Wide angle and macro in the same dive

[Nemrod]

My WWL has a flotation collar on it.
I do not try and wedge my camera and strobes into small or sensitive places. If I'm really after macro then I use a 60mm macro lens. The CMC is only for occasional use.

And so does mine and the float collar makes the WWL even larger. And has no effect on out of water weight. Are you attaching to a strobe float arm or an additional arm attached between the handles? How does the WWL not impact the way the strobe arm positions and stability?

A sensitive place only becomes sensitive when a too large camera touches something that is sensitive. If the macro subjects you are interested in are in open areas great, mine generally are not. If you find the WWL attached to a float arm nonintrusive for your uses I am happy for you, I find such a large lens parked on the bayonet holder obtrusive and prone to damage, both itself and the sensitive areas many macro subjects hide.

 

[tursiops]

And so does mine and the float collar makes the WWL even larger. And has no effect on out of water weight.

Well, yes, the float collar weighs something. The camera plus housing plus arms plus wet lenses plus strobes is much too heavy out of the water. But I don't use it out of the water.

Are you attaching to a strobe float arm or an additional arm attached between the handles?

My rig has two arms on each side. The first one closest to the camera) is a Nauticam float arm, the fat one, with a bayonet dock on each side. The second arm has STIX floats on it. the strobes are at the end of the second arm.

How does the WWL not impact the way the strobe arm positions and stability?

It does, but not enough to worry about. For macro with the CMC (the only time the WWL is on the dock) I'm not moving around and the strobe positioning is minimal....usually just close to the camera lens. I thought about putting the WWL dock under the camera -- as you apparently do -- but since it is only there for occasional macro shots and macros shots are almost always close to the bottom, that seemed not a good idea.

Once again, if the dive is mainly a macro dive, then I don't take the WWL and use a 60mm (or 30mm) macro lens. My first post in this thread was just trying to say the wide-angle plus macro dive is possible, and how I do it.

I find such a large lens parked on the bayonet holder obtrusive and prone to damage,

The only time I've damaged my WWL is when it was mounted on the camera, in use.

 

[hilljo88]

Diving Nusa Tenggara

Everything from whale shark to Lembeh sea dragon on one setup. Sony A1, 28-60mm lens, plus Inon UCL165.

Your mileage may differ because you have a different Sony camera.

Great vid! Thanks for sharing. The 28-60 is not one of the sharpest or brightest lenses, but it seems it was more than adequate.

 

[RVBldr]

The CMC and WWL lenses can be interchanged in the water with the "kit" lens. No problem doing that, the thing is that the WWL is a large piece of expensive glass so when installing the CMC where does the WWL go? I have a bayonet on the bottom of my Nauticam A6400 and I do park a CMC there sometimes when shooting bare port but with the WWL mounted up, not sure interchanging is practical unless you SO is willing to entertain your WWL while you play with the macro CMC lens . Which mine is not.

I have two bayonet caddies. Off the right post, I have a triple clamp, and on one of those, I have a 6" ball-arm. On the end of that arm I have a 2nd bayonet holder for the WWL-1B. Another bayonet holder is clamped to the Nauticam float and this seems to work well for swapping out lens.

 

[Nemrod]

I have two bayonet caddies. Off the right post, I have a triple clamp, and on one of those, I have a 6" ball-arm. On the end of that arm I have a 2nd bayonet holder for the WWL-1B. Another bayonet holder is clamped to the Nauticam float and this seems to work well for swapping out lens.

I have trouble imagining how that might work. I am going to start a thread on rigging cameras. Please feel free and Mr. @tursiops to post photos of your set ups so we can all benefit, in the thread linked below. I am going to place it in the general photography forum and I will post a link so as not to further destroy the OPs thread.

Rigging my underwater camera, how I did mine

Here are some photos of how I set up my Nauticam NA6400 rig with two Inon strobes, four eight inch (200cm) arms and a single bayonet caddy. Please feel free to jump in with photos and explanations that might be helpful to others, more than one way to skin a cat(fish) :wink:. I do not normally...

scubaboard.com

James

 

[RVBldr]

And I have a Nauticam bayonet dock as I said on the bottom of my Nauticam housing and the WWL is huge and heavy and makes it difficult to maneuver the camera in close for tiny macro subjects be it on a float arm or underneath as in my case. But if it works for you I am happy for you .

Unfortunately macro subjects often like to hide up in small places or up in a coral heads or a sponge or whip or crevice, not sure how a camera rig with a WWL-1 mounted on a float arm could be squeezed up into a small hole to take a picture of a splendid toad fish juvenile.

No problems, works out fairly well. With the built-in float collar, the WWL-1B isn't that intrusive.