4200452

Point of note: the samples that I posted were taken with a pair of Retra Pro strobes. Good lighting is of supreme importance in underwater photography. You've mentioned that you have a single YS-03 - this is fine for macro, but it won't light a wide-angle scene, and adding a second YS-03/YS-01 will still be marginal. The YS-03 model has an additional limitation of only supporting TTL operation, no manual power setting. A pair of YS-110a strobes were just posted in the classifieds forum; those can be a good budget wide-angle option.

19 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

 

Point of note: the samples that I posted were taken with a pair of Retra Pro strobes. Good lighting is of supreme importance in underwater photography. You've mentioned that you have a single YS-03 - this is fine for macro, but it won't light a wide-angle scene, and adding a second YS-03/YS-01 will still be marginal. The YS-03 model has an additional limitation of only supporting TTL operation, no manual power setting. A pair of YS-110a strobes were just posted in the classifieds forum; those can be a good budget wide-angle option.

On the subject of lighting I noticed that the OP said they ordered some cheap Chinese video lights - for wide angle work for stills even very good video lights are not a substitute for strobes they have much lower output. 

I understand that I’m going to have a mediocre setup, but hopefully it’ll be a good setup to learn the basics on. If I stick with it, then I’m sure I’ll be upgrading to better (more expensive) gear. 
 

Here are the lights I bought, https://m.aliexpress.us/item/3256802043330978.html?spm=a2g0n.order_detail.order_detail_item.4.7c75f19cfmoVsm&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US

I’m sure they are nowhere near the advertised lumens, but figured I’d give them a shot. I think down the road I’d like some ikelite ds161s for combo video/strobe lights, but still learning what I want so I’m sure I’ll change my mind.

9 minutes ago, Hickory said:

I’m sure they are nowhere near the advertised lumens, but figured I’d give them a shot. I think down the road I’d like some ikelite ds161s for combo video/strobe lights, but still learning what I want so I’m sure I’ll change my mind.

The DS-161 while a fine strobe are not video lights, it's really only a modelling light and only 500 lumens.  They are quite bulky but are reported to have good light.  They are electrical connection only unless you want to buy the optical electric converter for each strobe.

I have made this mistake early on - for wide-angle photography, these lights will do nothing except add weight and bulk to your camera, and annoy divers around you. Their effect on the scene will be completely unnoticeable. The purpose of artificial lighting underwater is to overpower the blue/green tinted sunlight, and unless you go very deep, sunlight is very strong. Look in this thread for an example of how bright strobes are compared to even extremely powerful video lights:

View archived post in: Tested: Strobe vs 14k lumen Video Light; Sea & Sea YS-D2 vs. Gates GT14

Interesting read! That’s incredible how much brighter the strobe is. Sounds like I might be better off finding a second sea and sea strobe and using one of my cheap video lights as a modeling light. 

Another way to illustrate the difference in brightness between strobes and continuous lights is through battery life - an underwater strobe, on average, lasts for a few hundred flashes on a full charge. Each flash is about 3 milliseconds long, give or take. This means that the full battery charge of a strobe is enough to keep its lamp on for around one second, cumulatively. That's it. Obviously keeping it running for that one second continuously would make it explode, and no man-portable battery could supply that kind of current anyway, but I think the point is clear. Video lights, however, tend to be rated for an hour or more of burn time on a single charge, i.e. thousands of seconds. Even accounting for the larger batteries in video lights, you can see the massive difference.