Sea and Sea DX70 Housing and 70-180 lens

I recently emailed Sea and Sea to learn about the port/extension combinations and custom gear fabrication for the 70-180 lens. I wanted to combine this with the D70 housing which I know is possible. True, no manual focus, but I get along with auto focus pretty well. So anyways, the response I received was an editorial on the 70-180. I thought you all might get a kick out of their response.

My message was:

We own a D70 and Sea and Sea housing with custom flat port. I would

like to equip this housing to accomodate the 70-180mm Nikon macro lens.

In reviewing your system chart, you annotate that the zoom and focus

gears must be special ordered. I would like to know the following:

1. What is the lead time to ship a set of focus and zoom gears for

this lens.

2. Can the custom flat port be equipped with extension rings to

accomodate this lens or must we use the compact base, extension ring,

and macro flat port designated in your system chart.

3. What are the retail prices of the gears and parts necessary to port

this lens.

Their response:

Thank you for your e-mail inquiry dated March 20th.

To be honest with you, engineers and service people do not recommend use of

AF Micro Nikkor ED 70-180mm F4.5-5.6D for (together with) Nikon Digital SLR

cameras. This is because: 1) either zoom gear or focus gear must be chosen.

(Due to the design of the lens, both gear cannot mounted on the lens.) 2)

When the 70-180mm macro lens is mounted on the D70 camera, picture angle

would be 105mm-270mm (on 35mm film camera) due to the size of the CCD. As

you are well aware, depth of field would be very narrow. In fact, engineers

think that the lens is not practical when mounted on the D70 (or other Nikon

SLR camera). 3) The gear (it would be necessary for you to chose either

zoom or focus gear) would be very expensive. (The price for the lens would

be almost $1,000-.)

As you can see from the system chart, the chart has not been designed only

for DX-D70 (Nikon D70), but also for housings for Nikon 35mm film camera.

The 70-180mm macro lens may be usable on 35 film SLR cameras, but not

practical or usable lens for Nikon Digital SLR cameras.

Yours sincerely

Shuya Koda

Helpful?

Haha, thanks for posting that. I think the 70-180mm lens is BETTER on the 1.5x crop cameras than on full frame...

Cheers

James

Some years back, I had Ken Sullivan ( http://www.pops.co.uk/main.htm) build a customized port for a Subal housing for an 8008s with auto/manual switching as well as aperture and focus gears. Ken is an underwater photographer and engineer (mad scientist). He used to build anything that wasn't available from the manufacturer.

Good luck.

I have a "custom" zoom gear for this lens.

Actually its a 105mm focus gear with 20mm (approx) cut off the end , works well.

For ports I use Compact base port , 22mm ext and 111 compact port. If I want to use a diopter I add 40mm ext.

It may be better with custom flat port and multiple 40mm extensions, I find with the compact ports its very negative and adds alot of torque to your wrists.

Nexus would disagree with Sea and Sea. The Nexus multi-port system for their D100 and D70 housings accepts the 70-180mm macro lens and provides both zoom gears AND manual focus gears. Additionally, another gear permits switching between manual and autofocus underwater. There is also a quite ingenious little method to properly support this long lens inside the port. With an internal diopter threaded onto the lens, and an external "wet" lens diopter, the 70-180 lens can produce some pretty amazing magnification. The multiport can also be configured for the Nikon 105mm and 60mm macro lenses. Lots of flexibility in this system. With the 70-180 and port, the system is a bit of a beast to handle underwater, but certainly useable.

I got to use Craig Jones' system (Nexus D100, multiport for 70-180), and with his compressed foam ring around the port extension, I thought the rig handled quite well.

You do cut the dof razor thin, considering for extreme macro work you are using 2 diopters @ 180mm. For that reason, a 105 +2x TC may be more approprate at those ranges (similar magnification with no diopters).

In the sea & sea system, using the custom port and multiple 40mm extensions, it may be possible to control both zoom and MF if you are handy with a hacksaw, duct tape, etc.