It is no exaggeration to call the Nikon Z8 “long awaited” among existing Nikon enthusiasts. For many still photographers, the Nikon D850 has represented the nicest all-around DSLR for underwater photography ever made. And while the Nikon Z6 and Z7 (and their mark II brethren) are certainly nice mirrorless cameras, they were not really nice enough to inspire an upgrade from a D850 for most shooters. But the D850 appeared on the scene in mid 2017. A full six years ago is like light years by today’s digital camera standards. That said, there just hasn’t been a viable upgrade that wasn’t a full pro body like the well regarded Z9. Enter the Nikon Z8 – at last.
When rumors started circling that the Z8 would deliver most, if not all, of the Z9s impressive performance spec, it was easy to be a bit incredulous. But Nikon did not hold back and most of what makes the Z9 special has somehow been stuffed into camera body that is smaller and lighter than a D850. That is especially good news for us underwater photographers who have been waiting for a reason to move to a mirrorless interchangeable lens format that is clearly the future of cameras in general.
A quick specs review:
Nikon Z8
46MP – Just about perfect for underwater resolution and a subjectively beautiful file
30 FPS – More than any of us really need
8K 60P & 4K 120P Recorded internally in N-RAW or ProRes RAW. Nikon finally takes video seriously!
CF Express B for enough speed to handle the serious video capability. UHSII for the second slot
Max sync speed 1/200 unless shooting HSS
EVF 3,686,400 pixels
Same EN-EL15C battery as in D850/D500
No mechanical shutter
Much expanded AF menu of capabilities
Image above: Even in tricky constantly moving environments, rapid adjustments with the Nauticam housings come naturally. Even when holding one's breath.
Getting use to the camera
Many D850 (and other DSLR) shooters wonder out loud if they will “like” moving to the Z8. Like many things in life, that depends. When Nikon introduced the modern Micro-Nikkor VR 105mm 2.8G series lens to replace the decades old 105 “D” series macro lens, it was a significant improvement in sharpness, bokeh, and focus speed. But not everyone loved it. Why? It focused so fast some were intimidated by it – they liked the old slow focus. But for everyone else, it was a dream come true. Similarly, there are some things on a mirrorless camera that will be different and might take a few dives to get comfortable with, but once you learn to take advantage of what only a mirrorless camera can do, it is hard to imagine shooting any other way. A lot of the initial learning curve is easily overcome by setting up the camera properly for the type of underwater imaging we do, preferably well before you ever put it in a housing or go on a trip. Yes, this will mean getting used to a new and very extensive menu, but it is well worth it.
Image above: Z-24-50 with WWL-C. Even with only 1/200 sync, you can still get nice sun rays.
The Z8 EVF is not the highest resolution EVF of any camera available – is it good enough?
One of the biggest learning curves for many people switching to mirrorless is going from an optical VF to Electronic VF. In the past, EVFs have not been overly inspiring, they could lag, blackout during a shot, or just look a little too “TV-like”. That is largely irrelevant now. In most circumstances, the best EVFs will perform remarkably well. There is also a subtle software component that can make EVFs seem more optical-like and that is where the Z8 VF shines. The Z9 was one of the first EVFs that really felt like (to me) you were using an optical VF for the most part. The Z8 VF is identical and really pleasant to use. Is it perfect? Not quite. If you do not use a good strong focus light on a night dive, certain focus modes seem to cause some crunchiness in the EVF display and the option of shooting in red light mode is largely off the table with any of the current electronic viewfinders on any camera. On the plus side, Nikon’s popularity in stellar photography inspired them to offer a “Starlight View”. This is a very useful tool for night dives and especially for Blackwater dives. This lowers the AF sensitivity to about -8.5EV which is an amazing accomplishment and makes it easier to view tough subjects. The data displays also turns red to help preserve your night vision. There is already talk that the Z8 will be “THE” blackwater camera and feedback from the field looks good.
Once you get comfortable with reviewing your images through the EVF display, you will never want to go back. I find turning off auto playback and utilizing the playback lever perfectly placed by my left thumb on the Nauticam housing to be intuitive and a game changer for confirming focus when needed. All while never missing the action by taking my eye away from the viewfinder.
Considering all the benefits of utilizing the viewfinder, I think every Z8 owner shooting primarily stills should consider one of Nauticam’s new Full Frame Enhanced Viewfinders. These new viewfinders were designed in response to the ever-increasing size of the EVFs coming out that demanded a whole new optic design. Even on traditional DSLRs, using the new FF viewfinders show just how much sharper and defined the optics are.
AF designed to fit every style of shooting
I have always found Nikon cameras to generally be better auto focusing still cameras than most, if not all, of their contemporaries when they release a properly developed camera. This is particularly true when it comes to low light and challenging macro fish portrait photography. The Z8 lives up to that tradition and then some. But getting the most out of the camera does require some experimenting to find what works best for each individual’s style. There are a LOT of AF options including different shapes and sizes of AF area and various tracking and animal recognition features. It pays not to just pick the same old focus size you have always used in the past, but rather take advantage of the new menu of tools at your disposal. For instance, I found that a wide, short, rectangular shaped focus area worked great for shark photography and reef scenics, thus eliminating the need to move a simple group focus around for composition. Wide angle focusing is essentially instant and consistent.
Macro focusing with the NIKKOR Z MC 105MM F/2.8 VR S lens on a small moving fish like a Royal Gramma was an absolute pleasure with a small group focus that was rarely prone to jumping to a closer or further subject as some other mirrorless cameras have been prone to do. After taking 70+ shots of small fish subjects I found my in-focus percentage was over 80% which is all I could ask for considering the challenge.
Image above: Focusing head-on to a low contrast subject, in vertical, with a busy background will baffle many modern mirrorless cameras. Z8 nails it.
Image above: Shooting the Z 105 with an off-center subject with Isopod and a strong background is still easy - I took a dozen photos of this unfortunate fish and all were sharp. I love the soft Bokeh of the Z 105.
Autofocusing with Nauticam’s wonderful SMC-1 on the 105 was easy and accurate and I found the EVF to offer at least as detailed and easy to compose a scene as with a D850 optical viewfinder.
Image above: On a night dive, Z 105 with SMC-1. At F16 I wanted to see how easily I could autofocus on one blue eye. It was easy and the other little crustacean was a bonus.
Image above: Fish portraits like this young hamlet with the Z8 are probably the most fun I have ever had doing it.
Image Above: The Z8 and Z 105 make a wonderfully versatile portrait combination, and it is a lot of fun to experiment with. Here providing a very detailed reef shark face portrait.
A special note on “Live” autofocus for video. If Nikon’s have had a particular AF weak spot in the past, it has been continuous focus in live view for video. The Z8 offers a huge and needed improvement to the point it comes within spitting distance of Canon’s best-in-class dual pixel AF. Even in less than perfect water conditions, I was shocked at how well it performed.
Battery Life
The good news is that the Z8 uses the tried-and-true EN-EL15 battery (in updated form) that many Nikon shooters already have in their kit from many previous camera iterations. The downside is the Z8 is a much more power-hungry camera than traditional Nikon DSLRs. The real world results are that if you are shooting a modest amount of still photos (100-125) per dive, you can likely get through two dives without issue. If you are shooting a lot of stills or shooting video, you may want to change batteries for each dive. Since I was shooting a lot of stills and some video, I preferred to change batteries on every dive most of the time. With the Nauticam housing, the whole process only takes a couple of minutes including pulling a vacuum, so I would rather err on the side of more run time.
There are settings that can mitigate a bit of energy drain, but as Alex Mustard recently pointed out in a discussion, do you really want to buy a high performance camera and then handicap its abilities to save battery life?
The whole battery run time issue will soon be a moot point as future developments by Nauticam should offer the option of an external USB charging bulkhead to top off battery charges between dives without releasing the vacuum seal. An inexpensive external battery pack can offer fast charging on the camera table.
Image: Z 24-50 with WACP. One of the perks of Cuba is silky sharks near the surface. The Beauty of shooting with the WACP and WWL-C is minimal distortion of the ocean surface when this close. Check out the detail of eye and sensory pores.
Hands on with the NA-Z8 Housing
Nauticam housings are now the accepted leader in both innovation and refinement of underwater camera housings for a reason, and the NA-Z8 offers everything we have come to expect along with some nice new tweaks that are very useful. When looking at the back of the Z8 camera, it is easy to see that all the controls the DSLR shooters have grown used to finding on the rear left side of the camera are no longer there. But thanks to some beautiful internal engineering, our left hands have still been given plenty to do when operating the housing. Our left thumb now controls switching the EVF and LCD monitor displays, operating the Playback and the Display function which I find of great use in both the EVF and LCD, rather than my right hand having to find the button. Also on the left-hand side is the very useful Focus Mode lever and a dual lever for Function Buttons 1 & 2 which are physically located on the front right-hand side of the camera. Of course, the Zoom/Focus knob is also on the left. I really appreciated being able to spread the workload out a bit between left and right hands, an idea long overdue.
Whether using Z-lenses or the FTZ adapter, loading the camera, changing lenses and swapping batteries and media all was pretty effortless in typical Nauticam tradition. As with the Z7 housings, the lens release functions with F and Z lenses and all existing port and gear configurations for F-Mount lenses will function on the NA-Z8 exactly as they worked on the Nauticam DSLR housings. For those wanting to load up their housing with extra lights, monitors and GoPros, the top of the housing is now capable of supporting a total of six ball mounts without any extensive modifications – another nice improvement for gear intensive folks.
NIKKOR Z 24-50MM F/4-6.3
Part of what makes the current Nikon Z cameras awesome for underwater is the unfolding new lens line-up. In particular, the Nikkor Z 24-50MM F/4-6.3. This little walk around lens should be in all Z8 owner’s quiver for wide angle and blue water pelagic shooting thanks to what a powerful small package it creates when mated with Nauticam’s WWL-C water contact optic on an extremely tiny flat port. It can also be used in the WACP-1 with some vignetting at 24-25mm.
Image above: The small form factor of the Z 24-50 and the WWL-C makes it a blast to use.
I shot the 24-50 with both options and after trying both, I opted for the WWL-C most of the time. If in a hurry, it is easy to zoom too wide on the WACP-1 getting the shade in the shot, and the WWL-C is just such a nice compact form factor. The WWL-C does exhibit a little shading in the corners at 24mm (you can’t even tell until loaded on a decent monitor), but a quick toggle of the vignette correction in Lightroom makes it disappear. This is just such a fun and versatile option, it will be tough choice to decide which wide angle option suits your needs on this camera.
Image above: If you use the Z24-50 with the WACP and accidently zoom to 24mm, this is what you will get. But it stays pretty sharp into the corners.
Image above: 24-50 with WWL-C at 24mm showing slight vignette shadowing.
Image above: The same shot with vignette removed in Lightroom.
Image above: Part of the fun of working with the WWL-C is the range of fish behavior you can capture on a dive. Here a grouper hides behind a fan - all the groupers here seem to know this trick.
Image Above: Zooming to about 35mm with the WWL-C is perfect for a grouper getting cleaned. Image quality only gets sharper as you zoom in.
Image above: Zoom all the way to 50mm and the framing is perfect for an immature queen angel.
Image above: Another example of framing for effect with the WWL-C. The detail is amazing.
For those that own the WACP-1, the Sony E-Mount 28-70 works surprisingly well on the various adapters for E-Mount to Z-Mount. It will offer the maximum zoom range of any option. It is important to use some form of group focus and not spot focus when using the adapters.
Image above: WACP-1 at about 28mm
Shutter Sync Speed
Some may find the 1/200 synch speed a little disappointing – but so far it has not seemed too limiting. The camera will let you shoot higher shutter, but you will not get a fully strobe lit frame in spite of the camera having no physical shutter. For those wanting a higher sync speed, there are HSS compatible TTL converters and strobes available to make that possible.
Image above: WACP at about 28mm
CF Express B Cards and Video
For shooting stills, most name brand card will function fine. When it comes to video, the Z8 is capable of generating very data intensive high bit-rate files. It has become pretty clear that certain manufacturer’s cards will overheat quite quickly. Sandisk and Lexar seem especially prone to this. Delkin cards seem to perform much better and some other brands seem to be surfacing that also work well. This will no doubt be a moving target and needs to be assessed at the time of purchase based on the latest findings. Nikon’s “approved media” list does NOT mean it will successfully record all video formats.
Final Thoughts on shooting the Z8
As most photographers realize, there is no perfect camera made today, but they are getting closer all the time. As a long time DSLR shooter, the Z8 joins just one or two other mirrorless cameras that I find really fun to shoot the way I like to use a camera underwater. And as a long time Nikon shooter, I was pleased with how much seemed familiar, but also how much better this camera performed in several categories than its DSLR predecessors. It's few weak spots (like battery life and sync speed) are really not deal breakers and both issues have solutions now or in the works soon. If you are a Nikon shooter who enjoys shooting video or wants to learn video, it is a no-brainer. This camera will blow away any Nikon you have ever shot video on and is worth taking advantage of.
So yes, if you want the best Nikon has to offer, the Z8 is worth it. But if you still love your old Micro Nikkor 105 2.8D lens with its slow focus and funky bokeh, this may not be the best camera for you. That 105 D lens will not work on the Nikon FTZ adapter. For everyone else, embrace the learning curve and go for it.
Image above: A 24-50 with WWL-C is a near perfect shark photography set up.
Image above: 24-50 with WWL-C. The silversides in the upper left corner are a little soft as the point of focus was a bit further away. But this is a nice example of the Z8's great dynamic range and a lot more detail could be pulled out of the shadows if desired.
Image above: 24-50 with WWL-C. I only had a split second to try and catch the grunt yawning and the Z8 nailed it. Unfortunately, some of the fish were closer than the yawning grunt and are a bit soft. This is an example of when a short, wide focus box would have really helped get everything in focus, rather then a center group. It is worth remembering even the best camera can't fix the mistakes of the photographer. But when you get it all right, the camera can make you look good.
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The last several years have been a boom time in digital camera products. Mirrorless cameras are taking over the market while DSLRs are quietly being discontinued. Sensors keep getting bigger and resolutions have been heading through the stratosphere. Video continues on the same trajectory with very high frame rates and up to 8K resolution. And while enthusiasts eagerly scoop up the latest and greatest cameras on release, there is the majority of the underwater photography market that really just wants great imaging results in the easiest and most fun way possible. If you are in this category, the Canon R7 may just be your answer.
The old Canon 7D MkII was a legendary APS-C performer in a bulky DSLR camera body. The new R7 is the spiritual successor to that camera, but in a svelte mirrorless body that outperforms the old 7D in everyway while being much more travel friendly.
Specs
This Canon has just about anything anyone could ask for in a camera and they even fixed some long stranding complaints we UW photographers have had.
32mp This is really enough for even the most demanding underwater image makers. Water softens our UW images with every inch of the wet stuff we shoot through. More resolution does not really improve that and definitely eats up more storage.
4K 60P This is the standard that most of us want to be able to shoot video at and Canon has proven to have the best UW white balance for video in the industry.
1/320 Sync Speed - Hooray! Finally Canon gives us the kind of sync speed UW photographers really love for capturing sunrays and darkening backgrounds.
Continuous shooting at 15-30 FPS This is fast enough for anything you will discover in the aquatic world... and if not, you probably don't want to be in the water with it.
Dual UHSII SD Card Slots Two slots are great and UHSII cards are by far the most speed for the buck. They are plenty fast enough for 4K 60p, so why get more expensive and exotic?
Near Telepathic AF The 7D MkII was one of our all time favorite cameras for fast accurate auto-focus. The R7 is better in most regards - enough said.
Sounds great, though we need to get the usual questions out of the way.
But Won't Full Frame Cameras Give Me Better Photos?
Epic resolution and Full Frame sensors are usually what most customers ask us for when shopping for a new underwater camera. It is what the media and their photography buddies have told them and in some instances it might be true. Shooting a bald eagle at dusk with a 600mm lens at a shutter speed of 1/1200 and ISO 3200 may benefit from these things. Shooting underwater macro in Lembeh or whale sharks in Mexico, not so much.
"But I really like super high resolution so I can crop my images"
An APS-C camera will offer you 50% more magnification when shooting macro with the same lens as a full frame camera. So, when you want to fill the frame, you can do it more easily. Since you will have more depth of field at any given angle of coverage, the odds of your subject being in focus also increases substantially. In other words, your "keeper rate" may be higher than with a full frame camera.
"But won't full frame cameras give me wider angle coverage when I need it?"
This is partially true, but like many things, shooting underwater is different. APS-C cameras use shorter focal lengths to achieve the same wide angle coverage as full frame cameras, but with greater depth of field at any given aperture. This means that APS-C wide angle is often sharper at the same angle of coverage as a full frame cameras when shooting wide angle behind a dome. Also of note; there are several excellent fisheye zooms that offer lots of flexibility on a crop sensor camera, but only a fixed 180 degree coverage lens option on full frame.
OK, with that out of the way, let's look at what makes the R7 in particular a great underwater set up.
NA-R7 Housing
Clearly the R7 has the chops to outperform what most of us UW image makers are capable of asking of the camera, but there are a couple of secret ingredients that make this system so appealing to the traveling photographer. First is the housing; much like the popular Sony A7C Nauticam housing, Nauticam has focused on making the housing as small as humanly possible without giving up their famous ergonomics. Compared to Nauticam's housing for the aforementioned Canon 7D MkII, the NA-R7 is no more than half its size. Yes, really!
The second secret ingredient is from Canon. The Canon RF-S 18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM Lens. This compact "kit lens" from Canon is a gem and happens to be a design that works perfectly with certain Nauticam water contact lenses. Combined with a Nauticam WWL-1B or WWL-C, a shooter can have near fisheye angle of coverage down to fish portrait capability on the same dive with tack-sharp results in a compact package. Add a CMC wet macro lens and you can have a true "do everything" rig without ever removing a lens from your camera or changing ports. Your entire system can travel in your carry on. No more overweight fees!
For Crispy detailed wide angle, the WWL-1 and WWL-C excel. The WWl-1 offers 130-degree angle of coverage with full zoom through in a modest size package. The WWL-C offers 116-degree coverage and a little more zoom reach with stunning sharpness and an even smaller form factor.
The WWL is also great zoomed in for close focus wide fish portraits, or shoot the 18-45 with no wet lens.
For an all-in-one-dive experience, the CMC-1 (or CMC-2) can be used with the Canon 18-45 lens for extremely sharp macro options when one exchanges the Wet Wide Lens for a Compact Macro Converter underwater.
Of course, the whole banquet of RF lenses Canon makes as well as EF lens favorites can be used on the R7. All of which is great if you have a special mission in mind, but for some, the above combination may be all you ever want to shoot and results will be outstanding.
All that said, serious macro shooters sometimes want a bit more, and for those folks, the R7 delivers with options including the traditional Canon EFS 60mm, EF 100mm, the newer RF 35mm Macro and RF 100mm Macro. Even with a long macro lens like the RF 100mm, the R7 focused fast enough to capture some of the most difficult subjects I go after, like the infamous Flasher Wrasses of Indonesia.
And super macro? Nothing quite matches what you can achieve with a long macro lens and powerful close-focus wet lens on an APS-C sensor. The shots below were taken with the RF 100mm and Nauticam SMC.
For those who love full fisheye, you can shoot Canon's superb 8-15mm fisheye zoom and take advantage of everything from 10mm 180 degree fisheye to a tighter 130 degree FOV at 15mm.
There is no one perfect system for everyone. But for many years we have been hearing from underwater photographers that they really want a bit smaller, easy to travel with system that is friendly, but doesn't give up performance in any particular category. In the past we have often had to say you can't always have your cake and eat it too. But the R7 brings that possibility closer than any mirrorless camera we have gotten a chance to use lately.
Let us know if you have questions or perhaps you might want to try an R7 system on rental. We will be happy to help!
]]>Anyone keeping an occasional eye on digital camera progress knows that Sony has been on a tear for the last year or two. New cameras keep coming fast and furious. While the new top-of-the-line Sony a1 and the low light video king; a7SIII, have grabbed most of the headlines, the equally new a7C is almost as ground breaking in a different fashion.
The a7C is not the best Sony offers in any particular department. At 24MP, it has plenty of resolution for most of us, but is not in the same League as the a7RIV or the a1. It is also not Sony's fastest camera, but at 10fps, it is more than enough for most of as well. Video spec is good, but not in the same league as the a7SIII. So what does it provide? The Sony a7C offers very good all around performance in just about every category and does it in a surprisingly small package and at a very reasonable price. The camera is barely bigger than Sony's excellent a6600 APS-C sensor camera body which means the housings are barely bigger than the APS-C camera housings as well.
An equally exciting introduction for underwater shooters is the new Sony FE 28-60 f4-5.6 "kit lens" that is offered with the a7C. This super compact "walk around" full frame lens just happens to be a perfect companion to using a number of Nauticam's superb water-contact optics which we will get further into in a bit.
The main reason to buy an a7C is because you want a high quality compact set up. A lot of people assume that as soon as you switch to a mirrorless format, that your underwater housing will get much smaller. But anyone who has looked at Nikon or Canon's excellent full frame mirrorless cameras, has had to realize that the underwater housings are close to the same size as a DSLR housing. Not so with Sony's a7C. Sony wanted to keep it small, and in the case of the Nauticam housing, they also have strived to make the desire to "go small" a reality. The NA-A7C housing is almost shockingly petite at fist glance. One's brain says "there can't be a full frame Sony in there". But in fact it is and all the controls are accessible.
Other housings will surly be coming and we will have to see how those deal with this new compact entry.
The short answer is not much. When you get down to the nitty gritty, there are some concessions to size. The a7C has no front command dial, so that means both aperture and shutter speed are controlled with rear dials with the left thumb when holding the housing. Different than we may be used to, but it works. The electronic viewfinder is lower resolution than the newest Sonys like a7IV and a1, but in practice it seems to work great with an enhanced Nauticam viewfinder which is not always the case with the largest and highest resolution EVFs. Another minor adjustment might be the position of the playback button to the right of the LCD. Those used to Nauticam placing the Playback lever conveniently by the shooters left thumb will have to adjust to a bit of a thumb reach with the right hand. Again, it is just some practice to get it right. Once mastered, being able to review images on command through the EVF was very helpful.
In this case; yes. Using Sony's new 28-60mm lens in a compact flat port allows fantastic use of Nauticam's legendary WWL-1B optic (now with built in float collar) that provides fantastic 130 degree coverage, full zoom through and focusing down to the glass for amazing close ups. See something tiny you want to shoot? Pop off the WWL-1 and add a CMC-1 macro converter wet lens for tack sharp macro. See something really small? Try stacking TWO CMCs. Wow, pretty crazy stuff, but all doable on a single dive.
We test a lot of gear here at Reef Photo & Video, but I will admit to being a little incredulous when first hearing of all these possibilities with a Sony full frame so I couldn't wait to take it on a test run. A lot people looking at this camera possibility will be DSLR shooters wanting to go smaller and crop sensor mirrorless shooters wanting to go full frame without bulking up too much. Both types of shooters will have some adjustments to make and I wanted to see how easy a transition it would be.
Other than checking some basic settings in the a7C menu, I had no experience with the a7C, the NA-A7C housing, or the new 28-60 lens at all. I was starting from scratch, so I wanted to see what kind of range of images I could shoot with zero familiarity on a single dive. I was also diving a new site with no guide or buddy helping - just me puttering around getting familiar with the camera. Here is what I found.
At 28mm, the WWL-1 delivers all the crispy 130 degree coverage I love, but have never been able to get with a full frame zoom
I shot this at 28mm at f6.2 - more open then recommended so the close lower left corner is a little soft, but far better than any rectilinear lens behind a dome and a slight zoom in cleans that up.
Zooming through the WWL-1 works well and offers smaller group portrait capability.
Popping the WWL-1 off and just shooting the 28-60 as a portrait lens worked quite well. Approximately 35mm focal length.
Zooming to about 50mm without any wet lens offers a nice tight portrait option.
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Being such a small rig allows access to tight spaces for spur-of-the-moment close focus wide angle like under this small piece of wreckage. Room for the strobes proved the bigger challenge than the housing.
Shooting macro with a Nauticam CMC-1 and the lens zoomed to 60mm proved surprisingly easy, even shooting AF. Here I was focused on keeping the edges of the Christmas tree worm near the border of the frame to see how details held up - they did really well!
Here was the real test. 60mm with two CMC-1 optics stacked atop each other. Pretty amazing detail right to the edges. Not as easy as a single, but good to know the potential is there.
I think most people will be really happy with what you can accomplish with the the 28-60mm and a single CMC-1 - perfect for a smaller frogfish like this. Check out the detail on the frogfish and the sponge on the edge of the frame in the same plane of focus. The CMC-1 with the 60 offers very reasonable working distance.
I was very impressed with the flexibility of this system and the quality of the results. Was it perfect? Not quite. Was I perfect? Definitely not. But I think it worked amazingly well all things considered. On my next dive, I would add more flotation and improve the location of my lens holders to make it easier to switch things out. I definitely need to practice my playback through the viewfinder technique as I didn't have my muscle memory tuned to the new playback button position yet (I had to keep looking to find it which meant pulling my eye from the viewfinder). I was really happy with the Nauticam Enhanced Viewfinder performance with this camera and would consider it a must for still shooters. I also experienced zero blackout effect when shooting with the EVF. I think the brightness of the EVF needs to be tweaked a bit as well, as my exposures weren't always as bright as they appeared in the water.
Would I recommend this set up for the Full Frame shooter wanting to "get small"? Absolutely - when it comes to those priorities, the a7C is the only game in town.
]]>Canon's start in the mirrorless marketplace was a bit rocky at first, but after slowly warming to the concept they have now entered in force with the EOS R5 that has caused more buzz than almost any recent camera offering.
The EOS R5 has clearly been created to outperform the popular Canon 5D cameras in virtually every regard - and not by a small margin. It would be surprising if we did not see a whole lot of Canon DSLR shooters making the switch to mirrorless for the first time specifically because of the EOS R5. So as underwater shooters, what can we expect and what is going to be a bit different from what we are used to?
First, a quick review of what the camera promises:
So lots of numbers, but what are the highlights for us underwater image makers? The resolution is sort of the sweet spot for high resolution cameras right now and 12-20 frames per second is enough for any action we will likely encounter. But it is some of the other numbers that qualify as groundbreaking. The EOS R5 is the first consumer camera to offer 8K (remember when 4K was a big deal?) video recording - and the option to record it in Canon RAW in camera. Equally amazing are the options to record 4K 120P or beautiful 4K oversampled from 8K.
With Canon's well regarded dual-pixel autofocus now improved and stretching edge to edge of the sensor, this camera will definitely deliver the best live AF of anything available to date. Add in Canon's new sophisticated In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) that works in conjunction with lens based IS and you have, potentially, one of the more competent video cameras ever offered in a hand held format. Yes, there has been some talk of camera heating limiting some of the video potential, but it remains to be seen how significant this is when in an aluminum housing with water contact.
For still shooters, beyond the beautiful high resolution sensor with enhanced dynamic range, there are some very notable features. In the past, Electronic View Finders (EVF) left a lot to be desired if you were use to using an optical viewfinder. EVFs are like miniature computer monitors with much higher resolution than your home HD TV. Canon's 5.76M-dot OLED EVF is tops in resolution and the fast refresh rate makes it much more like using an optical viewfinder, but with advantages optical can't offer: Like being able to playback and review images without taking your eye away from the viewfinder. The EVF is much higher resolution than the rear LCD, so far more effective for critical focus and composition.
Having full sensor, corner-to-corner AF points means unlimited composition capabilities and really should be the standard for high end cameras these days. Low light capability has improved and Canon is rapidly expanding it's R lens line up.
The EOS R5 is truly a do-everything camera with very few weaknesses. But it is first and foremost a fantastic action-oriented high resolution stills camera. There were many who love the functionality of the 5DMkIV but thought it fell a little short of optimal specs, and those that craved the resolution of the 5DSR, but just found it too slow. For those folks, the R5 is your answer and then some. Virtually every aspect of those cameras has been improved upon. Those that are still holding on to the 5DMkIII or 7DMKII are in for an incredible leap in sophistication and performance. The EOS R5 should also be a serious contender for everyone who has been shooting smaller sensor mirrorless cameras and has been torn as to what direction to upgrade.
Should someone primarily interested in shooting video go for the R5? The answer is a qualified "probably". By all accounts the video quality of the R5 is impressive and beautiful. To be able to shoot 8K RAW or 4K 120P at this price and form factor is phenomenal. But if this is your main focus and you want to shoot at these most data intensive levels, it may be worth investing in an external recorder like the Atomos Ninja V in a housing. This will reduce the heat build up internally of the camera which can shorten the record and lengthen recovery times. Choosing a Nauticam Housing system and NA-Ninja V supports this set up well. The battery life can also be a limiting factor at these processing intense video levels. A final note is that high resolution cameras, with smaller photo-sites, will not be as low light sensitive as lower resolution cameras. So depending on your shooting needs, this may or may not be a factor.
But all that being said, what video shooters do have is Canon's enviable ability to manually white balance underwater. State-of-the-current-art IBIS. The R5's best-in-the-industry live AF capability, and incredible video spec flexibility that can produce amazing results if handled properly. Not to mention a whole lot of Canon glass to choose from.
This is an important camera and will likely have several housing options eventually. Below are some of the better known and their virtues.
Nauticam NA-R5 - A world leader in aluminum housing design and manufacturing, the NA-R5 (pictured at the start of the article) is expected to start shipping by Sept/Oct. Extensive lens support, custom water contact optics, maximum accessory options and well regarded ergonomics make the Nauticam housings popular among both professionals and enthusiasts.
Ikelite 200DL for Canon R5 - Ikelite is a venerable US manufacturer of poly-carbonate underwater housings and their housing for the R5 (above) is available now. These housings provide a remarkable amount of control access for a modest price. While the ease of set up, use and flexibility can not match the leading aluminum housings, they offer a good solution for the price conscious image maker who does not need all the accessories (external monitors, remote release options, corrected optics, etc.) that a professional might need.
Sea & Sea MDX R5 - This long time maker of rugged Aluminum housings has not announced their housing yet, but it will be expected by the end of 2020
Subal CDR5 - Subal makes elegant European aluminum housings with traditional simplicity of function. Expect a housing in in December 2020 or January 2021.
The RF series lenses will be offering a growing arsenal for years to come, but there good choices for underwater now and there are plenty of EF lenses to fill the gaps. Some housing manufacturers may not support every lens, but most will likely handle some.
The best RF lenses currently available for our use:
Canon RF 85mm f/2 Macro IS STM - This just-being-introduced lens should be an excellent medium/long macro lens for underwater.
Of course, if you are migrating from an existing Full Frame Canon, then you may already have some excellent EF lens options. There are also a few niches not yet filled by the RF series. Fortunately the Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R allows full use of your existing lenses. Lenses to consider using on an adapter even if starting from scratch are below.
Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM - This super wide rectilinear zoom lens performs surprisingly well behind a large dome.
With such a brilliant high resolution EVF to take advantage of, a still shooter will definitely want to take advantage of an enhanced viewfinder like the Nauticam 180° Straight Viewfinder or Nauticam 45° Viewfinder. This can be even more important if you lower the EVF refresh rate to save battery life.
Ikelite offers enhanced viewfinders for their housings here.
The Subal GS 180 viewfinder is a popular option for Subal.
With the compact dimensions of aluminum housings, the minimal air space leads to a negative buoyancy in the water. So some flotation is a must. Most people opt for float arms such as the Nauticam Carbon Fiber Arms or Inon Mega Float Arms.
Vacuum systems for underwater housings have become the norm these days for most housing makers and for good reason. They are our safety check to our housing preparation work and let us know if something is not a perfect. Nauticam was one of the first manufacturers to make vacuum monitoring electronics standard and still makes an optional vacuum valve that is one of the easiest to use as seen here. It will also work on Subal housings. Ikelite provides a mechanical Vacuum option for their R5 housing and can be seen here. Sea & Sea uses the Leak Sentinel.
Want to shoot underwater TTL and rear curtain sync with the EOS R5? No problem! There are several Solutions: The Nauticam TTL Flash Trigger for Canon offers an Optical solution. UW Technics has several options for TTL converters to work in different housings and can function with optical or electrical strobe connections.
Video shooters will often find that a tripod will make the difference when it comes to professional looking results. The same is true underwater, but not everything is designed for such a harsh environment. Fortunately the Zen Tripod Plate is designed for the job and matches well with standard arm clamps and strobe arms to create a stable filming platform.
Call or write us and we will be happy to help with your best options on your EOS R5 configuration!
]]>Location images by Tony Land with Dive Operator Divetech, Grand Cayman
By now, it is pretty clear that mirrorless cameras are the future of imaging. There are numerous advantages to the format, not least of which is a more compact form factor relative to sensor size. There have also been traditional shortcomings; particularly in the arena of battery life, autofocus and the electronic viewfinder (EVF) performance as compared to an optical viewfinder. But as technological development has minimized these drawbacks, it is pretty clear where things are going.
The Nikon Z 50 is Nikon's first serious effort for a mirrorless APS-C camera and by all accounts they are offering a lot to like at a remarkable price point. This camera is similar to and in some ways exceeds the specs on Nikon's well respected enthusiast DSLR the D7500. The Z 50 also borrows much that has been successful on the Nikon full frame FX Z series cameras. It shares the same lens mount and is capable of 11 frames per second continuous shooting: Better than a D500 or D850 and into D5 territory (at less than 20% of the price)! How things have changed in a few short years and our expectations have changed to match.
What Nikon has clearly aimed to do with this mirrorless is to provide a very approachable, affordable camera with best-in-class image quality (20.9 MP), excellent video capability and with build quality and feel not usually found below a $1000 price point. Having dual command dials is rare in this price category and a pleasure to find here. Strobe sync speed is higher than on a Sony a6600 for instance and video quality is a notch better than the traditionally strong Canon M6 II entry. 4K footage utilizes the whole sensor. Battery life seems exceptional for a small mirrorless camera.
For underwater photographers, low light auto-focus capability is hugely important and a weak spot on many traditional mirrorless cameras. The Z 50 started out with great specs on paper: Hybrid Phase/Contrast Detect AF with 209 PDAF points. There are also lots of selective focus options. The autofocus has indeed proved solid, and a firmware update for 2020 has improved it further. The Nikon Z 50 also has the lowest light AF capability of any camera in the field - another plus for underwater shooting.
While the APS-C Z Mount lens selection is not huge yet, the optional FTZ adapter for F mount lenses provide extensive possibilities and Nikon has the best macro lens selection of any manufacturer by a fair margin. We can't wait to try out the fast focusing Nikon 85mm Micro-Nikkor on an FTZ adapter with the Z 50 underwater. Fortunately, one of the Z Lenses that is readily available happens to be ideal for underwater use. The Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR is Nikon's smallest DX lens ever and is the perfect compliment lens to the Z 50 when shooting in a housing. Buying this lens with the camera still keeps the whole package under $1000. Thanks to some excellent optical engineering from Nikon and Nauticam, this set up is able to maximize the benefit of using Nauticam's new WWL-C: A water contact wide angle conversion lens designed for lenses with a 24mm full frame equivalent such as the new 16-50 lens. Used with Nauticam's ultra compact port for the 16-50, this combination provides an incredibly versatile and tack sharp underwater imaging system from fish portrait to whale shark and everything in between. With a stunning 130 degree angle of coverage, no vingetting at 16mm and full zoom through, this arrangement should likely be a starting point for anyone taking the Z 50 underwater. There are some other 24mm compatible wet lenses, but none use all glass elements at this time and image quality tends to be lower than the nauticam. Ikelite has released a 200DL housing for the Z 50, but we have not tested wet lens compatibility yet.
The Nikkor Z 16-50 is also perfectly compatible with Nauticam's superb CMC 1 & CMC 2 so when utilizing Nauticam's quick-release bayonet mounting system, a true "do-everything" camera configuration is well within every user's grasp.
The first housing we have tried with the Nikon Z 50 is from Nauticam. The NA-Z50 places ergonomics and functionality foremost. This is obvious the minute you start accessing controls underwater. The same at-your-fingertips feel for the shutter release, menu, info, command dials and thumb focus are all right right where you need them. The playback lever is poised by the left thumb. The patented Nauticam Multi-Controller Pad mimics Nikon's camera control nicely and allows for easy focus point adjustment which we put to good use for macro with the CMC.
Nauticam compatibility has been maintained with the N100 port mount (as found on Nauticam's Sony A7/A9 series housings) which allows a nicely compact form factor that is noticeably smaller than any of the Nikon DSLR housings. The port for the 16-50 lens is equally diminutive and should make this rig a pleasure to travel with. The full set up was easy to get on and off the boat with or clip off on a BC. It is worth noting that smaller housings mean less air space which equals less buoyancy, so we feel some flotation would be recommended. We found either the Nauticam 90mmX170mm Carbon Fiber Float Arms or 70mmX250mm seem like a good match for this set up with strobes. Another quality and economical option would be the Inon Mega Float S.
The NA-Z50 comes set up to utilize the built in flash on the Z 50 which is a great convenience and offers the option of S-TTL functionality with many fiber optic compatible strobes. Inon, Retra and Sea & Sea all offer very good S-TTL Compatibility. You can see strobe options in our article on current strobes here. If left in this mode, we did experience noticeable flash recycle delays after repeated firings, so, depending on your shooting style, this might be a consideration for more action oriented subjects. Fortunately, Nauticam's optional TTL Converter for Nikon (26308) fits this housing (as well as a manual optical trigger) providing longer camera battery life and zero recycle time on the camera. For many of us, this really enhances the shooting experience.
We have a lot of experience using Nauticam's groundbreaking WWL-1 water contact lens with underwater housings and have come to expect exceptional image quality, zoom through flexibility and focus down to glass performance. All that was promised with the new WWL-C and while we expected no less, it was hard to believe this much more compact and lighter wet lens could deliver the goods on an APS-C zoom lens.
We needn't have worried. The lens was easy to mount and remove underwater, while the built in aluminum float collar is much more friendly than the foam WWL-1 collar and offers a good gripping surface. Most importantly, image quality was all we could hope for. With no vignetting to worry about, we could slam the zoom wide and start shooting the moment the action changed. Angle of coverage is the same as the WWL-1: a full 130 degrees, but distortion seems even better controlled. Sun ball flare was also well controlled and it was easy to get close enough to divers to light pleasingly without worrying about stretching legs or arms unflatteringly as a fisheye lens would do.
The WWL-C woks well for models and provides sharp corners
If moving from a DLSR, the Z 50 AF takes some tweaking to behave more like the way you might be accustomed to. It is plenty fast, but some of the intelligent AF settings can be confused in an underwater environment, though occasionally helpful with special circumstances like fast moving nearby subjects. Using a movable group focus works well for general shooting with the WWL-C whether shooting traditional wide angle or close-focus wide angle zoom-to-frame shooting where the WWL-C also excels. The results with this wide angle set up were consistently in focus and tack-sharp.
Utilizing a Nauticam Bayonet Lens Holder on a Nauticam float arm, it was easy to switch out the WWL-C for a CMC-1 close up lens. By zooming to a 50mm focal length, the macro wet lens offers impressive magnification, but of course a bit more challenging focus. Fortunately, it is easy to adjust the focus point location while viewing through the electronic viewfinder that is a quite sharp 2.36M-dot OLED display. The EVF makes it well worth investing in a Nauticam 45 or 180 Enhanced Viewfinder for easier, higher resolution viewing than the rear LCD screen can provide. As we got comfortable with the CMC and its very shallow range of focus capability, we developed a combination of AF and "lock and rock" aided by the AF-ON lever strategically placed by the right thumb, it was simple to activate and lock focus as needed for these trickier shots and adjust the camera housing. Another benefit of using this mirrorless camera's viewfinder is explained by photographer Tony Land.
"One of the nicest things I found with the Z 50 EVF was the ability to check my image without removing my eye from the viewfinder after my shot. I found this particularly useful for macro photography - something you just can’t do on a traditional SLR. Normally after a few shots, you need to look at your LCD screen to make sure nothing weird is happening with your strobe placement or power settings, and just to get an idea of how your shot is coming out. With the electronic viewfinder, you don’t even need to move. The image will appear automatically or on demand without you ever needing to take your eye away, frightening the subject or moving your composition and focus."
It is also worth noting that the if your close up vision isn't great (welcome to the club), you will get a far greater critical detail by reviewing images in the EVF than on the LCD - no close up vision required.
Using selective focus with the CMC-1 on this blenny while viewing through the high resolution EVF produces impressive results.
Utilizing AF-ON and EVF playback allows the opportunity for multiple exposures and compositions of a subject without ever looking at the LCD.
Looking at the detail provided by the using the Nikon 16-50 lens with the CMC-1 shows just how edge-to-edge sharp this combination really is.
With only a handful of dives with the Nikon Z 50, it is clear we haven't explored all the camera and housing are capable of yet. What is clear is what an enjoyable, compact and rewarding system this is. Someone could easily spend years just relishing the versatility of the 16-50 lens and these key supporting wet lenses. Both the camera and the housing perform well beyond what their respective price points suggest we should expect. That makes this a system that is extremely appealing for someone graduating from a compact or older mirrorless camera or a Nikon shooter interested in downsizing, but maintaining some lens compatibility. We look forward to playing with some other lens options - perhaps full macro (40mm, 60mm, 85mm and 105mm could all be fun options), perhaps a fisheye, but literally everything else one could ask for has been optimized with the lens configuration we used. It is nice to have another worthy competitor in the very hotly contested mirrorless market for underwater image makers.
Our thanks to Tony Land and Divetech for helping out with first hands-on images produced by this exciting new offering from Nikon and Nauticam.
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In our quest for ways to best define certain kinds of marine subjects, one of the more interesting tools available to us is backlighting. This is never going to be the most common approach to take photos, but with the right kind of subject, it is possible to achieve unique and striking results.
Image Shen Collazo
You can certainly backlight with your existing strobes as long as you have arms that are long enough to get the strobe behind the subject. This is going to mean you are pretty close and utilizing a close focusing macro lens.
The other option is to disconnect one strobe entirely and place it still connected (usually with fiber optic as it is easier) behind your subject.
One of our favorite ways to achieve backlighting is just to carry a small Inon S-2000 around in our BC pocket. Not only is the S-2000 diminutive in size and weight; it also has an extremely sensitive 360 degree optical pick up to trigger the strobe. This means no cables are required at all offering maximum flexibility with placement. Of course the other Inons offer this flexibility as well in a larger form factor.
Sea & Sea strobes have traditionally only worked with a fiber optic or electrical sync connection attached. That may have changed with the new YS-D3 Lightning strobe that offers an optional slave trigger accessory that can be used for this, but we haven't had a chance to test how well this will work yet.
Another excellent tool for triggering a strobe behind a subject it the latest version of the Anglerfish Remote Trigger. This clever slave triggering device allows triggering of one or two strobes by fiber optic or electrical sync in a remote location; so compatible with just about any strobe.
A strong constant light source like a powerful focus or video light can also be an option for backlighting. While not as powerful a light source as a strobe, you have the advantage of "seeing what you get" which allows you to tweak the look you want more easily. This can work quite well for macro subjects if you have enough exposure latitude. Some of these lights can also provide red,green or blue LED lighting or utilize filter gels for special effects. The new Kraken Hydra 3500 S+ RGB WSRU offers several color options for special lighting effects.
So what kind of shots are you likely to be successful with? Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind.
This hairy shrimp looks solid when lit from the front. Image Kevin Palmer
When lit from the back, the hairy shrimp looks transparent and "glows" Image Kevin Palmer
Image Chris Parsons
Image Tanya Burnett
Another example of the same subject with front lighting and back lighting can be found below.
Front lighting Image Lee Burghard
Backlighting
Backlighting close up. Image Lee Burghard
Lastly; think outside the box with backlighting - sometimes just a little light can go a long way as below.
Image: Chris Parsons
]]>Your night dives will never be the same.
Taken with Sola Nightsea/Jeff Honda
Even if you never had black light posters on your wall as a kid, it is hard not to be spellbound by your first fluorescent imaging dive. If done on a healthy reef with lots of hard coral, the glowing universe that is revealed is simply jaw dropping. The equipment that it requires is not very extensive and the tools have improved considerably from the early days when this was primarily a past time of researchers and scientist. So lets dive into the current options for this special niche of underwater imaging.
Photo Kevin Palmer
The first thing to understand is what happens when these underwater animals go all psychedelic in front of your camera when hit by certain spectrums of light. Bio-florescence has been discovered in more marine animals around the world than anyone would have guessed a couple of decades ago. The cells on the surface of the creature absorb a high frequency spectrum like deep blue or UV and then convert that to a new, lower frequency light that is emitted by the animal - often green, yellow, orange or red. So the animals are actually producing their own light after being stimulated by the barely visible blue wavelength or ultra-violet lighting.
Tools to unveil a new world
As with many imaging techniques, there are different roads to achieve similarly excellent results, so we will cover a number of options along with some essentials.
One of the first solutions to be experimented with, and still one of the most powerful, is to use a special excitation filter on a conventional strobe. This set up will produce a lot of light, but there are some compromises that come with this arrangement. Because the strobes are not producing blue light all the time, the photographer must have a another blue wave length constant light to be able to find the subjects to shoot. The aiming light of the strobe is generally too weak to produce usable light through the dark blue filter. The other factor is that all strobes have different light temperature and spectrum output, so combined with the excitation filter you won't necessarily get the ideal spectrums. But if you already have a good strong strobe, these filters can be the least expensive way to start playing with fluoro.
Photo Kevin Palmer
When you use a blue light source like this, you will get the best results by using a Reference Filter on your camera lens. These are strong yellow filters designed to filter out blue light. So all that blue light that is hitting things that do not Fluoresce can be seen slightly, so the yellow filter cleans that up and makes the fluoro subject pop from the dark. There are yellow filters that fit directly on the camera lens and filters that fit the front port of your underwater housing. They work equally well.
Fluoro with constant lighting:
This is perhaps the easiest style of shooting fluoro. Primarily because "what you see is what you get". With blue or UV fluoro light, a glowing realm is spread in front of you and you can head towards interesting creatures that seem to stand out. If looking in live view, you only need to make basic adjustments until it looks "good" and take the shot. To get an even better view of the potential subjects available; Light and Motion, Ikelite and Fix make yellow mask filters that slip over your diving mask so you experience what the camera will see with its reference filter.
Some of the best Fluoro Lights available today:
The Sola Nightsea is the only Fluoro light that has been directly endorsed by Nightsea that has done considerable pioneering work in the realm of fluorescence imaging. So it is no surprise that it produces excellent results. It is also small, light and simple which is a plus when engaging in a dazzling new environment. A phosphor filter is included which turns the light back to "white" for general light use. The price has come down considerably in the last couple of years making the light a bargain.
Fix makes a fine series of underwater imaging lights with a lot of flexibility - up to 100 power settings, interchangeable heads for multiple uses and real time remaining read out. Existing Fix light owners may be able to just purchase the blue head with phosphor filter which makes it a bargain or purchase the blue light complete. This light is a little more powerful than the Nightsea, but uses blue wave length LEDs instead of a special filter as L&M does on the Nightsea. Both produce Fluorescence, but with slightly different effects.
This Kraken is a jack-of-all-trades kind of light, so while it may not be the best fluoro performer, it can do a lot of things pretty well and represents a good deal for someone wanting a focus light that can occasionally shoot fluoro. It is worth noting that Kraken calls this a UV LED light mode - not a high frequency blue like the other lights mentioned. UV will work best on some animals and blue will work better on others. It is not better or worse on its own merits. UV lights typically do not require a reference filter on the camera lens as UV is nearly invisible. There is also a Kraken 5000 lumen version of this light, but the UV mode is the same.
Keldan F1 Fluorescence Filter for 4X & 8X Lights
If you already own any of Keldan's extremely popular 4X or 8X video lights, these very affordable 450NM filters are a great addition to your imaging toolbox. Pop them on anytime you want to experiment with fluoro. While they don't quite match the performance of Keldan's dedicated fluorescence lights, it is still a great option.
Keldan 4X Blue Fluorescence Video Light
This Keldan is one of the most powerful Fluoro lights available and can produce spectacular effects. If you plan on shooting fluoro a great deal, or intend to shoot fluoro video, the Keldan is well worth considering. The wave length used is one that performs best with a yellow reference filter. The light is still fairly compact and light weight in the water.
Courtesy NSF
Keldan LED Module Blue 450NM 95W & LED Module UV 400NM 55W
For professional shooters lucky enough to own a Keldan 8M video light with interchangeable modules, Keldan makes extremely powerful fluoro light heads for special applications. These include both a Blue and UV option. These are great for larger animal florescence like large eels and sharks.
Photo Kevin Palmer
A few tips for shooting Fluoro:
Since fluoro is always shot on a night dive and our eyes tend to adjust to the amount of light around us, you may be surprised at how sensitive you need to make your camera in order to capture what you are seeing. When you first go down and fire up your fluoro light it seems amazingly bright on a busy hard coral reef. But your camera needs help to "see" this subtle form of light. Yellow and green are the easiest for the camera to register, but orange and red are pretty tough. You will definitely need to raise your ISO, probably in the 400 neighborhood, but sometimes higher. Shoot as open an aperature as you can get away with and still have some depth of field. Try f8 to f11 depending on the camera. Remember you are hand holding your exposure and creating ambient light emitted from the animal. Too slow a shutter speed and your images will be soft. An absolute minimum would be 1/60 of a second, but try for a little higher. Most people will find a forgiving close focus lens like a 60mm macro on DSLRs or 30mm-45mm macro lenses on M4/3 and APS-C mirrorless systems will work well. If you shoot a compact with a fairly close focusing lens like an Olympus TG, you are all set. With compact cameras that don't focus closely, you might want to use a weak close focus wet lens. The reason you want to focus fairly close is that you lose light with every inch of water you shoot through and this is not very strong light!
Shooting coral polyps is a great first subject as they are easy, don't move much and are usually pretty bright. Anemones and tube worms are also great subjects and if you are lucky enough to find a Nembrotha nudibranch or a florescent cephalopod, you are in for some spectacular images. Keep an eye out for scorpion fish as they are often a very deep red.
Those who are use to using histograms to review your exposures on your camera can turn that off. Histograms are largely useless because of the nature of the light and will always show images as underexposed. To that end, if you can clearly see your image when reviewing underwater (remember to slide your mask filter up so that you are not filtering your image), then you are probably exposed well. What to set your camera white balance to? Good question. You may have to experiment a bit with your particular camera. On some cameras Auto seems to work fine, otherwise I would probably try it on daylight. By definition, your colors should appear day-glow and over-the-top, so this is one case where you are not trying to get the image to look "natural".
Photo Kevin Palmer
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By Kevin Palmer
Soft snoot light can make a subject more dream-like. Image by Shen Collazo
First a little history: Snoots have not been around that long. About 10-12 years ago, it was Keri Wilks of Reefnet working with Home Depot parts right here in the Reef Photo & Video Service Department who did a lot of the initial development for what would become the first experimental snoots. The early snoots were pretty much PVC funnels to channel light, but evolved quickly into utilizing fiber optic as a more efficient light focusing method and these designs are still frequently used today. Once snoots showed up at a few macro photo competitions, it didn't take long for them to catch on and a number of different manufacturers have evolved different styles over the years.
So what defines a snoot? Technically, all a snoot does is take a wide light source; generally a strobe, and limit its coverage to a small defined area. This small area may be round or other shape of outline with either a hard defined edge or a soft one. Almost all snoots require getting fairly close to your subject with the snoot and will put out considerably less intense light than the strobe would normally generate.
So what are people snooting with in 2020?
Here are some of the most popular snoots and some of their features.
Reefnet Micro Snoot
Based on Keri Wilk's original Fiber Optic Snoot design, this snoot is still one of the most popular with some features not found on other snoots. This snoot is ordered in two components: A Micro Snoot Mount that would come specific to the strobe you are shooting with and a Micro Snoot Fiber Optic Arm that is universal to all the mounts and just screws in place.
Pros and Cons of the Reefnet Micro Snoot
Inon makes simple snoots for their S-2000/Z-240/Z-330/D-200 strobes. These are very well made and adhere to the simple "funnel" design concept: larger at the strobe mounting location and narrow at the aiming end with two diameter tips included. With these, you will move and aim the entire strobe at the subject and adjust the strobe forward and back to get the desired circle.
Pros and Cons of the Inon Snoot Set
With a difficult subject, sometimes it is easier to pull the snoot back a bit to widen the throw, while still getting some isolation benefit from using the snoot
Retra LSD Ultimate Snoot Light Shaping Device
Yes, that is a mouthful, but Retra really put themselves on the map with this sophisticated and elegantly machined aluminum snoot. Retra chose to snoot by using light focusing lenses instead of funneling or fiber optics. The theoretical advantage of using lenses is that you should be able to harness more of the light and discharge it in a compact powerful fashion. It is definitely brighter than the Inon snoot on the same strobe and about the equivalent to the Reefnet fiber optic snoot in our testing. Retra calls this a light shaping device and it is hard to argue when they provide interchangeable shape templates providing numerous shapes and sizes of light patterns to work with.
Pros and Cons:
Retra LSD in action
Backscatter Optical Snoot OS-1
This newcomer to the scene has made quite a splash in the snooting world with a compact optical snoot for under $150. The caveat here is that it only works with the Backscatter Mini-Flash 1 Underwater Strobe. That is not exactly a bad thing as the compact strobe can be added as an extra strobe on your rig without being too encumbered. The snoot is very much like mini version of the Retra design with optical concentration of the light.
Pros and cons:
Not every image needs a black background - there are no formal rules in snooting. Image: Shen Collazo
Snoot-Like Alternatives
The other option that is gaining in popularity is the use of a constant light that has a spot mode. This technique has the advantage of the shooter seeing exactly what you are going to get while making the ability to aim and hit your subject much easier. Not all lights with a spot mode throw a good snoot-like light, but some of the good ones are here. All these lights tend to pack smaller than a strobe snoot.
Inon LF800-N 5 Degree Dive Light
This Inon has one of the tightest beams available for snooting and as long as you are working close to your subject it provides strong enough lighting for good exposures. The Inon lights are very well made and quite rugged and reliable.
Light and Motion Sola Video 2500 S/F
The spot mode on the this Sola is not quite as tight as the Inon at about 12 degrees, but it is quite powerful and offers a lot of latitude with your exposures. Sola has been around a long time and these are some of the smallest and easiest lights to use.
This is an inexpensive light with an 800 Lumen spot mode. It is not quite as crispy as the other two lights, but as a light with multiple modes for a focus light and snoot, it is a lot of value.
Close focus wide angle is very snoot worthy. Image: Shen Collazo
The obvious challenge of snooting is trying to line up a little critter with a pencil beam of light - while you are trying to compose and focus on the shot. This can be especially difficult with the nature of diffraction in water that effects our ability to judge distance and alignment. So it goes without saying that some practice will be in order!
Make things easy on yourself; select a subject that is not going to move or disappear on you like a christmas tree worm. If you have an aiming light that works on your snoot - use it. This is where constant lighting has an advantage as you can see the spot of light on your subject. Make sure you have your light or strobe mounted on an arm that is easily articulated, but doesn't jiggle or droop.
You may prefer the snoot mounted directly on the camera housing with just one long clamp to adjust with. This makes for a solid, no jiggle mount, but again, if you move the camera, you have to readjust the snoot. It can take a little while, but you will find a system that suits your style of shooting.
If you are serious about snooting, you might consider a small portable underwater tripod for your snoot strobe or light. That way it is completely independent of your camera rig. This can be extremely helpful in fixing your snoot-light exactly on your subject while allowing you some freedom to adjust your composition and position of your camera. Good options for a small tripod set up can be made with the ULCS Tripod Clamp . There are many ways to configure this, so if you would like some help, write or call us.
Remember when snooting, if you want a black background, to use the highest shutter speed possible. This will help darken the area not hit by the light. For more on blue and black backgrounds, go here. Don't expect your first shots to come out with your lighting right on-target. This is a process of getting familiar with your gear: shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust and shoot some more. Did I mention this takes some patience and practice? But the results can be rewarding if you keep at it.
If you want to get hands on with the different snoots in the shop; set up an appointment, and we will be happy to help!
Image: Shen Collazo
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Or how to finally give your dive buddy a job.
Text, Images & Modeling by Kevin Palmer and Tanya Burnett
If you want to publish photos in a magazine, you will likely need to get used to working with a model. If you want to please friends and family, it helps to get used to shooting divers underwater and if you want to give a sense of size and perspective - nothing works better than a model.
All this seems pretty natural, but it can be surprisingly difficult to get a shot that flatters the subject, enhances the impact of the environment and engages the viewer in some fashion. This only comes with practice; both on the part of the photographer and the model. A willing teammate in your imaging effort makes a huge difference in your success rate. Trying to capture a disengaged random diver at just the right moment and right position can be a long shot at best. So here are some guidelines to help increase your success.
1) The first thing to consider the kind of shot you want to take. The vast majority of underwater photography utilizing a model is wide angle - this is not always the case, but we will look at alternatives later. For now, lets assume you will be shooting wide angle, and often, the wider, the better. That means you want something that will provide either a fisheye angle of coverage or an extremely wide rectilinear field of view. This can be achieved by either using the appropriate wide lens behind a port, or a wet wide angle conversion lens in conjunction with an appropriate focal length behind a port. Both options can produce excellent results depending on your camera set up.
You may be thinking, "Why would someone want to shoot a model using a fisheye lens with all of its distortion"? Well, this is likely the most common lens used for all those diver-on-the-reef shots you see in dive magazines every month. The main reason for this is that unless you are shooting models in a pool, water conditions and clarity are rarely optimal and by getting as close as possible to your subject (a few feet away), the water will look clearer than it really is and you will be able to light your subject bringing out pleasing color and contrast. You will need to be mindful of distortion and we will cover tips for handling this.
If you are just going to use your model as a background silhouette, you still need that wide angle of coverage to get close to the reef and mange to keep the model in the frame when they are up in the water column.
2) Unless you are shooting ambient light, you need good strong strobes. Lighting up your model - including inside the mask - is easier with two powerful strobes.
3) Some people will see this as a cliche, but having the model hold an underwater light, or if holding a camera, turning on the strobe modeling light on the camera rig can help make your model more dynamic and draw the viewers eye. It is important that the light not be too powerful or aimed directly at the camera - it should only be a compliment.
The job of a photographer and model is a challenge that needs to be respected by both parties. If you are working with a spouse or significant other, make sure the relationship can handle it! I am only slightly joking here. Communication above water can often be misunderstood, but communication underwater is almost always misunderstood to one degree or another - usually associated with great frustration, lots of eye rolling and wild hand gestures. A lot of this can be mitigated by going over hand signals in advance. At least the basics: "Hold Position", "Go Up, Go Down", "Forward, Back", "Watch Your Fin Position", "Direction to be Looking", "Go Horizontal, Go Vertical".
In a perfect world, your model buddy will learn to see the shot like you do and start to do some things before you even ask... but don't count on it and don't be afraid to give polite and understanding guidance. Otherwise you might not have a model in the future.
One trick to explain to your model is that if you are using a good size dome and you are trying to silhouette the model against the sun for instance; the model should be able to see themselves reflected in the dome in relation to where the sun is. That way they can adjust their position accordingly.
Before you go on your dive, check out your model's gear. Are there loose straps and hoses that can be tidied up? Pressure gauge clipped off? Does their tank look decent or is it better to swap to another one?
Your job as a photographer is to find the most appealing location possible for your model and guide them (Patiently) into it. Appealing to you, should mean flattering to them, so some guidelines should apply.
If you can get two divers to model - extra points!
You didn't hear this from me, but there may be times when you or your buddy may need to hold your breath. Often times exhales will trigger a rain of calcium flakes and debris from an overhang that will ruin a shot and possibly damage animals. Another is shooting steeply upwards toward your silhouetted model where a chain of bubbles heading for them will do no good at all for the image. Always practice common sense and be aware of your surroundings. Safety first, protect your environment and if that is doable, then go for the shot.
There can be times when we break many traditional rules intentionally - nothing is ever absolute!
Can you use a model when shooting macro? Sure - not always easy, but it can be done!
Can you work with a model while shooting ambient light? Absolutely!
Sometimes your model doesn't even need to be in the water!
...And sometimes shooting down towards a model works. Especially when it tells a story.
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In this article we will cover various lenses for Canon EF-S mount cameras. These APS-C format sensors are approximately 24×16 mm. Its dimensions are about 2/3 those of the 35mm film format (29mm vs 43mm diagonal, approx.).
Macro
Fisheye
Super Wide Rectilinear
Mid-range Zoom
Specialty Lenses
For those starting out in underwater DSLR photography, we have no higher recommendation than to start with a Canon 60mm.
This is usually the first lens I’ll recommend to new photographers. With its fast accurate autofocus, this lens will deliver results right away with little frustration. It will be rewarding right out of the box.
The EF-S 60 can attain 1:1 macro, but does so basically at the end of your macro port. If a subject can run away, it probably won’t let you get that close. This is a great lens for fish portraits, macros of stationary subjects, and for close-up shooting in dirty water. More...
100mm, 1/125th, f/16
100mm, 1/125th, f/20
I have used this lens on 9 out of 10 macro dives. The main advantage of this lens is the added standoff distance gained over the shorter macros. The 100mm attains 1:1 reproduction about 6” in front of your port, giving you some breathing room between the underwater housing and skittish subjects. Conversly, you may find that you sometimes have to back up too much on larger subjects in dirty water.
The longer minimum focus distance also allows the use of water contact close up lenses or housed close up lenses for super macro shooting. I’ll often use a +6-+10 diopter or SMC wet lens on the end of the port, which brings the minimum focus distance in to about 3” in front of the port, but allows 2:1 macro reproduction.
Being a longer macro, its autofocus can sometimes hunt, so a good focus light is very important. The AF motor is fast, but low contrast subjects can be tricky. A focus gear isn’t absolutely critical with this lens, if your underwater housing offers convenient access to the AE-L/AF-L or AF-ON controls from the right handle. Assuming you can access these buttons easily, you can “lock & rock” with this lens, allowing you to let auto focus get close, lock af, then rock in and out for fine focus. The original 2.8 version of this lens is still available and is generally a good value. It doesn't have the Image Stabilization of the 2.8L series, though that is not critical when using a strobe. That being said, the L series lens has come down in price a lot and is a great lens for the money.
The curved aperture blades on this lens yield a very smooth out of focus area, and this lens is very sharp. More...
This lens gets top honors as the sharpest, nicest fisheye available for Canon whether fixed focal or zoom. The only downside to this lens compared to the Tokina 10-17mm listed below is that it is about double the cost and doesn't zoom all the way to 17mm so it has a little less "reach". But if you want best in class glass; this is it. The dome works great with Large domes and small 100mm-140mm for exceptional close-focus wide angle.
Canon 8-15mm at 10mm, 1/250 second, f/8
No, it isn’t made by Canon, but Tokina started a revolution with this first fisheye zoom. This is a very good optic at a great price, which perfectly suits what I want in a fisheye lens for underwater photography.
This close focusing fisheye lens works extremely well behind nearly every dome port, even allowing specialty ports like the Zen Underwater DP-100 Fisheye Macro port to be used.
Lionfish on Reef; Close Focus Wide Angle
Tokina 10-17 at 10mm, 1/250 second, f/8
This is an extremely wide lens that focuses very close. At 10mm, its field of view is nearly 180 degrees. When zoomed to 17mm, it has a 110 degree field of view. I use this lens at 10mm for close focus wide angle shooting, and will zoom in on occasion to crop to a more pleasing composition, or frame a more skittish subject tightly. This versatility makes 10-17 my go to lens on DX or EF-S Camera. More...
Tokina 10-17mm at 10mm
1/200th, f/7.1
Tokina 10-17mm at 13mm
1/250th, f/8
This too is a very good lens, and used to be my first choice in the days prior to Tokina 10-17. Sigma 15 has a 120 degree field of view on a DX sensor, and just a touch of barrel distortion, but not enough to be distracting. More...
Sigma 15mm 1/200th, f/6.3
Canon 15mm f/2.8
This is a good lens, but a pretty old design. The Sigma 15mm was always my first choice due to its better close focus ability. More...
Wait you are thinking: that is a kit lens and not wide angle at all! Yes that is true, but it is also a contemporary, fast focusing lens with excellent optics that happens to work superbly well with Nauticam's amazing WACP-1. This is our favorite way to shoot wide angle on a crop sensor Canon. You get excellent sharp corners and near fisheye 130 degree FOV with focus to the glass CFWA capability AND incredible zoom range for isolating sharks in the blue or fish portraits. For more information on this ground breaking lens combination, go here. Nothing else produces this versatility. For those that want the fastest lens possible and are will to give up some zoom range, the Sigma 18-35 does a beautiful job.
There are situations where a fisheye lens is just too wide, and if I don't have a WACP as mentioned above, I’ll reach for a superwide rectilinear lens like the 10-24. Subjects like scalloped hammerheads, eagle rays, and pelagic fish often won’t let you get close enough to give these magnificent subjects the prominence they deserve with a fisheye lens, and you’ll need something with more reach. There are lots of options, and most of them are decent, but 10-24 has become my choice because it has slightly sharper corners with most dome ports.
Of all the superwide rectilinear lenses I’ve tested, this one has the best corner sharpness behind common 8” domes. Even with large domes, you’ll still see some corner softness, and it will be more apparent at closer focusing distances and open apertures. In most cases a single element close-up lens (commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as a diopter) improves corner sharpness, but this isn’t without consequence. The close-up lens will also reduce the field of view, increase pincushion distortion, and increase purple fringing. In general I’ll use a close-up lens in situations where soft corners are distracting (wrecks, reefs), but won’t when shooting sharks & pelagics in blue water.
You probably aren’t going to be happy with the corner sharpness you’ll get using this lens behind a 6 or 7” dome port. The 8 or 9” options are much better. More...
Again, most all of these corner sharpness issues are corrected when using a WACP, which is why it makes for such a powerful option.
This is a great EF lens and will do a nice job, but the price, size and weight may discourage its use for EF-S mount
I have to admit, I love to shoot this lens topside. The short focal length (which I can hand hold even after a few cups of coffee) and /2.8 aperture make this one of my favorites in low light conditions. Its relatively limited range and slightly softer corners in most dome ports have led me to prefer Nikon’s 10-24. This is a very good option, though. More...
This is another good choice, especially if you already own it. Less expensive than a Canon 10-22. More...
This is another usable option, but it has the weakest corner sharpness of all of the lenses listed here. More...
There have been four versions of this lens (original, HSM, OS HSM and current OS HSM C), and all four have been popular choices for underwater shooting. The HSM and OS HSM lenses are dramatically fatter than the original, but the newest is mid size , fast focusing and the best of the bunch. We do have solutions for most major housing brands. This is a favorite lens of many EF-S shooters and offers more flexibility than any other mid-range lens.
17-70mm at 26mm, 1/160th, f/9
A midrange zoom like this is not my first choice for underwater shooting, but there are situations where a lens that is almost wide angle, and almost macro, is appropriate. This range works well for fish id shots, skittish big fish, and “almost” shooting. These strengths can be useful on an exploratory dive, night dives, or dives when you just need a change of pace.
17-70mm at 38mm, 1/60th, f/4
The real key to choosing a midrange zoom is to pay attention to the lens’ maximum reproduction ratio. This Sigma zoom gets the nod here purely because it can shoot 1:2 macro (a subject about 4cm across on APS-C). Most of the Canon options are limited to 1:4 or worse macro shooting, which doesn’t give me the versatility I need in this lens. This close focusing ability also means this lens can be shot behind most dome ports without a close-up lens.
17mm, 1/160th, f/16
A lens of this range can be shot behind either a dome port or a flat port. Which is better depends on your goals… If you want to use the midrange zoom for bigger stuff that is skittish, or for fish portraits, I think a dome is the best choice. If closeup shooting with a bit of versatility is your preference, a flat port is a good choice (but there might be a bit of vignetting at 17mm, depending upon the diameter of the flat port front). I almost always use this lens behind a dome, as I’m looking for a change of pace from the other macros in my bag when I mount this lens. If I didn’t travel with a 60mm macro, I might think about adding a flat port for this lens.
This is a good choice, capable of shooting 1:3 macro, and fast. This is a fat lens, which can complicate zoom gear availability though.
These lenses certainly aren’t the best choice, but they are packaged in kits with lots of digital slr cameras, so we encounter them frequently. They don’t have the macro ability of 17-70, but are decent for fish portraits and almost wide angle shooting behind a dome with a +2 or +4 close up lens. More...
35mm on EF-S has the same field of view as a 52.5mm lens on full frame, so this is a very familiar lens to a photographer coming from a full frame system. Personally I’m after a longer focal length here. More...
Good optically, but slow focusing.
This is a way to shoot super macro with a 40% bump in magnification over the standard 100mm with the same minimal focus distance. You are committed though for the whole dive.
This lens is very good optically, and combined with a close-up lens it is an excellent super macro tool. Personally I find it a bit too long on a APS-C sensor for close quarters macro work, but it can excel with shy subjects that can only be shot at a distance of 18” - 24+” The autofocus can be a bit challenging on older EF-S cameras compared to the newest camera bodies on the market. More...
Text and Photos by Kevin Palmer
I am from the Pleistocene era, so I remember the joys of shooting with 35mm film and getting the most wonderful burst of sun rays in the background of the image with only modest adjustments to exposure. Film just handled these over exposed plays of light against a blue background really well.
With the digital revolution, almost everything about taking pictures underwater improved enormously. But there was this one disappointing aspect: that sunburst in the background was now an amorphous mushy blob with weird color banding around it. Many of us just quit having direct sunlight in the shot as it wasn't worth it.
Digital has come a long way and dynamic range (the ability to maintain digital information and detail over a broad range of exposure in an image) has improved greatly as well as the software that interprets the light information that is being received by the camera sensor. So things have gotten good enough to take advantage this background composition tool, but there are a number of guidelines that will bring out the best of what your digital camera is capable of.
Get shallow, stop it down, turn up those strobes.
Late day sun is easy on the sensor
Close to the surface and high shutter speed!
Deeper, but you can just see the ripples on the surface.
Use the structure you have!
Shooting the rays in a cave follows exactly the same principles.
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By Kevin Palmer
So what is the difference between macro - already pretty small - and "Super Macro"?
Macro Wet Lenses are one of the most popular ways to increase magnification and they offer the flexibility to be removed during the dive, but they also Reduce Minimum Focus. This means getting closer than you think. If a quality optic is chosen and matched to the lens, this option offers the highest potential image quality.
A tele-extender (also called a tele-converter) can increase magnification from 40-100% without reducing minimum focus – which is cool, but you give up some image quality in the process and you can't take it off underwater.
Could you go crazy and use both tools at once? Absolutely - but realistically, there are so many lens combinations and high quality water contact optic options, that probably won't be necessary for amazing super macro. Lets look at the options more closely.
Since macro wet lenses have become so popular and produced by so many manufacturers, it pays to understand all the nomenclature around them.
+5 +10 +15 +25 - what does it mean?
This known as a diopter rating. Just like the diopter rating of your reading glasses if you use them. Many macro wet lenses are rated this way from +5 to +25. There is a formula to calculate your exact minimum focus distance depending on your lens when using wet lenses rated in diopter strength, but knowing that really doesn't make our photos better. Suffice it to say that the higher the diopter rating, the closer you will have to get to your subject to achieve sharp focus. It also means, the closer you get, the more magnified your subject will be.
These standard diopter rated lenses have been made for underwater imaging for years and there has been a range of quality. People sometimes ask if they can use there inexpensive terrestrial close up lenses in the water, but because the lens is curved for use in air, the minute you put it underwater, most of the magnification goes away - again, not useful.
The way manufacturers got around this problem was by taking inexpensive diopter rated lenses meant for use in air, then sandwiching them between two pieces of flat glass that are sealed - and voila', in-air performance. The downside to this set up is that every time water hits flat glass, there is some diffraction that causes chromatic aberrations ("CA" for short), which means colors don't quite line up right. So on a flat port for your lens, you get a little bit, but add a diopter rated close up lens and it is at least tripled. And you have to get really close to your subject. So it works, but there are newer, better solutions.
The introduction of this lens about five years ago changed everything with super macro. Nauticam re-thought the problem and after hundreds of hours of computer algorithm time, came up with a design that had no flat glass and all the elements were designed to function in water as a combination of traditional close up lens and tele-converter. So more magnification, less CA and less reduction in minimum focus distance. When we first tried the lens on a dive next to a traditional +10 rated close up lens, the difference was astounding. Not only did the SMC provide more magnification and working room, it was easier to see through and easier to focus through. The image quality was also vastly improved. The lens immediately became the standard of the industry. Since that time, Nauticam has introduced the SMC-2, the CMC-1 and the CMC-2. These are all macro wet lenses uniquely designed for different applications, but with the same philosophy of purpose. You will notice that none of these lenses are diopter rated, because they are not made with diopter rated off-the-shelf glass, they use different custom lens technology. These lenses are generally a bit more expensive than standard diopter rated wet lenses, so each shooter needs to asses what will best suit their needs and we are happy to help if it all seems confusing! Remember, the more magnification, the more challenging the shot will be!
Focus, Focus, Focus
The difference between a knock-your-socks-off shot and an "oh that's pleasant" shot is often just a few millimetres of focus variation. With today's high resolution cameras and super macro's shallow depth of field, you need all the help you can get to dial in the shot.
So why all the fuss with stopping the auto-focus? Take a look at the shot below, this critter is commonly called a Ladybug and it is only 2-3mm long. What are the odds your AF is going to lock on to its little eyeballs by itself?
By locking focus or using manual focus we can make slight adjustments in composition and movement forward and backward without the camera hunting for new focus. Equally important, we can take several shots in a row without having to catch focus each time. This can make a big difference in our success rate! Of course, this also requires being able to see your subject clearly - so good viewfinder function is also important.
Composition and Plane of Focus
Isn't it hard enough to just get the shot rather than have to also worry about composition? Well it is true that it is challenging, but any of us who have attempted shots of things like hairy shrimp, or skeleton shrimp, know that 9 out of 10 shots of these things are unrecognizable. Photograph the back end of a hairy shrimp and you pretty much have a fuzz ball - not pretty. Have you ever noticed the pygmy sea horses hate looking at the camera? Yes, we have all been there.
So, as a rule, when possible, try to find a background or open water that allows the outline of the subject to show clearly. Not always possible, but try. Next, we have to get an eye, our what passes as an eye on some animals (rhinophores?) - this will usually be the primary point of focus if it is a critter. Abstracts (often a great place to start and practice) can be a lot more forgiving!
Look - no eyes to keep in focus
Even, with this kind of shot, pick the right eyes to focus on!
Eyes and background!
OK, can you see why this shot isn't as good as it could be? This is a 4mm nudie - so it is challenging and very shallow depth of field. There is no eye, so the rhinophore should be the target. But I got the back one instead of the front one - that is why we lock focus and take several shots!
Aperture Settings
Because Super Macro by definition is shallow depth of field (all things being equal, the greater the subject magnification, the less depth of field), there is a tendancy to shoot images with the smallest aperture possible. On a DSLR camera, this can be as small as f64! In the old days of digital and older days of film, there was a definite limit to the detail that could be captured and we didn't notice a problem with stopping down our aperture. With modern digital cameras, the resolution is so fine, we now notice the impact of diffraction. Diffraction is what happens when the opening of the aperture is so small that the light rays have to spread at a very steep angle to hit the sensor. This makes the image look softer and you loose detail.
In this series of crops done by Alex Mustard, you can clearly see the effects of diffraction.
This doesn't mean you can't stop down your aperture for Super Macro, just try to use this tool in moderation and realize there is no "free lunch" when you do so. A good compromise for full frame cameras might be to use nothing smaller than f22, but each situation is unique and over time, good judgement will produce good images.
The more tools you have and the more practice you engage in, the more impressive your results will be. Super Macro can be found on every reef in the ocean - and it opens a whole new world.
We cover many of these techniques in our workshops - check them out and let us know if you have questions!
]]>By Kevin Palmer
Many photographers like jet black backgrounds in their macro images because the subject seems to "pop" in dramatic relief. Additionally, it often removes distracting or ugly backgrounds and if composed well, images can be down right artsy. But on the other hand, a black background rarely tells a story about the subjects environment and in the case of a darker subject, perhaps the dark background doesn't do it justice. Regardless of the reasoning, sometimes it just pays to experiment and shooting differently exposed backgrounds can be easy with a cooperative subject.
Light, Shutter, Aperture, ISO
Unlike cooking a gourmet meal, there are only four ingredients that go into exposing foregrounds and backgrounds. It is how you mix them that makes the difference. When shooting macro or very close focus wide angle, you will generally have more latitude with your settings because you are close to your subject. At close proximity, it is easy to have enough strobe power to light your subject even when you have chosen light restricting settings - this makes black backgrounds easy.
It is also worth noting that to create the preferred effects with your backgrounds, it will always be easier shooting in full manual. It doesn't mean you can't make it work with some auto-exposure settings, but it is easier in manual. Popular cameras like the Olympus TG-6 that don't have full manual and only a few aperture settings and shutter sync speed options will have more difficulty than a camera with more flexibility.
Copyright DYIPhotography
Here is a quick analysis of what each of our four ingredients does:
Light
Unless you are shooting at night, you are usually working with two sources of light. One is coming from your strobes or constant lighting device, the other is ambient light usually coming from the sun. Ambient light can be very subtle if you are deep, the sky is cloudy, its early or late in the day or you are diving in an overhead environment. But ambient light can be quite bright if it is shallow mid-day conditions or if you you are angling your shot towards the sun.
Shutter Speed
The range of shutter sync speeds (the shutter speeds that the camera allows you to successfully fire a strobe with) that are available to you will vary from camera to camera. The default slowest sync speed for most cameras is usually 1/60th of a second, though this can be adjusted. The fastest sync speed varies widely - usually from 1/160th of a second to 1/320th of a second. You sometimes have to raise or lower the allowable sync speed in the menu based on your needs.
The most important rule of shutter speed is that it has no effect on strobe lit foreground subjects. Most strobes fire for a shorter time than the shutter sync speed, so the exposure is entirely controlled by your strobes on your primary subject. Conversely, shutter speed has a significant impact on the exposure of ambient lit backgrounds.
Aperture
Unlike shutter speed, aperture influences the amount of all light that enters the camera lens; both foreground and background. While this is true, since we are working very close to our subject, we can largely compensate the apertures effect on the subject by adjusting our strobe power.
ISO
ISO increases or decreases the sensitivity of the camera to all light, so when it comes to light, it functions in much same way as aperture, although the influence on dynamics other than light are different between the two.
OK, that is a lot of preamble for a fairly simple set of rules for back ground exposure, so lets get started.
Rules for Black Background Close Focus Photography
Easy right? Just a few things to remember as you experiment. Remember that if you change your ISO, it will effect every aspect of your exposure. If you change your aperture it will also effect every aspect of your exposure. If you change your shutter speed, it will only effect your background exposure and finally, your strobe power should only effect your foreground exposure (if aimed correctly).
Remember that one of the reasons we choose NOT to make a black background is to complement the subject color and give a sense of environment. This dark Rhinopius below, would have been as interesting with a black background.
Rules for a Lighter blue or Green Background In Close Focus Photography
Blue backgrounds are slightly more complicated to shoot only because you are trying to fine tune the right exposure to create a pleasing tone in the water that compliments your subject. For a black background, you can't really can't overdo it just make it black and you are good.
Photo Shen Collazo
The more you play with these simple concepts, the more you will discover in your experimentation. Don't get stuck in a rut - you can transform the look of your work with the spin of a camera dial! If you have more questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us here at Reef Photo. We are happy to help. We also cover many of these techniques in our workshops.
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By Kevin Palmer
Sony has made huge impact on the mirrorless camera world with its full frame A7/A7II/A7III/ A7IV / A9 series that have sought to claw away some of the full frame still and video shooters from Canon and Nikon as well as provide an upgrade path to existing mirrorless camera shooters. Sony has also not held back on the introduction of high quality lenses in addition to the existing options of Canon mount lenses on a Metabones adapter. Add in some of Nauticam’s superb water contact optic options and it can be enough to make the choices a bit dizzying.
We here at Reef Photo have spent a lot of time with these cameras and wanted to lay out some of our favorite options and why. These are not every option out there and they may not be the best options for everyone, but if you have questions about anything you don’t see listed here, contact us and we will be happy to discuss all the possibilities.
Fisheye and other Super Wide Options (From widest to less wide)
Mounted on a Metabones adapter, this lens offers 180 degree diagonal FOV on full frame and provides great close focus wide angle capability with a small dome. In Super 35 crop mode on the A7/A9, it offers 10-15mm zoom capability. Auto Focus is very good with this combination. The less expensive Tokina 10-17 for Canon offers a similar FOV zoom range, but gives up a little quality on full frame. Important: Sigma 15mm fisheye for Canon does not auto-focus on the Metabones adapter at this time.
This super compact 130 degree FOV water contact lens set up is great for general wide angle and close focus wide angle – very good edge to edge sharpness at an “almost fisheye” angle of coverage.
This combination (along with the excellent Tamron 28-75 2.8Di III RXD with the WACP-1) is easily the most versatile overall zoom combination while giving up some of the compactness of the 28mm WWL-1 combination mentioned above. Excellent quality 130 degree FOV at 28mm down to about 70 degree FOV on the narrow end covers most shooters needs most of the time. Close focus down to the glass throughout the zoom range. For more information on the WACP take a look at at review article and our video article, both covering this lens.
Canon’s excellent super wide angle rectilinear lens can also be shot with a Metabones adapter. Considering it is less coverage and lower image quality (underwater) than the 28-70 and WACP mentioned about, this probably only makes sense for people who already own the lens.
Sony's entry into the super wide angle zoom field has proved to be a very good performer and as a native Sony lens would generally be a better choice than the Canon 11-24 on a EF to E-mount adapter.This has been the most popular 16-35 lens option for full frame Sonys thanks to how well it performs behind a smaller dome (by full frame standards) – a 170mm to 180mm dome is plenty for good image quality in a reasonable size package. The newer Sony 16-35 f.2.8 GM lens as well as contemporary Canon 16-35 f2.8 and Sigma wide Angle lenses for Canon all work well, but require a full 230mm dome to compete with Sony’s 16-35 f4 in a 180mm.
Mid-Range Lens Options
This “kit” lens is really Sony’s most useful mid-range lens. It can be shot with Nauticam’s WACP as is mentioned above offering an extremely wide coverage down to mid-range portrait capability. The 28-70 can also be shot in a compact flat port in combination with a flip and Super Macro Converter, SMC, making for a narrow portrait to macro lens combination.
These Sony mid-range lenses, while of excellent quality, require a fairly large dome and may not have the versatility of other options unless you already own the lens and shoot this focal length range a lot.
Macro Lens Options
The Sony 90mm macro lens has fantastic image quality and a focus style best described as “cinematic” – slow and smooth. It works well with macro wet lenses, but anyone shooting Super macro or macro video will definitely want a manual focus gear on this lens.
Canon’s full frame macro lens works well with a Metabones adapter and offers a different “feel” than the Sony 90mm, but the necessary adapter and N120 macro port will be a bit bulkier than the 90mm N100 port.
Have another lens or specialty need you are wondering about? Let us know! We love talking underwater imaging.
]]>Hands on with the Sony A6600
By Kevin Palmer
When you have been shooting SLR cameras for a long time, it is easy to get stuck in a kind of snobbish mindset when it comes to mirrorless cameras for underwater photography. And I admit to being guilty of this at times… OK, a lot of times. But it has not always been without reason. Mirrorless cameras of the past were small (nice), but also felt not quite solid, picture taking was not quite instant, the view blacked out when shooting, the batteries died quickly and most importantly, the auto-focus was, well, less than inspiring. Have you ever tried to shoot a Flasher Wrasse at dusk for that split second of full display with a long macro lens on a traditional mirrorless camera? Let’s just say your odds used to be similar to those of your winning the lottery.
But that was then, and this is now. And the best example of a “now” camera design might be the Sony A6600. The minute you pick up this new Sony you notice how it feels like a “real” camera. It has a carved from a single block kind of solidness often lacking in a small camera like this and, finally, a grip you can hold on to. These may not make a huge difference once you put your camera in an underwater housing, but it speaks to this being and impressive accomplishment for a very reasonable price tag.
When it comes to specifications, camera manufacturers rarely deliver all of the wish-list that camera fans hope for, but as underwater shooters, there are some features that are more important than others. So what did Sony give us on the A6600? For starters, Sony fans should celebrate the new battery. It is the same battery supplying the full frame A7RIV camera and the difference in run time is huge. Many shooters may be able to get a full day of diving in on one battery charge. I carried the camera around for close to two weeks, playing with menus, displays settings, took it for a dive, etc… and never had to recharge it once. Thank you Sony.
Two card slots – finally! What took Sony so long? Who knows, but the A6600 has them which means, stills and video can be separate or you can backup to the second card or just take a whole lot of images without downloading.
Resolution at 24.2MP and the video specs haven’t really changed from the A6500, but they were already well regarded, and the software and processing continues to improve.
The biggest improvement that won me over? This is finally a crop sensor Sony that can run with the DSLRs in the auto-focus department. The improvement over the A-6500 and even the Sony A7RIII is nothing short of amazing. Auto-focusing Sony’s excellent 90mm macro lens on older Sony cameras underwater (crop sensor and full frame) was often akin to a sea sickness inducing game of patience. Lots of very slow moving and aimless hunting while you tried to lock it in the right location. Manual focus gears were almost mandatory. Those days are over and good riddance! Mount the Sony 90mm on the A6600 and the first thing you notice is that lens focuses nearly three times faster than on older cameras. It actually seems reasonable to isolate a single moving reef fish. Not only is the lens operate more quickly, but the ability to lock focus on a subject is now consistently accurate with only an occasional hunt on a low contrast subject - much like any modern quality DSLR. Super macro is no longer scary with this new Sony.
Are there downsides to the Sony A6600? Well, there has been some grumbling about Sony choosing to maintain a maximum sync shutter speed of 1/160 of a second. This can prove a limitation of options in some shooting situations. The good news: There is a solution. The A6600 does not come with a pop-up flash so an LED flash trigger or electrical sync is mandatory. An LED flash trigger is an ideal solution and when testing the Nauticam Mini Flash Trigger (SKU # 36315), it turns out that you can easily sync your strobes at 1/200 of a second shutter speed! Problem solved. Better yet, if you are shooting wide angle where the top 5% of the frame is rarely strobe lit, you can easily get away with shooting 1/250 of a second. The portion of the image not exposed to strobe light is quite small, but it would not be recommended to shoot 1/250 for macro work where the lighting is more likely to hit all borders of the image.
Finally: High sync speed underwater thanks to a manual LED flash trigger
What else makes this camera noteworthy? More great accessories when matched with a high quality underwater housing. The Sony 16-50 power zoom has always been a popular and compact lens to use in an underwater housing. Combine that with high quality water-contact wide angle converter lenses like the Nauticam WWL-1 and you had great performance and flexibility. But the WWL-1 was designed for 28mm equivalent lenses which required some zooming in to eliminate vignetting. Now there is a new crop of 24mm equivalent wide angle conversion lenses with the Nauticam WWL-C at the top of that heap. Nauticam even managed to shorten it's already compact port for the 16-50 so that when used with the new WWL-C wet lens, there is minimal vignetting at 16mm with the Sony lens and remarkable range and image quality in a package that is noticeably shorter and lighter than with the traditional WWL-1 set up for the 16-50mm lens.
The WWL-C is low profile and easy to handle, even with the built in float collar. 130 degree coverage and complete zoom through capability never looked so good.
Photo by Kevin Palmer
Current Underwater Housings for the Sony A6600 Camera:
Fantasea for A6600 - Coming Soon
Ikelite for A6600 - Coming Soon
]]>A lot of macro enthusiasts shoot Nikons underwater and Nikon has always embraced macro shooters by offering perhaps more macro lens options than any other camera manufacturer. The two most popular lenses, by far, have been the Nikkor 60mm 2.8 (D&G series) and the Nikkor 105mm 2.8 (D&G series). Both the older D series and newer G series lenses provide excellent image quality and in the newer versions, reasonable focus speed.
For APS-C (Crop Sensor) shooters, the 60mm macro lens has been prized for its easy use and friendly focusing characteristics. It is indeed a great fish portrait lens and a good macro lens assuming the subject will let you get very close. But because if focuses so closely, it has never been a great lens for shy subjects and it generally doesn’t work well with macro wet lenses to get anything better than 1 to 1 macro reproduction on little critters. This leads many to try Nikon’s 105mm macro lens which definitely provides more reach for shy subjects and can offer great super macro potential with macro wet lenses. But the down side is that many people find the lens a little too challenging to focus and a bit limiting as it is difficult to frame even modest size subjects like frogfish without backing away a little farther than is ideal for lighting and image quality. Fortunately, there is a near perfect compromise lens providing much of the best qualities of both lenses and few, if any, of the downsides.
Enter the AF-S Micro Nikkor 85mm 1:3.5G ED VR lens. The only reason I can see this lens having gotten overlooked as much as it does is that it is strictly a DX lens and not full frame. But that has its advantages as well. This lens is surprisingly small and light (just a little bigger than the 60mm) for the larger focal length and not half the size of a 105mm. But for a Nikon D7500/D500/Z-50, this lens really hits the sweet spot.
You would be hard pressed to get this close to a small goby or blenny with a 60mm lens. The 85 has minimum focus over 10" from the camera.
So if you already own a 60mm, is an 85mm going to make much difference? Actually, the difference is surprisingly large. The 85mm is the fastest and easiest focusing lens of the bunch – better than the 60mm and much, much better than the 105. The 85mm also gives you more reach, without being too far from larger subjects. But one of the coolest features is how well the 85mm works with macro wet lenses for super macro. If you have been struggling with a 60mm lens and a diopter to take pictures of ¼” nudies and cropping the heck out of the shot, you will love what you can do with the 85mm and a strong macro wet lens. It comes very close to the reproduction you get with a 105mm and macro wet lens, but with much easier to achieve results!
Nice smooth Bokeh for shallow depth of field shots.
Tack sharp across the image when you want it.
No problem shooting larger subjects, similar to what you would use a 60mm for.
You might be able to get a small blenny shot with a 60mm or 105mm...
...but can you get this kind of uncropped shot? You can with an 85mm and Nauticam SMC-1.
This nudibranch is about 3/4" and perfect for the 85mm.
Here it is with a close up lens on the 85mm port.
The auto focus is so fast, that even a soft coral crab perched on a sea pen waving in the current is an easy shot.
Would your macro lens allow you to auto-focus inside a tunicate to catch a crustacean?
This cling fish looks pretty great in its crinoid...
...but downright amazing with a Nauticam SMC on the Nikon 85mm.
Close ups will tell a story you haven't been able tell before.
But if all you want to do is just easily capture great marine life doing its thing, the 85mm macro is hard to beat.
]]>By now, a lot of people have heard about, and seen images taken with, Nauticam’s impressive WACP on full frame cameras. The water contact optic has been a game changer for sharp wide angle performance offering corner to corner image quality and aperture flexibility. Less has been seen with APS-C sensors, though videographers have made excellent use of the WACP with S-35 sensors that are similarly proportioned. This article hopes to demonstrate that the WACP should certainly be on the list for consideration if you are wide angle enthusiast shooting crop sensor DSLR cameras.
WACP: What is it?
For those that haven’t gotten familiar with this Nauticam product, the name stands for Wide Angle Conversion Port. This is not a wet lens in the traditional sense of the word; where water is in contact with both the front and rear of the optics. But it IS a water contact optic, designed to only be used underwater. It is also a port in that it takes the place of a dome or flat port and mounts directly to the housing over a compatible camera lens. These optical lens elements built into the port actually correct many of problems associated with shooting wide angle lenses behind a dome. It is a conversion port, because it converts the angle of coverage of the lens that is being used behind it – making it wider. A ballpark rule of thumb is that it approximately doubles the field of view of whatever focal length you are zooming to, while reducing minimum focus.
Lens options:
One of the most versatile options for Nikon and Canon crop sensor Shooters are the trusty old 18-55 lenses sometimes disparagingly referred to as “kit lenses”. Perhaps that is their origin, but for an underwater image maker this provides a huge zoom range utilizing a fairly modern lens. If you want to go even more state of the art, then the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 Art series offers a fast lens and superb results, albeit with a bit less zoom range.
Why?
The answer to this will vary from person to person. Those used to shooting fisheye zooms like the Tokina 10-17, maybe perfectly happy with that lens which is great. Others find that it just doesn’t have enough “reach” for a lot of applications – particularly at destinations like Galapagos, Socorro, Sea of Cortez and Cocos. These places have lots of big animals, but without baiting, they are not usually right in front of your face. Even with Whales and dolphins, the fisheye is sometimes too much and provides a lot of distortion near the surface.
This is where the WACP really shines. It does provide super-wide angle at about 130 degrees, (roughly 15mm on a 10-17 fisheye zoom), but with a bit less distortion. From there, you have a huge zoom range with a lens like an 18-55 that will offer quite a bit narrower angle of coverage and provides a minimum focus of less than an inch throughout the zoom range. Once you get used to this enormous flexibility, it is hard to prefer any other option in this zoom range.
So, what can the combination deliver on a dive trip?
Tack sharp shark photos for certain.
Zoom in for great close ups as well.
Intimate reef behavior shots with a wide angle lens behind a dome are almost impossible unless you have the zoom range and close focus ability offered by the WACP.
Then turn around and shoot the big dudes on the same dive.
Beyond the zoom range, the real beauty of shooting wide angle with the WACP is just how sharp the wide angle is – from center to edge and corners. Look at the soft corals in the upper right corner.
In darker situations, you can shoot your lens at F7 or even F5.6 and still get sharp results.
It is amazing the variety of shots you can capture once freed from conventional wide angle limitations.
Amazingly detailed close-focus wide angle.
But if all you want to do grab great shots of pelagics - the WACP is pretty hard to beat.
]]>2020 Reef Photo Lembeh Workshop
November 23-December 3, 2020
Lembeh is world renowned for its amazing density of wild and wonderful marine life – particularly on the macro end of the scale.
Where is it?
Lembeh is an island off of the east coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The diving is mainly concentrated in the waters between Sulawesi and Lembeh known as the Lembeh Strait.
Where are we staying?
The NAD Lembeh Resort is perched on a quiet section of the shore bordering the Lembeh Strait. Boat rides are generally a short run to most of the dive sites.
NAD is owned and operated by underwater photographers and the planning shows. The Camera room is huge and extremely well equiped for handling all the photo and video gear. All the staff are well experienced with handling cameras and housings on and off the boats.
What is the difference between the between the Beachfront Room and the Deluxe Seaview Bungalow?
The Beachfront Rooms are adjoining rooms right at the shore level and just a few steps from the beach and the docks. The rooms are simple and comfortable and excellent for anyone looking to avoid stairs.
The Seaview Bungalows are just that – elevated bungalows perched at the edge of the rainforest just above the Beachfront rooms. There are a few stairs to access them, but they are larger and crafted of local tropical woods and bamboo and enjoy a spectacular view.
What is the food like?
Food is quite plentiful and meals are usually a hearty mix of local Indonesian cuisine and a few Western Faves. Local veggies are often incorporated. Special diets can be accommodated if notice is given in advance.
What is the easiest way to get there?
It is worth checking to see if there are flights from Singapore to Manado. There have been some airline changes and the flights are not currently available, but expected to come back at some point. With many flights from North America to Singapore, this can make easy routing.
A reliable connection is through Jakarta and then Garuda airlines to Manado. Garuda has a "sports" bag consideration for divers that can reduce overweight considerations.
There are also options flying through Bali if interested in visiting that island.
10 days of diving is a great value at NAD, but if you want more time, it is easy to extend your stay.
What’s the diving like?
A lot of the diving is “Muck” – not bad muck – great muck! That just means there are a lot of dark sand and light sand areas without a lot of reef structure, but with lots of exotic inhabitants. That doesn’t mean there is no reef – there are areas of beautiful reef and often a dive will cross a reef or end near a shallow reef, but that is not always the focal point. Generally there is very little current and the diving is easy. Some dives have special star subjects and the guides will be sure point them out.
Will I have help finding these crazy critters?
Yes! Amazingly, NAD provides a guide for every two divers. That means you will never be lacking for something to shoot. If something is on your “wish list” of subjects, just ask if they have seen it – the answer is usually yes!
How many dives will we have per day?
We will do at least three dives a day, but there is opportunity to do night dives, dusk mandarin dives or even Black Water night dives.
Is Nitrox Available?
Yes! Nitrox is included in the price. If you are not certified to dive Nitrox we strongly suggest you get certified before the workshop – you and your dive buddies will be glad you did.
What if I am just a “beginner”?
No problem! We would suggest at least getting familiar with your camera and equipment ahead of the trip, so you can focus on improving technique and understanding of the underwater specific challenges. A big part of what we can offer is one on one assistance, so be sure to let us know where you would like help.
More Questions?
Just let us know - we are here to help! Call us six days a week or email any time. Support.team@reefphoto.com
]]>
Still confused? Then just know that there are always techniques for photographing or videoing stuff tinier than we ever imagined if you have the right tools.
So let’s look at the tools available to us in 2018.
]]>It can mean different things for different shooters, but as a rule of thumb, regular macro goes to approximately 1:1 reproduction ratio. What the heck is that? That means that a subject the size of your sensor would fill your image frame. So on a 35mm sensor (full frame), a 35mm (1.32 inches) long nudibranch would fill image frame. Smaller sensors mean that a smaller subject would fill the frame at 1:1 reproduction. So is one way to shoot super macro a smaller sensor? Well, yes, but everything has its trade off as we will see.
So one description for Super Macro would be any magnification technique that provides greater than 1:1 reproduction, which would mean a subject smaller than the sensor would fill the frame.
Still confused? Then just know that there are always techniques for photographing or videoing stuff tinier than we ever imagined if you have the right tools.
So let’s look at the tools available to us in 2018.
How do we get big magnification without sacrificing quality?
This has long been a tug of war of sorts. Most traditional techniques of going beyond the capabilities of a high quality macro lens (on an interchangeable lens camera) usually meant giving up some sharpness, adding some chromatic aberration (color fringing), losing depth of field and working distance and often times a little distortion is added to the mix. But hey, we were shooting stuff that had never been seen with the naked eye and we were happy just to get the shot!
Options and techniques have increased markedly over the years – with mostly improved results, but there is not going to be one size-fits-all best case scenario for most people – both because of equipment differences and also because of different goals for different shooters. But there are pros and cons to most options and they are worth covering so each individual can make an informed decision. So let’s look at the big, I mean small, picture.
Traditional tools for increasing magnification underwater:
One of the more common techniques of the past – for interchangeable lens cameras - was and is Tele-Converters (Usually 1.4X, 1.7X, 2.0X) that are installed between the camera body and the lens. This definitely has an advantage over things like extension tubes in that tele-converters are “smart”, meaning they maintain auto-focus and other electronic functions of the lens while changing the effective focal length of the macro lens. Another advantage of T-Cs is that while the subject is “magnified” by the narrowing of the field view (40% with 1.4X, 70% with 1.7X, 100% with 2.0X), the minimal focus distance stays exactly the same as with original macro lens.
The down side? Once installed, it is on the whole dive. It might be too narrow to go from shooting anemone fish eggs to actually shooting the whole anemone fish. The other issue is image quality. You rarely get something for nothing and as the tele converter gets more powerful, image detail will start to suffer making anything stronger than a high quality 1.7X probably a poor choice. A T-C requires an additional extension for your macro port equivalent to the size of your tele-converter.
Traditional “Dry” Diopters
An inexpensive trick people have tried is using traditional lens diopters, +2/+4/etc., on the front of their macro lens inside the port. All diopters increase magnification by reducing minimum focus, but you also lose distance focus. So on a 60mm, 100mm or 105mm macro lens you will lose working distance and options when shooting a subject a little further away. On a longer macro lens in the 150-200mm range, this is not as problematic as the minimum focus distance is generally farther away than shorter focal length macro lens. Ultimately these diopters are limited in strength, reduce flexibility and often require an additional extension ring. So generally not a great Super Macro option.
Please note that using a “dry” diopter on the wet side of your port will produce very little magnification as the water on both sides will negate the effect of the diopter strength.
Close Focus Macro Wet Lenses
In the last 5-6 years, underwater close focus lenses have become very popular both for “regular” macro utilizing “normal” non-macro lenses of longer focal lengths and also for Super Macro when combined with good quality 1/1 macro lenses.
The vast majority of these lenses are made by combining two or more “dry” diopter lenses of different strengths and sealing them in between flat glass so that they maintain their strength. This definitely improves magnification and combining the lens with a quick release bayonet or flip mechanism made for a convenient system that allowed full use of the lens, plus extreme magnification (depending on strength) when desired.
Some of the problems with this technique are again that all diopters increase magnification by reducing minimum focus and therefor put you closer to your subject. This means that lenses that are already very close focusing like a 60mm macro on a DSLR or a 30mm macro on a Sony or Micro 4/3 camera won’t benefit much – if at all. And the stronger the diopter rating, the less room you have to light your subject as it gets ever closer to the port, even on a longer macro lens.
One other problem can be image quality. Close focus lenses do follow the “you get what you pay for” adage. Many manufacturers are using off-the-shelf diopters to make close focus wet lenses and the quality varies a lot. Beyond that is the problem of diffraction that happens every time water hits a flat piece of glass with air on the other side of it – the side effects include what many of us have seen, whether we know what it is called or not: Chromatic Aberration or “CA” for short. Anyone who has ever taken a picture of a purple anemone with a macro lens has probably noticed blue fringing around the tentacles. That is CA and every time water hits flat glass, a little CA is imparted. So if your close focus lens is just diopters between flat glass, then that means two more surfaces lowering image quality. This will partly explain why you will generally get better results with one stronger macro wet lens, then stacking two or three weaker ones as some people will do in their quest for ever smaller subjects.
On the other hand, the best water contact macro optics have no flat glass surfaces and are computer designed to enhance in-water image quality and help with working distance as well. This makes for a more expensive super macro lens, but the image quality improvement can be striking. Some can even make your super macro image sharper than the macro lens shooting through a flat port on its own.
It should also be noted that as a general rule, you will usually get greater useable magnification with a macro wet lens on a longer focal length macro camera lens than on a shorter focal length macro lens or conventional non macro lens.
An Unusual Option for Canon DSLR and EOSR
Canon makes a unique lens called an MP-E65mm F2.8 1-5X. This lens is NOT for everyone. It does not autofocus, it is useless for taking pictures of things far away. But it can offer impressive reproduction of a subject at up to 5 to 1 magnification. You can essentially select the amount of reproduction ration you want and then move the camera in until you are in focus. The more magnification you want, the closer you have to get.
Because this lens has such a limited scope of capability – it isn’t a recommended lens for most people, but it is super macro capable with no additional optics.
Making Super Macro Easy Enough to Try Often
In reviewing the options, most people will find that using high quality macro wet lenses are probably the most flexible and versatile option in more situations. But screwing and unscrewing lenses on your macro port underwater is a guaranteed way to discourage you from shooting super macro. It is just too inconvenient. We strongly recommend using a quick release bayonet mount or a well made “flip” mount. There are pros and cons to each option, but either one will make your effort easy enough to have fun with super macro any time you reach the limits of the lens you are shooting. You will probably never go in the water without one mounted on your macro lens – we certainly wouldn’t!
Other options to seriously consider are a good focus light, manual focus gears and an enhanced viewer to see the details – either an enhanced viewfinder or LCD magnifier if working with a compact.
Below are links to some of our favorite options. If you aren’t sure what will work best with your equipment and your goals, just let us know, we are here to help!
]]>Every underwater imaging enthusiast is unique and we all have a different picture of a “dream trip” or what an ideal learning situation is. That is why we try to offer a variety of options for different kinds of individuals. We keep things organized, make it easy and always focus on supporting your goals while having a good time. We love seeing our customers progress as much as you do!
Let’s start with the obvious stuff first:
Have you recently purchased a bunch of new gear and it is just a little, well – overwhelming?
Are you starting from scratch as a first time underwater photographer? Maybe you have experience, but you switched camera brands? Went from DSLR to mirrorless camera or vice versa? Every change that involves new menus or shooting style can be a little intimidating, but there are lots of shortcuts to help out and we can shorten your learning curve.
I used to take really nice photos and now they just don’t look as good – Why?
Sometimes we hear this after long awaited gear upgrade. This can be selective nostalgia, but often times new technology and improved resolution means you can “see” more imperfections in your shooting, but with a little tweaking, your photography can look better than ever.
A Different Twist: My photos are pretty good – but they look about the same as five years ago.
Sometimes we hit a plateau – and don’t even notice. We just aren’t improving any more. Sometimes it might require just “seeing with new eyes” shooting from a different perspective and getting into experimentation again. When you do a group workshop, not only do you get to experience what instructors have to offer, but you get to see how a lot of other people are shooting similar subjects. Composition, lighting technique, lens selection, super macro technique – count on getting a better understanding of all elements of photography and videography. And most importantly: how they apply to what YOU want to be able to do.
No matter how many years we have been shooting, we all get inspired by other people’s work when it comes out well – the trick is applying it!
I just want to dive in the most image productive places possible with likeminded people.
Great! You will have a blast. Our workshops are not a forced march and there will be no cracking of figurative whips. We are there to help out as much as you need and offer support. But if your goal is dive, dive, dive and just want someone to help if you get a camera issue, then you can do that as well. If your goals are modest, no one will push – this about you and what you want to accomplish.
Want to try out cool new gear before you buy it?
We always try to make available some of the latest gadgets and new equipment for people to try. Even if you want to rent a whole new camera system for the workshop, we can usually arrange it. Want to try out something specific? Let us know and we will do our best to arrange it. This is your chance to test drive what you have been thinking about!
Workshops do not have to be like going back to school – These events are actually fun!
Sure you will learn a lot, but no one is grading you (OK, you can have a critique if you want it), and everyone is there to do what they love and share the experience. And yes, you will likely meet some new faces and perhaps run into some old friends as well. We have had attendees from the age of 12 all the way up to near 80. Everyone progresses at their own pace and the most important part is getting under the water to practice and try things out.
High ratio of guides!
Have you ever been on a dive trip and you ended up dragging behind a line of 12 people with a guide up front? Not with our workshops – we know how we like to be treated on a dive trip and think you deserve the same. You can count on a guide for every 3-5 people in the water as a minimum – someone is always looking for critters for you!
I am going on my trip of a lifetime and I don’t want to spend the first week getting myself in in the underwater photography mindset and working out the kinks in my system.
Consider jumping into one of our three and a half day Blue Heron Bridge Workshops. This is a highly focused workshop to ramp up your underwater photography skillset while diving the best critter location in South Florida.
If you have more questions about any of our events – please get in touch. We are happy to answer questions!
]]>Or how I started enjoying full frame wide angle underwater again…
Photos and text by Kevin Palmer & Tanya Burnett
ISO 250 1/200 f8
Since underwater photography went digital so many years ago, there has been a love/hate relationship with wide angle rectilinear lenses behind domes – particularly with full frame cameras. A lot of the WA lenses from the film days just did not perform that well behind a dome port with digital sensors. Edges and corners were mushy and distorted and largely unusable unless in blue water. People resorted to diopters to reduce this effect (many manufactures of housings still frequently recommend these today), but diopters impart pin cushion distortion, reduce the angle of coverage and generally add a piece of glass that lessens optimal quality.
The other solution seemed to be ever increasing diameters of dome ports to try and replicate “in air” performance. The “super-dome” craze lead to people using (or at least claiming to use) domes of 12” diameter and larger. This helped image quality somewhat and bragging rights at the bar, but were extremely awkward to dive and travel with.
The introduction of newer lenses designed for digital sensors did offer improvement – particularly with APS-C cameras where the excellent Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom revolutionized wide angle shooting options and even the APS-C wide rectilinear zooms from Nikon and Canon made progress towards a little better behind-dome performance. But as more people migrated to Full frame cameras, many were struck by how limiting a fixed fisheye lens was. And equally frustrating was the 100 degree angle of view wide angle lens like the 16-35 zooms that produced soft corners and edges that still only look good in blue water. Current rectilinear wide angle full frame lenses have to be shot at a minimum of f8 to produce marginal results at the edges in at least a 230mm dome. Ideally, even smaller apertures should be applied to improve things, but this often isn’t practical and edges will never be truly “sharp”. Also important: what about the range between 180 degree fisheye and 100 degrees? There are minimal options that really work, though the $3000 Canon 11-24 is a little improvement but still falls short of ideal. Surely there had to be a solution.
ISO 160 1/160 f8
Enter the Nauticam WACP (Wide Angle Conversion Port). “Game Changing” gets tossed around a lot these days, but most of the time the described item falls pretty far short of my definition of that. But after a few weeks in the water with one on my Nauticam NA-D850 housing, it is a term I will readily apply. I know already it will change the way I shoot wide angle forever.
The Nauticam WACP is a much smaller form factor than a 230mm wide angle dome.
The WACP is water contact lens – designed from the start to be used only underwater. For those of you old enough: Remember how crispy from edge to edge the Nikonos 15mm or RS 13mm lenses were? Those were that sharp because Nikon designed them to be water-contact lenses – and they could be relatively small! This was because every element in the lens was designed, front to back, to work together while shooting underwater. People use large domes on their rectilinear lenses to compensate for not being designed specifically for a particular lens and its minimum focus point. This is part of the secret, but there is a lot more going on with the WACP. Thanks to another 25 years of software and optics evolution, the WACP does things Nikon couldn’t have imagined back in the Nikonos days.
ISO 250 1/100 f5.6
Picture yourself going on a dive to shoot a stunning reef filled with Sweet Lips. You need to get close and wide. 130 degrees of coverage is about 14-15mm on an APS-C Tokina 10-17 zoom – kind of the sweet spot – super wide, but not excessive distortion. Now imagine it is late in the day and you want some ambient light, so you’d like to shoot at f4.5 or f5.6 – you would never do that with an ordinary lens port, but you know this isn’t ordinary. You nail it – and the image is wider and the corners are sharper than that $3000 11-24 lens is when shot at F11 behind a super dome. Now you want to just frame the faces of seven or eight sweet lips – but you can’t move closer – you will spook them. So you just zoom in, frame the prettiest fish, take the shot. How cool is that.
ISO 250 1/250 f9
How big is the dome on the front of the WACP? Less than 6.5” including the shade. Because any lens you shoot behind the WACP will allow you to focus down to the glass, you can also shoot amazing close focus wide angle with this arrangement. There are dozens of lenses being tested for performance behind the WACP and there will no doubt be dozens more – but so far the selection is great and growing rapidly. What lens did I shoot these images with? A discontinued Nikon 28-70 3.5-4.5. Cost: $100, and thanks to the WACP, it outperformed any lens you can put behind a traditional dome in most categories, regardless of price.
ISO 125 1/125 f6.3
In my book, this is the definition of a game changer. I was able to shoot in ways I never thought possible and got better results than I would have any other way. And just as important – it is incredibly fun to use – I kept thinking of things to try. You have to reprogram your brain to what is possible, as it is a whole new ballgame. By the end of my trial I literally thought to myself “I will never shoot my 16-35 underwater again”. I also didn’t pick up my fisheye for two weeks…
It is important to note that although full frame shooters have had the most grievances in regard to wide angle image quality, APS-C DSLR shooters and even some mirrorless cameras can benefit as well with all the same parameters carrying over – only the focal lengths of the ideal lenses would change.
ISO 160 1/80 f8
If you have read this far, your skeptical brain is probably saying “what’s the catch – there is always a catch”. For most people there will be two primary considerations. One is the weight – there is a lot of optical glass, so it is a bit hefty in air – about 9lbs. But this may be less of a factor for many people – the WACP comes with a protective case and it is fine to throw in checked luggage as I did. I traveled to Sarong Indonesia and back with no overweight. If you eliminate some of the other redundant gear, it might be a wash. And most places we travel these days whether, land based or liveaboard, there is always some smiling staff member to carry and handle your camera for if you are not keen on carrying it. Once you are in the water – you can make your rig as weightless as you prefer. I could balance mine on one finger.
At first glance, the second concern could be price at about $5159 right now. But if you think of the cost of a 230mm dome ($2439) and wide angle lenses ($1100-$3000) and what you gain in the process – it actually seems very reasonable.
Much wider angle of coverage than any other rectilinear option – 130 degrees
Better, sharper detail on the edges at larger apertures
Sharper in the center than any other zoom behind a dome at the same focal length
Closer Focus
Smaller Dome
Greater zoom range than other wide angle lenses available
The flexibility to shoot many different lenses with different extensions
ISO 160 1/160 f8
The WACP is not the perfect set up for every photographer, but there will be a whole lot of people who will be taking more great pictures more often when they discover this new piece of gear. For help in figuring out how you might benefit from the WACP, give us a call or shoot us an email. We will be happy get into the details.
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One of the first things you learn about photographing tiny transparent creatures in the dark of night while bouncing around in the open ocean is that if you take your eye off your subject for more than a fraction of a second, it’s gone. Even the act of moving your eye from direct observation to the camera viewfinder can result in the most amazing photo op you’ve ever seen vanishing into the ether like an ephemeral hallucination. Did I really see that? No matter if I did, it’s just one spec among the billions now – one space rock lost among the vastness of the cosmos. So any camera adjustment that requires looking at your rig is lethal. You have to be able to work by touch, and what’s in the viewfinder. Use only the controls for which you have a solid muscle memory.
One of the features that’s been highly touted in the ground-breaking focus system of the D5 /D500 is what Nikon calls 3D tracking – where you set a focus point on the part of your subject that you want to keep in focus, set the focus, and keep the shutter halfway pressed. The camera should be able to follow your subject around while keeping the eye, for example, in focus. While this works fine for humans moving at human speed, it remains to be seen how well it would work for transparent alien life forms moving at what is a relatively much higher speed across the field of view, and much more erratically as well. As I say, it remains to be seen. I haven’t tried it because every time I think I have a subject where it just might possibly work, I remember that changing the focus mode requires me to take my attention off the subject and move it to the LCD screen of the camera and the housing controls for way more time than it will take that subject to vanish. It would probably be possible to memorize all the steps to do that entirely by feel, but I’m not there yet.
What I did experiment with is changing my lighting setup. One of the many difficulties in lighting blackwater subjects is that some are transparent and let all light just pass through them, while others are highly reflective and bounce the light back into the lens, and a very small number are “just right,” reflecting light back like a “normal” subject. For the transparent subjects you ideally want to have the light entering their bodies from the side or even a little behind them so that it bounces around on the translucent parts with some of it scattering back toward the lens. For normal subjects, you want the strobes beside the camera, pointed forward, and cheated outward enough that only the edge of the light beam touches the subject. And for reflective subjects you want your lights somewhere in between so that the light is hitting at enough of an angle that it doesn’t come straight back into the lens, but is still lighting the subject from the front.
For normal macro shooting, I have two short sections in each strobe arm, so it can be contorted into almost any position that the lighting requirements demand. For example, shooting into a coral crevice where the subject is hiding. For blacro, you are dealing with subjects that are at different distances and have different opacities, but not with the very complex lighting situations that can occur on a reef. At the same time, you have to be able to adjust your strobe arms very quickly because otherwise the subject has either moved or disappeared. Readjusting two strobe arms frequently took my attention away from the subject long enough to lose it. So I went to a single arm on each side, and set my strobes so I could swing them forward and back in an arc without taking my eye away from the viewfinder. Result: fewer missed opportunities and the lighting is just as good as it was with an infinite number of possible strobe positions.
Nikon has began delivery of the new D850 camera, with twice the resolution of the D500, and Nauticam already has the housing available. Why would anyone need a 46 MP camera sensor? For one thing, some of the most interesting critters in the open ocean are too tiny to fill more than a fraction of the frame at the 1:1 magnification limit of most macro lenses. I recently purchased the Nauticam SMC-1 wet close-up lens that can bring you closer, but my initial experiments with it lead me to conclude that it’s great for stationary subjects on a reef, but following focus on a moving object at that magnification is too challenging for a blackwater situation, let alone the likelihood of losing the subject while flipping the lens into place. It also requires getting the lens closer to the subject than most of them will allow. I’d rather have enough resolution that I can do an extreme crop and still have plenty of pixels for a good reproduction. According to Nikon, the D850 has the same amazing focusing system as the D5 and D500, but some reviewers have claimed it doesn’t match the performance of the D5 when it comes to tracking moving subjects. How will it do in black water? Watch this space!
After all the hyperbole in this blog about the difficulties of focusing on blackwater subjects, you may be forgiven if you have assumed that once you have mastered the “focus part” that perfect photo files will be swarming onto your hard drive like June bugs on a summer evening in Texas. AuContraire! (as we like to say in Lubbock). The second bugaboo, named Exposure, is about to bite your hiney like a Texas swamp mosquito swarm. OK, forgive me, I just returned from my old stomping grounds in the Lone Star State and the influence is obvious.
Again, the problem is that most of the things you are trying to record are mostly transparent. Light doesn’t reflect off them to allow you to focus, and it doesn’t reflect off them to expose an image on your sensor. The first part of the solution is more light. For this I use dual Ikelite DS161 strobes at point blank range, and it is barely enough. The second part is aiming. The old school solution to transparency is “backlighting.” True backlighting doesn’t work unless you have a way of blocking the light from shining directly into your lens, which is virtually impossible to arrange for scuba diving. So for underwater photography, by “backlighting” we mean pushing the strobes forward and turning them inward so that they light the subject from both sides, without shining into the lens. I use this method, and it works.
My dive buddies, Skinny and Chubby, both masters of blacro, use a completely different technique. They keep their strobes very close to the camera housing and pitch them outwards (bowlegged vs. my pigeon-toed), so that only the edge of the strobe beam lights the subject. That also works. Their results are similar to mine, with possibly less backscatter. The similarity is a function of the fact that we are both, in fact, finding ways to reflect light off the parts of the subject that will reflect it, while avoiding, as much as possible, lighting the particles between the lens and subject. True backlighting, in the sense of shining a light through a transparent subject into the lens, is just not practically achievable in most underwater photography applications.
To achieve a decent exposure, it is not enough to use powerful strobes. I also crank the ISO up as high as I can without getting unmanageable noise. In a modern Nikon camera, like the D500, this means ISO 800-1000. This allows me to use an aperture of f22 for most subjects, which hits the sweet spot of Nikon’s 60mm macro lens, with reasonable depth of field. At f25 and above diffraction compromises the resolution of the photo.
Chubby, who uses an older DSLR, with more noise per ISO, opts for lower ISO and a wider aperture. He sacrifices depth of field, but claims he likes the artistic effect of having only one part of the subject in focus. I have to admit, his pictures are pretty darn impressive.
A major challenge comes from the fact that the occasional nonconformist subject wanders in front of your lens. While all of their neighbors are sucking strobe light into a black vortex at the far end of the marine universe, these lanternfish, flying fish, and what-have-you reflect light back at the camera like a 1980s disco mirror ball. So you need a practical way to switch instantaneously from full strobe power to 1/32 or 1/64th power. Until recently, unless you were shooting Ikelite strobes with an Ikelite housing, this was a real problem. As a devotee of aluminum housings, and Nauticam housings in particular, I was left out of the TTL strobe auto exposure loop and was faced with a choice of reaching out to each of my dual strobes to turn the power down, or finding the ISO button on the housing and pressing it with one hand, while looking at the viewfinder display and turning a dial with the other hand. In either scenario, the subject was long gone by the time I had my exposure ready for it.
Ikelite came out with an external TTL controller that worked pretty well, but not with the original strobe circuitry in the D500 housing. The guys at Nauticam USA are always tinkering, and within months they came out with a new circuit board. That one did great TTL with my Inon strobes, but my Ikelite strobes didn’t work at all. In short order, however, they developed a circuit board that supports TTL with a variety of strobe makes including Ikelite. After two blacro dives with the new board I can truly say it is a game changer.
When I started doing blackwater photography with a Canon 5D MKII (a great camera for its time), I was really happy to get one “keeper” photo out of a dive. With the Nikon D800E, I was getting more like 5-10 keepers. I crossed a barrier with the D500, and went up to 20 or more keepers on some dives. But by combining the incredible low-light focusing ability of the D500 with powerful strobes and accurate TTL exposure I’ve jumped up to more than 50 photos jamming my hard drives after the last couple of dives. With a broad range of reflective to non-reflective subjects, the great majority of photos were perfectly exposed. Having said that, I should add the caveat that the TTL with Nauticam’s circuit board, just as with Ikelite’s external controller, seems to fall down a bit with subjects requiring full power. The circuitry seems to not want to do a full dump, often opting for a light under-exposure instead. By keeping the aperture dialed open enough that no more than 90% or so of the strobes’ power is required, pretty consistent results can be obtained, even when the subject covers most of the frame in one shot, and a tiny fraction of the frame in the next.
Marvels of modern electronics like the D500's low-light focusing system and Nauticam's TTL board can't take a great picture by themselves. But by freeing us to compose an image without needing 5 extra hands and an extra brain to follow focus and change exposure on the fly, these tools make it a whole lot easier to get good results in one of the most challenging realms of photography.
]]>The WWL-1 opens up a great, wide world of underwater imaging possibilities... |
...compatible with an array of lenses, you'll be able to cover everything from fish portraits to expansive reef scenes without compromising optical quality, all in one dive. |
WWL-1 is the highest quality wet changeable underwater wide angle conversion ever made, featuring unmatched contrast, overall sharpness, corner sharpness, and clarity. The design is truly full zoom-through, allowing zoom to be used as a tool for framing, and removable in water for close-up and macro shots.
Breakthrough Lens Design
Every Nauticam lens is a “clean slate” design. These optical systems are engineered entirely as underwater corrective and conversion optics, and not adaptations of in-air designs. The process isn’t an easy one, but the images captured by WWL-1 and previous Nauticam optical designs prove the effort is well spent. |
Uncompromised Optical Quality
WWL-1 is constructed of 6 precisely ground elements of highly refractive optical glass. All internal elements are coated with a broadband anti-reflective coating to keep flare and internal reflections to an absolute minimum.
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Compatibility
Wet lenses have traditionally been an accessory geared toward compact cameras, but Nauticam set out from the very beginning to support a wider range of systems, with larger sensor sizes.
Most impressive is the outstanding performance available with the full frame Sony A7 series cameras using the Sony 28mm F/2 Prime lens. In our tests, this combo out-performed all of the Sony wide angle lenses behind dome ports, and is especially well-matched to the demanding 42 megapixel sensor in Sony A7R II.
Micro Four Thirds systems used with power zoom lenses are another compelling combination. 130 degrees on the wide end, with a 3x zoom range, and close-focus on the front of the dome. This combination is wider, sharper, and has less distortion than the Panasonic 7-14mm F/4 and Olympus 7-14mm F/2.8 lenses behind a dome port. Twist off the lens, and snap on a CMC for high powered macro photography, capturing an image area 22mm (just under 1") wide!
Easy Bayonet Mounting
A new bayonet mounting system has been designed to accompany the WWL-1 release, and maximize ease of use. Lenses snap into place, and are securely locked. A red locking tab releases the lens for removal, and lens holders provide storage for lenses on a strobe arm when not in use.
The bayonet mount system has been designed to incorporate vents that quickly flood the space between lens and camera, washing away air bubbles.
Both 67mm and bayonet mounting rings are included with the lens as standard equipment, and Bayonet Mount Converters are available separately (providing the attachment point on a housing or port).
Accessory Parts |
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Included with WWL-1 | Part Number |
Neoprene Cover
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nau.25024 |
Rear Lens Cap for WWL-1
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nau.83221 |
M67 Mounting Ring
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nau.83211 |
Bayonet Mounting Ring
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nau.83212 |
Carrying Case
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Cleaning Cloth
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Optional Accessories | Part Number |
M67 to Bayonet Mount Converter
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nau.83213 |
Bayonet Mount Adaptor Ring for SMC / CMC
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nau.83214 |
nau.83215 | |
nau.83222 | |
nau.83223 | |
nau.72513 | |
Specifications |
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Model Number
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83201 |
Name
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WWL-1 "Wide Wet Lens" |
Dimensions
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130mm Outer Diameter x 97mm |
Weight (air/underwater)
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1.24 kg / .62 kg |
Body Construction
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Hard Anodized Aluminum Alloy |
Lens Construction
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6 Elements in 5 Groups |
Lens Coating
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Anti-Reflective Coating |
Minimum Object Distance
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Front Lens Element to Infinity |
Field of View (diagonal)
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130˚ (with 28mm Primary Lens) |
Mount System
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M67 Thread or NA Bayonet |
Depth Rating
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100m |
You can call it blackwater, blacro, or Pelagic Magic. I call it foto-frustration for the masochist-at-heart. You get onto a boat at a time when you would normally be relaxing and preparing for bed after a nice meal and drive several miles straight out to sea, then jump into the pitch black bottomless ocean in the middle of the night. The goal is to try and take pictures of tiny animals that you can barely see because they are transparent. Do you think any of these near-invisible creatures will sit still for you to train a light on them and try to focus? Of course not! They rise to the surface only at night because they avoid lights. They may not be swimming at a speed to impress a sailfish, but on a scale compared to the paper thin depth of field of your macro lens racked at 1:1 they might as well be going 100 mph. And they are not alone. There are millions of planktonic organisms clouding the water. After all, it is a whole ecosystem, known as the “deep scattering layer,” that rises from the deep ocean to the surface waters at night. Not all of these organisms flee lights. Some of them (the ones you don’t want to photograph) are attracted to lights and will swarm your focus lights like a cloud of insects around a porch light on a warm Southern summer evening. Only worse.
Yes, trying to pick an interesting subject out of this mess and get a sharp photo of it is quite a challenge. But it can be worth persisting because some of those critters are just so darn cute, weird, dramatic, or beautiful. The odds are fairly good of photographing something nobody has ever photographed before. Or maybe that no one has ever even seen before. Some day the novelty may perhaps wear off, but right now, blacro photos are winning underwater photo competitions right and left.
Fortunately the equipment is improving to make the challenge a little less daunting. When I started, I used manual focus exclusively and got very few keepers. As cameras improved and my own vision deteriorated I had to switch to autofocus, and was still getting very few keepers. The higher the light level, the better autofocus works, so I started piling on the video lights.
More light certainly helps, but there’s still the problem of how much light can you get to reflect off of an organism that’s entirely transparent? After a certain point, you are only lighting up the cloudiness in the water and attracting more sea lice into your frame. So the ability of the camera to focus quickly and accurately in low light becomes critical.
Nikon pretty much nuked the competition in this regard when they brought out the D5 (which is in nose-bleed price territory) followed by the D500 (at a more reasonable price). You can read all the technical details about these cameras on any number of photo websites, but for me the proof was when my blacro bro Jeff Molder, aka Capt. Buff, told me that he had vastly increased his keeper rate by upgrading to the D500.
Still I hesitated. For me, shooting the 36MP D800E, it would not exactly be an upgrade to switch to the 21MP D500. Losing nearly half my resolution would be a bitter pill to swallow. Still, it doesn’t matter how many pixels you have if they are all out of focus. I was losing a lot of rare opportunities on the blackwater dives, so I decided to bite the bullet.
On my first blackwater dive with the D500 in my new Nauticam housing, I significantly upped my keeper rate. Still, as with any new piece of equipment, there was a learning curve. With the D800 I usually kept the drive set on slow continuous. That way, if I held the shutter down after taking a picture, it would fire off a second, after a short delay which allowed the strobes to partially recycle. If the first shot was blown out by too much strobe, the second exposure might be better. With the D500, slow continuous is faster than high speed continuous on the D800. The camera is so fast that there is no time for the strobes to cycle up at all. So I had to switch the motor drive to single shooting.
Another of the touted features of the D500 is the large number of focus points. In all of Nikon’s previous models, including my D800, the focus points are clustered in the center region of the frame. In the cropped-sensor D500 they cover the entire frame. Nikon offers a selection of different focus modes utilizing varying numbers of focus points. With the D800, I favored modes that utilized a fairly large number of points. It’s hard to keep a single focus point on that small part of a transparent subject which might actually offer enough contrast to allow autofocus, so having a fairly wide focus area seemed to serve me well, as my subjects went zipping about in the water column. On my first dive with the D500, I figured, why not use all the focus points? If the subject goes anywhere in the frame, the autofocus system should be able to find it. The problem with that strategy was that there is a lot more than the subject in each frame. Some nights are worse than others, and that night was a nightmare due to the phototropic sea lice, which not only caused a blizzard of backscatter, but also threw my focus off the subject repeatedly.
After some consultation with Capt. Buff, for my second D500 blacro I decided to go with Nikon’s “group focus” option, which appears in the viewfinder as a cluster of four points around the chosen focus point. That worked much better. You have to track the subject with your focus point, but the group area is much more forgiving than a single point, while objects elsewhere in the frame don’t throw off your focus. I have yet to test the much ballyhooed 3-D focus capabilities of the D500, in which you initially focus on your subject, and the camera remembers what the subject is, and keeps tracking it as it moves. Stay tuned.
A critical part of the focusing strategy is to go into the “AF activation” section of the “autofocus” menu and select “AF button only” so that the menu shows “AF activation” as “off.” This means that autofocus is only activated by the “back button” on the camera, for which Nauticam has a convenient large thumb-activated lever on the housing. This way if the focus point is not on a high contrast area at the moment the shutter is released, it will not throw the focus off. And if it is impossible to achieve autofocus on the subject, you can focus on your hand or similar object at about the right distance, and lean into and out of the subject, tripping the shutter when it comes into focus.
However, after a few blacro dives with the D500 I noticed I had hardly any photos of my hand, whereas I usually come home with lots of those. The D500 was able to autofocus on most of the subjects I found, eliminating the necessity of focusing on my hand frequently throughout the dive (and usually accidentally taking a picture of it). I also used to be pretty religious about engaging the manual focus gear on my 60mm macro lens, so that, when necessary, I could manually follow focus on the subject while keeping my eye to the viewfinder. I got home from a D500 blacro dive and discovered that I hadn’t even remembered to engage the gear. The autofocus was so adept that I hadn’t felt the need to manually focus at any time during the dive. That was a true milestone!
With the D800, I didn’t find much of a difference between single and continuous autofocus on blacro dives, as the continuous was never able to keep up with the subject for long. With the D500, however, continuous is much more useful, as it is often able to keep a subject into focus as it moves toward or away from the lens, or as you lean into the subject. Set on continuous group focus with AF activation off I was able to approximately double my ratio of in-focus shots on my second blacro dive with the D500, as compared with my average using the D800. I actually got a few in-focus shots of little larval fish less than ½inch long that zip around so fast that I wouldn’t even try with the D800.
Another consideration with the D500 is that in front of its cropped sensor the 60mm macro lens becomes roughly equivalent to a 90mm lens on a full-frame camera such as the D800. To keep my working distance and frame ratio roughly the same,I switched from a flat port on the D800 to a small dome port on the D500. Being that most of the subjects are quite small, and timid enough that it’s hard to get the port right up next to them, I decided to try a flat port to see if I could get some of the tiny critters a little larger in the frame. That worked as expected, but I did find that the focus was searching more, and my keeper rate dropped. The next dive I went back to a dome port and found that the focus was grabbing better. That could be due to the lens focusing on a virtual image when it’s behind a dome port, and requiring less throw of the focus barrel to follow a subject, or it could be due to the fact that you have to get closer when using a dome port, so you have more light on your subject and less dirty water between the port and the subject. One of my blacro buddies uses a flat port, and the other uses a dome, and they both get great photos, so it’s probably more a matter of skill than equipment in that regard.
Skill largely comes from practice, and I can definitely say that results with blacro are directly proportional to how often you do it. Still, a fantastic piece of equipment like the D500 is a huge help, especially for old-timers like myself, who are handicapped with myopia and cataracts.
Stay tuned for more updates soon as renowned nature photographer Doug Perrine explores black water photography...
]]>This is an incredible lens, both in terms of wide angle field of view, and in how amazingly well the distortion is controlled at focal lengths this wide. Canon has seriously upped their lens design game, and some of my favorite optics from any manufacturer (including Zeiss and Leica) are the 24-70 /2.8L II, 100mm /2.8L IS, and 8-15 /4. Is 11-24 good enough to make that list?
Nauticam was able to spin up a custom extension ring to support the very large diameter of this lens, as well as an updated version of the 230mm Glass Dome Port with a larger port opening, within just a few days of this lens hitting store shelves. I got in the pool as soon as I could, and am happy to share some results here.
The lens is extremely large, and requires a new extension ring and dome port system that has a larger internal diameter. The current system can accept lenses up to 98mm in diameter, and the new design used in 18812 and 21271 enables lenses up to 109.5mm to be used. This is very exciting, as it also accommodates the previously incompatible, but fantastic Zeiss ZE and ZF.2 15mm /2.8 lenses!
It is really important to have a frame of reference in mind when evaluating a lens this wide… Corner softness is going to be a fact of life, and it can be controlled by stopping down, and keeping detail out of the corners. You can also crop in post, or even better crop in camera by zooming in a bit in situations where you think soft corners might be distracting. This is just an inevitable compromise associated with getting this wide without fisheye distortion.
My methodology here is to compare the lens to known quantities that are popular for underwater imaging, and simply determine if 11-24 is better or worse. I’ll only compare like focal lengths, it just isn’t fair to compare 11-24 at full wide with a narrower lens. This means that 11-24 wins by default at 11mm, as there is no other currently available non-fisheye lens that is this wide. Our test chart has been upgraded to a new, stiffer material that stays pretty flat in the water. Occasionally water movement would flex the chart, and cause what appear to be uncharacteristic distortions. This could influence some of the sharpness judgements as well, but in all the test shots I see that the corner performance is about equal on all four corners, which is acceptably accurate for me.
Corner softness is the easiest defect that pops up behind a dome to detect, and you’ll see examples here. The tests are done at f/5.6, which is actually a pretty stressy aperture. The results are dramatically improved by stopping down a bit.
This is a lens I have always really wanted to like, but could never find the kind of in water corner performance I was after.
This isn’t the greatest example, as there was clearly some flex in the chart that makes it appear that there is distortion that doesn’t actually exist. Both shots exhibit some softness, even at this more distant reproduction.
Here are corner crops (well, zoomed in Lightroom actually, then screen grabbed).
And here is the same chart, from about a foot away.
with corner crops:
I think it is pretty safe to say that 11-24 is better, and better by a significant margin in the closer focusing situations.
This is probably the most popular wide angle lens commonly used with Canon full frame cameras, and is used in many stunning wide angle images. Performance isn’t perfect, but the wide field of view and overall good image quality has made it very popular on full frame.
And the corner crop:
And now the same lenses, but closer to the chart:
And corner crops:
This one really surprised me… Neither lens has a Lightroom Lens Correction or CA adjustment applied, so these are straight out of the camera. I can’t believe how much purple fringing is apparent in all of the 16-35 /2.8L II tests, and how well controlled it is in 11-24. I don’t see a tremendous difference in corner sharpness in either test. Maybe 11-24 is a bit better?
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. There is nothing to compare 11-24 to at 11mm, so it will have to stand here on its own.
Corner Crop
Close focus:
and Close Focus Corner Crop:
Corner softness certainly exists, but I’ve seen a lot worse! In situations where it is possible to stop down, or subjects are in blue water, I think the entire lens zoom range is usable.
I’m very encouraged by these results. I see that 11-24 is clearly better than Canon 14mm /2.8L II at 14mm, and as good or better at 16mm than 16-35 /2.8L II. At 11mm, the angle of coverage is over 10 degrees wider than 14mm, and the ability to zoom out to 24mm is nice to have with skittish subjects or to crop out distracting backgrounds in camera. There isn’t any distracting fisheye distortion, causing curved water surfaces or overly bulbous centered subjects.
The results are good, but what are some potential issues?
Lens flare is also a reality with any optic this wide, and is something to be aware of in real world use. The lens is big, heavy, and expensive. 24mm might not be long enough for skittish critters.
Is this a good choice for RED Dragon?
Yes, and I don’t know of a better wide angle optic for this camera in its 6k mode (slightly smaller than Full Frame 35). 16-35 and 8-15 /4L have been my favorites for this format in the past, but 8-15 induces fisheye distortion that needs to be managed in framing, and 16-35 just isn’t wide enough for a lot of wide shots. 11-24 is perfect! Much of the corner smushiness in these shots won’t be apparent, falling outside of the recorded frame when shooting 6K.
Should I sell my 16-35 if I buy 11-24?
I’m not sure I’d run off and do that… That range from 24-35mm is a pretty useful one, especially with skittish big animals. 16-35 also has a front filter thread, making it more useful for use with polarizers and neutral density filters for topside shooting. It is also a lot smaller… 11-24 will handle well in the water, but I can see a lot of situations where I wouldn’t want to carry it around topside.
I’m an APS-C, user, is this lens for me?
I’d say probably not for most… It is probably a bit sharper overall than the Canon lenses like 10-22 /3.5-4.5 or 10-18 STM that are designed for the smaller APS-C sensor, but my feeling is that it is only slightly sharper. Those lenses are a fraction the weight, and something like 1/6 the price of 11-24.
]]>Camera classes have gotten very blurry recently... DSLR cameras do HD video incredibly well, and are now reaching 4K UHD resolutions with a “look” unmatched by any camcorder. “Pocket” cameras are getting better lenses and bigger sensors, and they are no longer in the pockets of most. That space has been occupied by smart phones. Mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras have taken the camera world by storm, seeking to merge the image quality of larger dslr systems with a small form factor.
Fixed lens compact cameras are certainly improving, and some real enthusiast features are showing up in higher end models like Sony’s RX100 MIII, but the larger sensors are making it harder and harder to get great wet mate lens compatibility. The ability to change lenses underwater has long been a hallmark of this segment, but that functionality is diminished in many of the higher end models. When examining the issue more closely, the entry level mirrorless systems begin to look pretty attractive.
As the photo above illustrates, this very capable entry level mirrorless system is only a bit bigger than the leading compacts. This matters if you want to stick the camera in your pocket, but who does that anymore? When you build an underwater system around the camera any size difference is negligible, and the price points are a lot closer than you’d think…
A5000 is built around a big 20 Megapixel APS-C sensor. This is the same sensor size used by some of the most popular DSLR cameras over the past few years (Canon 7D, Nikon D7100 anyone?), and images from these sensors have graced the covers of dive mags the world over. This is an interchangeable lens camera, allowing use of the right lens for the job, both topside and underwater.
Pardon the technical digression, but it is typically accepted that bigger pixels yield better image quality. While you can find an exception to every rule, here is a relative example of the photosite sizes in some common systems:
This photosite size in a $500 camera is pretty incredible!
The A5000 ships with a 16-50 power zoom. This lens on the A5000 is just like the mid-range zoom lens built in to every compact camera. When using the comparative focal length formula, the 16-50mm is like a 24-75mm on full frame - slightly better coverage than the RX100III's 24-70mm. This is a very useful midrange zoom for fish portraits, closeups, and skittish big animals that won’t let you approach close enough for a wide angle lens. And the best part… you can take it off! The interchangeable lens mount allows for a dedicated wide angle or macro lens to be used. If chosen well, each lens option can outperform the wet lens alternatives that are found for a fixed lens compact.
When using compact cameras, many people have come to expect the "fish tail syndrome." Traditionally, compact camera users have learned to deal with a certain amount "shutter lag" that is actually a combination of focus acquisition and shutter response. This characteristic has been greatly improved on compacts in recent years, but this delay between finger action and actual picture taken does still lead to many perfectly sharp fish tail photographs as the fish moves out of the frame. Almost any modern mirrorless interchangeable lens camera will generally have a more immediate response when focusing and releasing the shutter than any current compact camera. Several mirrorless cameras claim to have the fastest autofocus in the world and the A5000 would certainly be in the hunt.
Those of us who take our cameras underwater love to be able to get through two dives without opening the housing. But few compact camera batteries, when required to fire a flash, will last for two dives. The Sony A5000 battery, by virtue of having more storage capacity, will easily last for two dives.
The Nauticam NA-A5000 housing requires no zoom gear to operate the 16-50 zoom, so the user can operate it from a lever on top of the housing - just like a compact camera housing.
Compact cameras with built in zoom lenses pack an awful lot of electronics, motors and moving pieces into the smallest possible package. Thanks to the engineering that allows for all this miniaturization, it is pretty difficult to make a compact system like this as rugged and long lasting as a mirrorless system like the A5000 that has the luxury of more room and a detachable lens. But the good news is that everything is still easy to pack in carry-on luggage!
One of the things we have often observed over the years here at Reef Photo & Video is that some people are intrigued about moving into a new category of camera systems (ie; compact, mirroless interchangeable lens, DSLR, etc), but often reluctant to move beyond their comfort zone. The most common concern is "more complexity." But there is a secret that most people quickly learn: the more sophisticated the type of camera system you progress to, the easier your underwater photography becomes. So what is the most common complaint from customers advancing into a mirrorless system or DSLR? Just six words - "Why did I wait so long!"
An A5000 will give a better user experience than a compact in almost every regard - even if you just shoot it like a compact camera. But when you are ready, it can do so much more.
]]>Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 is one of those gems. It is the sharpest super wide rectilinear lens behind a dome port we have ever tested on any format. Corner sharpness here outperforms the best Nikon and Canon glass on professional full frame bodies at equivalent coverage angles. It also compares favorably to the best APS-C DSLR cameras, and the best that the Olympus / Panasonic Micro Four Thirds system has to offer. Amazing stuff!
I’ll concede that there is a lot more to a lens than corner sharpness, and Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 really excels in some of these more subjective areas. The lens has incredible contrast, to the point that it is noticeable on the camera’s tiny little LCD while still in the water, and really jumps out at you on a nice monitor. Color is warm, which nicely complements the underwater scenics that this lens is appropriate for.
Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 is compatible with the Sony E Mount systems (NEX, Alpha 7 and Alpha 7R, and the new Alpha 5000). It covers APS-C sensors, which means that the Alpha 7 and Alpha 7R will need to be used in their cropped sensor modes. The lens has a 99 degree diagonal field of view, making it just a bit wider than the old Nikonos 15mm lens, and about the same coverage found on a full frame dslr with an 18mm lens. There is no noticeable distortion when used in water, meaning that straight lines are straight, and big animals at the center of the frame don’t have that unnatural fisheye bulge. The lens focuses at 7 inches, making it great for close focus wide angle shooting.
The construction methods employed in this lens are a pretty dramatic departure from the Zeiss standard. The Touit series are the first autofocus lenses ever produced by Zeiss. To better match the tiny Sony NEX and Alpha E Mount Camera bodies, the lens body is plastic, and the focus ring is a smooth rubberized band. The lens is surprisingly light, and I can find the focus ring easily by feel. I won’t say that manually focusing this system is as satisfying as the ZE, ZF2, and ZM lenses with their hard focus stops and well dampened feel, but I don’t see that as such a big deal on a mirrorless system. Using only LCD screens and electronic viewfinders, I’m more likely to trust autofocus than to try to focus manually, especially with a lens this wide.
The lens is paired with the Zen DP-170-SS dome port for underwater shooting. DP-170 is an optically coated glass dome port. Glass domes are hard to scratch, and don’t have that annoying backward roll associated with the buoyancy of plastic ports. The specialized optical coatings used here knock out reflections caused when shooting into the sun, and increase imaging performance.
Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 is a pretty chubby lens, and can’t actually fit through the back of the Nauticam NEX port mount. To support this lens underwater we use a step up port adapter (Zen PA-NM-SS60) that is mounted on the housing after installing the camera, and before installing the lens. The dome attaches to the front of this with a traditional Sea & Sea style bayonet.
Competition Compared:
Coming soon:
The third installment in the Zeiss Touit series will be a 50mm f/2.8 Macro lens that reaches 1:1 reproduction ratio. This fills another void in underwater utility range of the Sony E Mount cameras, and I’m really excited to see what this lens can do when it becomes available, and see if we can squeeze it into a port.
Extra credit:
Our focus is underwater photography, but it is hard for me to hide my enthusiasm for great glass. I see the lens choices for Sony’s E mount systems criticized in online communities, and I don’t think that is fair. Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8 would be my topside walk around lens of choice, replicating the field of views found on “nifty fifty” full frame lenses, with a fast aperture, great color, and contrast. This lens has a really appealing look that is warmer and dreamier than the Sony branded offerings at the same focal length. Sony’s Sonnar E 24mm /1.8 (designed by Zeiss, made by Sony) is very sharp, and very fast at a focal length that can be hand held even in low light indoor situations without motion blur. I’m still getting to know the new Sonnar T* FE 55mm /1.8, but I think it has a lot of potential as a long portrait lens on the APS-C E Mount cameras.
versatile |ˈvərsətl|
adjective
1 able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities: a versatile sewing machine | he was versatile enough to play either position.
2 archaic: changeable; inconstant.
3 embracing a variety of subjects, fields, or skills; also :turning with ease from one thing to another: the Nauticam Housing for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera
Ok, we modified that last entry just a bit... but the Nauticam NA-EM5 Housing + 12-50mm Port/Gear + Flip Diopter really should be the dictionary standard as the ultimate example of versatility, at least for underwater shooters. There really is no other system that provides this much versatility with excellent image quality and good shooting performance, plus won't break the bank and will fit in carry on luggage. There is a lot of buzz out on the web about this (one of the longest threads on Wetpixel.com ever); let's break it down and delve into what makes it so compelling.
The Olympus OM-D E-M5 is a cool camera. First, it just looks cool, borrowing design elements from the OM camera series of old. More than just good looks though, this camera is very capable, with excellent image quality and surprisingly fast shooting and focus performance. Belonging to the m4/3 family, the proud owner of this camera enjoys the riches of lens selections available from both Olympus and Panasonic, including the Panasonic 8mm, the Olympus 9-18mm, Pansonic 45mm macro, Olympus 60mm macro, Olympus 12mm and many more. |
The lens we are focusing on here (sorry, not intending to pun), is the Olympus 12-50mm. This is no ordinary kit lens. The range is excellent (think 24-100mm on full frame) for all kinds of shooting both terrestrial and underwater. Unlike many other lenses in its range, the lens does not extend while zooming or focusing, which is an advantage for those who want to wrap an aluminum and glass box around it. Speaking of zooming, this is a power zoom lens, meaning nice smooth zooming for video shooting. The 12-50mm has one more trick up its sleeve though, and it is ideal for underwater shooters: with a flick of the switch, the lens changes into a 43mm macro lens, capable of serious macro magnification. |
The Nauticam NA-EM5 housing is the best selling housing for the EM-5, worldwide. There simply is not a better housing made for the camera. Every control is well thought out; every move the shooter might make is considered in the ergonomic design. This rugged housing is milled from solid aluminum, and rated to 100m (330 feet). Changing ports is a snap with Nauticam's patented port locking system, and the housing inherits much from the rest of Nauticam's award winning designs. Nauticam even offers an optional upgrade to take advantage of the camera's built-in electronic viewfinder (EVF) - unmatched by any other housing. |
The 12-50mm lens presents a challenge to anyone designing a way to control it underwater, being first a power zoom and second, having the macro switch. The Nauticam design team came up with a port and gear set that is unmatched by any other manufacturer - not even the Olympus housing can operate the macro switch on this lens. What this means to the underwater shooter is the ability to shoot at 12mm one minute, shoot mid-range the next, and then quickly switch to macro mode. What this means, more simply, is that when the pod of dolphins swims by as you are shooting pygmy seahorses, you'll get both shots. Try that with any other system. |
When the macro from the 12-50mm isn't quite close enough - you can still get even closer. With the Nauticam flip diopter, you can simply flip your closeup lens (also called a diopter lens) into place and get into the world of super macro.
As an underwater photographer, what aspects of camera performance are important to you? If versatility is a high priority, along with image quality and shooting performance, the Nauticam NA-EM5 with 12-50 port/gear kit and flip diopter may be just what you are looking for.
The photos for this article are from Phil Rudin who took the NA-EM5 and 12-50mm to Philippines in December 2012. All of these shots are from that trip. Thank you Phil.
Canon EF 8-15 f/4L and Tokina 10-17 f/3.4-f/4.5
Canon's announcement of a new fisheye zoom lens last August (2010) actually didn't excite me too much at the time. After using the Tokina 10-17 for the past four years I didn't see significant room for improvement for cropped sensors, but we felt obligated to get the lens in a pool as soon as possible to evaluate image quality behind some of the Zen domes.
Thanks to quick service from the fine folks at Campus Camera, our lens arrived on Thursday. The wizards in our workshop were able to cacluate the new extension ring length required, make a zoom gear, and crank out a dive-able prototype of the Zen DP-100 by lunch time on Friday. Pretty cool!
Canon EF 8-15 f/4 uses Canon's pro level L series optics, and is built with both full frame and cropped sensor cameras in mind. Utility with both full frame and APS-C imagers is attractive for Canon enthusiasts that own both mounts. The lens has oustanding build quality, including weather sealing that makes me feel much more comfortable when changing lenses on a dive boat.
Slow focus isn't really a problem with super wide lenses, but its USM motor is extremely fast, and focus lock is very accurate with the 7D and 60D bodies we've tested.
with Full Frame Cameras
At 8mm it projects a perfectly round 180 degree image circle on a full frame sensor, which is known as a circular fisheye effect. This basically gives a full frame user an 8mm circular fisheye and a 15mm 'full fame' fisheye with no vignetting in one lens. The circular fisheye perspective is pretty cool, but would require removing the shade from your dome port. We are going to have to do some testing to see whether or not a version of the small dome is appopriate for this lens on full frame, which will largely depend upon how succeptible the lens is to flare. Both DP-200 and DP-230 have removable shades, and can support the 8mm focal length without increasing vignetting.
with APS-H Cameras
While certainly not the most popular systems for underwater photography, the 1D Mk IV is one of the most capable systems I've ever used. 8-15/4 at 12mm becomes the first ever full frame fisheye for this system, and the ability to zoom out to 15mm gives the underwater photographer a touch of reach with more distance subjects.
with APS-C Cropped Sensor Cameras
Canon 8-15/4 offers similar utility to Tokina 10-17, but pro lens build and optical quality. 8-15 at 15mm is about 10 degrees wider than 10-17 at 17mm, but both lenses focus on the front of the dome port, so their close focus wide angle ability will be very similar. The lens has a limit switch locking in the 10-15mm zoom range appropriate for APS-C sensors.
Canon 8-15/4 offers similar utility to Tokina 10-17, but pro lens build and optical quality. 8-15 at 15mm is about 10 degrees wider than 10-17 at 17mm, but both lenses focus on the front of the dome port, so their close focus wide angle ability will be very similar. The lens has a limit switch locking in the 10-15mm zoom range appropriate for APS-C sensors.
Reference Marks Designating Full Frame Fisheye Focal Lengths for APS -C and APS-H Sensors | Limit Switch Locking in the 10-15mm Zoom Range for APS-C Sensors |
While not quite as mind numbing as debating Nikon v. Canon, I wish I had the years of my life back that I've spent trying to convince someone that bigger isn't always better in the world of dome ports. There are definitely tradeoffs, and it is ultimately up to the individual to decide which fits best in their gear arsenal. Big domes are best with super wide rectilinear lenses, no question about it. And bigger is usually better in this case. Zen DP-230 is a great match for full frame cameras with Nikon 16-35 f/4 or Canon 16-35 f/2.8L II, or cropped sensor cameras with Nikon 10-24 f/3.5-f/4.5 or Canon 10-22 f/3.5-f/4.5. Off topic, but these are the best lenses we've tested in each category, a topic for another article. Big domes are also best for split shots, making it easy to place the location of the water line, and keeping the water line thin in the frame. If you want to use a non-fisheye wide angle lens, or you want to do splits, and your budget only allows one dome, then you need a big dome. A little dome only works with fisheye lenses (ok, you could also use a short macro too, but another a topic for another article). The small size allows you to photograph small subjects that you couldn't shoot with a big dome with equal impact. This is because the larger dome simply forces you to be further away, yielding smaller foreground reproduction. The corners will probably be a touch softer in the small dome, but see for yourself below whether or not that matters. I can pack a full system set up for macro and wide angle with a mini dome in a small wheeled carry on like the Think Tank Airport International with ease. In this age of clamped down travel restrictions that is a pretty big deal. |
For this test, we hung a grid chart on the wall of a pool, and placed a weighted tripod to keep the camera position as cosistent as possible. The image sensor is about 2' from the grid in all of these tests. The lower corners of the grid chart did curl back toward the camera a bit due to the slope of the pool, which could make them appear worse than they would be if the chart was completely perpendicular to the lens axis. Oh well! Our goal was primarily to determine whether or not we had the port placement for 8-15 in DP-100 correct. Since we had the gear all together, it made sense to do a couple of quick comparision shots. We wanted to see how the lens stacked up against the Tokina 10-17, and how the lens looked in DP-100 (4' diameter) compared to DP-230 (9' diameter). We used a Canon 7D in Nauticam NA-7D housing for the test, and limited the lens at 10-15mm (its range for APS-C cameras like 7D). We'll set up the 5D Mk II when we have a version of the dome sans shade in the future. |
The test results are pretty impressive, and definitely illustrate that 8-15 /4L is a serious option for underwater photographers. While the corners are a bit sharper in a big dome, the image quality is perfectly acceptable for me in DP-100.
Canon 8-15 at 10mm in Zen DP-100 at f4 | Tokina 10-17 at 10mm in Zen DP-100 at f4 |
Canon 8-15 at 10mm in Zen DP-100 at f8 | Tokina 10-17 at 10mm in Zen DP-100 at f8 |