Cheap wide-angle lens. Does it exist?

[John Gulliver]

I checked with the usual suspects and none of them lists zoom ring 31142 on their website. However, Fun In do a zoom ring for the Sigma 10-20mm and Sea & Sea housings. It costs 100 dollars from DiverVision but only 77 dollars direct from Fun In.
John

 

[Christian]

John

I think the 10-20 is great WA-lens for UW-photography and later on you can get a 10-17 as a complement to it.

I use the Sigma 10-20 myself sometimes and I chose it after a shoot out with Nikons 12-24 in a Hugyfot D200 housing with Hugys FE dome (I also shot the Nikkor 14/2.8 prime as a benchmark). UW behind a dome, the Sigma gave sharper results with the set-up I had at hand. Results may vary depending on your set-up. You can improve the sharpness of the 12-24 with a dioptre, but with a dioptre you can't do over/unders. And a +dioptre decreases the FoV a little, so I wanted to avoid it.

I have been thinking a lot about why the 10-20 works so good for UW-shooting, and it is of course partly the great CFD of 24 cm, but then the Canon 10-22 has the same CFD and people generally have a lot more trouble with that lens. I suspect (speculation from my side) that the slightly "worse" barrel distortion of the 10-20, especially in the far edges, makes it handle the curved image of the dome much better than e.g the "very" straight 10-22 and other wide zooms usually regarded as better lenses by reviewers (that has never shoot a lens behind a dome port uw). So characteristics considered flaws by land photographers can actually be beneficial to us under water.

And as someone else said, you must have the lenses nodal point in the right position inside the dome to get good results. It has very little to do with the outer physics of the lens. You have to lend to advice from other UW-shooters using the same camera, housing, port and lens or trial and error, which can be expensive and, if your unlucky, fruitless. In my experience, reccomendations from housing manufacturers are not always as good as one would like them to be. I guess a long lens compabilty list sells more housings.

Good luck

 

[CUunderH2O]

Do you use it in a Sea & Sea housing? If so, with which port/extension ring and with or without a zoom gear?

Sorry, can't help you with that: I use an Ikelite housing.

 

[Mariozi]

Do you use it in a Sea & Sea housing? If so, with which port/extension ring and with or without a zoom gear?

I use it with the Optical Dome Port & Extension Ring 40.
As per Sea&Sea you can use it with the NX Compact Dome or the Optical Dome both with the SX Extension Ring.
You surely would also be able to use it with the NX Fisheye Dome Port with an extesion ring.

 

[jonix]

Will not auto focus with D40 or D60.

non nikon afs lenses will not AF on your D60 unless they have their own motor. before buying check if the 3rd party lens will AF with your body.