No...This is such a stupid issue to have and given the complete lack of professionalism by the company and how seriously it degrades the images (notice that their sample pictures don't have this issue)... would buy a solution from someone else.
Issues with Fantasea Bigeye Lens for G10
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No...This is such a stupid issue to have and given the complete lack of professionalism by the company and how seriously it degrades the images (notice that their sample pictures don't have this issue)... would buy a solution from someone else.
No need to apologize... from the outside, and as long as you don't own one, this is somewhat like a comedy skit.... the Monty Python dead parrot one comes to mind.
OP
fuggler
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No. Not for $220. Maybe for $50.
SharonRainis
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Dear Plooper and Puffer Fish,
Thanks for the information and for sharing those images. It is always important for us to receive feedback from photographers, especially after releasing new products.
Regarding the white blurred area in the images, it definitely looks like a lens glare. Such a glare is often encountered when using dome ports of any kind due to the reflection of the sun or the strobe. I encounter such glares myself with my DSLR dome ports as well. I hope you will find the following tips helpful when solving this problem:
1. It is always useful to make sure that the wings of the BigEye Lens are positioned in an angle that blocks the strobe's output. If required, the angle of the wings can be adjusted by removing and the wings' 4 allen screws using the allen key included. Don't forget to assemble the screws again after the angle of the wings has been adjusted of course!
2. Make sure that the strobe is not positioned towards the lens. When shooting a nearby subject, for instance, it is better to position the strobe a little bit in front of the camera housing rather than behind it (so the light doesn't reflect on the BigEye Lens).
As for the BigEye Lens fogging up, please note that it makes a HUGE difference if the BigEye is stored in a dry and cool place prior the dive. I previously thought that this was just a "to be on the safe side" kind of tip, but my experience with BigEye Lenses, as well as compact digital housings, proved otherwise.
This way or another, the lens is designed to be perfectly watertight sealed and no water drops should accumulate inside. We have never encountered such a situation before, in which water leaks into the lens, but if your BigEye Lens has been damaged and is therefore no longer perfectly watertight sealed, it should be serviced. Can you please send some images of the drops you have identified inside the BigEye Lens to info@fantasea.com? We will then be able to further assist you with solving this problem.
I would also like to share a few images I took myself with the BigEye Lens, which I've been enjoying very much so far:
If there's anything else we can help with, please let us know and we will gladly assist. The BigEye Lens was released a few months ago and we are very proud of it. We have received many positive feedbacks so far and we would like to ensure your experience with it is excellent as well.
Best Wishes,
Sharon
Fantasea Line
Thanks for the information and for sharing those images. It is always important for us to receive feedback from photographers, especially after releasing new products.
Regarding the white blurred area in the images, it definitely looks like a lens glare. Such a glare is often encountered when using dome ports of any kind due to the reflection of the sun or the strobe. I encounter such glares myself with my DSLR dome ports as well. I hope you will find the following tips helpful when solving this problem:
1. It is always useful to make sure that the wings of the BigEye Lens are positioned in an angle that blocks the strobe's output. If required, the angle of the wings can be adjusted by removing and the wings' 4 allen screws using the allen key included. Don't forget to assemble the screws again after the angle of the wings has been adjusted of course!
2. Make sure that the strobe is not positioned towards the lens. When shooting a nearby subject, for instance, it is better to position the strobe a little bit in front of the camera housing rather than behind it (so the light doesn't reflect on the BigEye Lens).
As for the BigEye Lens fogging up, please note that it makes a HUGE difference if the BigEye is stored in a dry and cool place prior the dive. I previously thought that this was just a "to be on the safe side" kind of tip, but my experience with BigEye Lenses, as well as compact digital housings, proved otherwise.
This way or another, the lens is designed to be perfectly watertight sealed and no water drops should accumulate inside. We have never encountered such a situation before, in which water leaks into the lens, but if your BigEye Lens has been damaged and is therefore no longer perfectly watertight sealed, it should be serviced. Can you please send some images of the drops you have identified inside the BigEye Lens to info@fantasea.com? We will then be able to further assist you with solving this problem.
I would also like to share a few images I took myself with the BigEye Lens, which I've been enjoying very much so far:
If there's anything else we can help with, please let us know and we will gladly assist. The BigEye Lens was released a few months ago and we are very proud of it. We have received many positive feedbacks so far and we would like to ensure your experience with it is excellent as well.
Best Wishes,
Sharon
Fantasea Line
Just to add a bit. I've been monitoring this thread and asked them to see what can be done. Puffer, they do listen and I think some of your comments are a bit out of place.
If you shoot into the sun or have it right over the lens you will get flare. That's prevalent on every wide angle lens above or below water. The dome makes it worse, that's why they have a shade.
Strobes actually can also be positioned with longer arms out and behind the lens pointing outward slightly. Use rim lighting to light your subject. Positioning them can be critical. Every w/a dome shooter has this issue.
I definitely see the issue you guys are bringing up about fogging, and Sharon is right, keeping it out of the sun, storing it in a cooler, etc is very important. While fogging can be controlled in a plastic camera housing with silica gel, obviously this can't happen with the lens. Taking any camera equipment from a warm environment to a cold one will cause fogging. However having it get worse during the dive is weird.
Fantasea is concerned about the extent of this issue and is supplying me with a Fuji version (same lens different mount) of the lens to test here in Seattle. We have pretty harsh conditions here, although I may have to get a hair dryer to reproduce the warm sun right now! I will do my best to follow their current instructions, and also to reproduce the issues you're seeing. Maybe there's some other work-arounds. If there's a problem, I can work with the product manager to see what can be done to help reduce it.
Your lenses do come with a one year warranty, if water is getting into the lens , it will be taken care of as Sharon has said - if you write them directly, or fill out a warranty claim on their website. Further support can be found here.
I'll post what information I can figure out with the lens in a week or 10 days after a few dives with it. Note, while I'm a dealer for them, I think you guys know I'm pretty honest in my appraisals of gear.
Thanks,
Jack
If you shoot into the sun or have it right over the lens you will get flare. That's prevalent on every wide angle lens above or below water. The dome makes it worse, that's why they have a shade.
Strobes actually can also be positioned with longer arms out and behind the lens pointing outward slightly. Use rim lighting to light your subject. Positioning them can be critical. Every w/a dome shooter has this issue.
I definitely see the issue you guys are bringing up about fogging, and Sharon is right, keeping it out of the sun, storing it in a cooler, etc is very important. While fogging can be controlled in a plastic camera housing with silica gel, obviously this can't happen with the lens. Taking any camera equipment from a warm environment to a cold one will cause fogging. However having it get worse during the dive is weird.
Fantasea is concerned about the extent of this issue and is supplying me with a Fuji version (same lens different mount) of the lens to test here in Seattle. We have pretty harsh conditions here, although I may have to get a hair dryer to reproduce the warm sun right now! I will do my best to follow their current instructions, and also to reproduce the issues you're seeing. Maybe there's some other work-arounds. If there's a problem, I can work with the product manager to see what can be done to help reduce it.
Your lenses do come with a one year warranty, if water is getting into the lens , it will be taken care of as Sharon has said - if you write them directly, or fill out a warranty claim on their website. Further support can be found here.
I'll post what information I can figure out with the lens in a week or 10 days after a few dives with it. Note, while I'm a dealer for them, I think you guys know I'm pretty honest in my appraisals of gear.
Thanks,
Jack
Jack, I will be the first one to say I am sorry..if I am incorrect.
A couple of notes:
I shoot with long strobe arms... with them directly off to the side...which happens to line up with the shade...I have to use edge lighting because I dive mostly in poor vis, and if I did not, would get huge amounts of backscatter.
Regarding moisture... this is a sealed air space.. if there is moisture inside that space, it was put there during assembly, or it leaked.
Managing it after it is there will be nearly impossible, if the conditions are wrong...
In the case of the images I posted, they were from the first use of the lens....it was put on the camera, placed in a cooler to go on the boat.... but to get into the water, it had to be moved next to the entry point on the side of the boat, in very intense sun....there is nothing I could do about that....with air temps around 90 degrees. After sitting for around 10 minutes.. it was handed to me in 85 degree surface water... and as I went down, went thru about a 6 degree thermal ....where I quickly got the two patches of fogging.
Lets assume I am wrong about that, and the area's are lens flair...every picture I took, where there was any outside light had them... towards the sun.. away from the sun, I did pictures from every direction..not what anyone would call normal lens flair...nor is the appearance like any normal lens flair.
I am still betting that the lens was not assembled in a low humidity environment...
Will see if I can get pictures of the small water droplets tonight.
Love the images, but they both represent the condition where that will not be seen...need to show images where there is sun light in the picture.
Ok, thanks for the information on usage. I think one thing that might be happening is that you cleared it in shallow warm water, then took it down to cooler water. I'm wondering if clearing it again at depth would help.
As far as leaving it out in the sun before a dive like that, I know it's hard, but tossing a wet towel over it might help. I keep a couple of small ones in my cooler bag.
Again, if you are seeing water and _increased_ fogging as you go through your dive, it sounds to me like there's a leak. If this is true and it occurred straight from the box, I may be able to replace the lens directly. Drop Sharon and I an email, she has a lot of experience with the product.
Jack
As far as leaving it out in the sun before a dive like that, I know it's hard, but tossing a wet towel over it might help. I keep a couple of small ones in my cooler bag.
Again, if you are seeing water and _increased_ fogging as you go through your dive, it sounds to me like there's a leak. If this is true and it occurred straight from the box, I may be able to replace the lens directly. Drop Sharon and I an email, she has a lot of experience with the product.
Jack
I'm on my second Fantasea housing now (differnet cameras, the second was an upgrade) and I would not hestitate to go to another fantasea housing next time I upgrade camera. I can say from personal experience that fantasea does respond to customer questions. While I've never complained about a product, I have had questions about making them better and they have always responded quickly and favorably.
I don't have a big eye lens, yet, I just oredered one from Jack and it should reach me here in Chile next week, so I can't comment on their fogging yet. But I have had a similar expierence with a Sea&Sea WA lens. It used to fog on me all the time (but it would fog from the center outward, but it is a WA lens not a fisheye, maybe the difference in glass thickness, but I don't know how WA lenses are designed), until I read some posts that helped me figure out how to keep it form happpening. Basically it's the same tecniches as used to keep a housing from fogging, but taken more extreme. What I do is I bring an extra cooler (matter of fact, the cooler I use is one that can be plugged in to give refrigeration). Once I reach my boat I fill the cooler with the cold seawater that I'll be diving in and drop my housing with the WA lens into the cooler (and I plug the cooler in) for the trip out to the dive site. I guess if access to such a setup is impossible, some icepacks would work to keep the water as cold as possible. I leave the setup in the cooler until I'm in the water and when I'm ready to recieve it, then ask for it to be handed to me. With my current S&S lens this has helped tremendously in keeping the fogging at bay. Wether it's a production defect or not, I don't know and cannot comment. I do know that I've found a way to live with it, and I hope that my bigeye lens does not have the same problem. For wat it's worth, I ordered the m46 version to use on my fantasea housing and it looks to be a much lower volume lens and I don't know hoe that will play out.
Also, BTW, Spring is upon us here in Chile, and while the air temps will rise, the water will remain cool. So if anybody out there wants me to test their rig, I'll be more than happy to comply
. (hint hint Fantasea!)
I don't have a big eye lens, yet, I just oredered one from Jack and it should reach me here in Chile next week, so I can't comment on their fogging yet. But I have had a similar expierence with a Sea&Sea WA lens. It used to fog on me all the time (but it would fog from the center outward, but it is a WA lens not a fisheye, maybe the difference in glass thickness, but I don't know how WA lenses are designed), until I read some posts that helped me figure out how to keep it form happpening. Basically it's the same tecniches as used to keep a housing from fogging, but taken more extreme. What I do is I bring an extra cooler (matter of fact, the cooler I use is one that can be plugged in to give refrigeration). Once I reach my boat I fill the cooler with the cold seawater that I'll be diving in and drop my housing with the WA lens into the cooler (and I plug the cooler in) for the trip out to the dive site. I guess if access to such a setup is impossible, some icepacks would work to keep the water as cold as possible. I leave the setup in the cooler until I'm in the water and when I'm ready to recieve it, then ask for it to be handed to me. With my current S&S lens this has helped tremendously in keeping the fogging at bay. Wether it's a production defect or not, I don't know and cannot comment. I do know that I've found a way to live with it, and I hope that my bigeye lens does not have the same problem. For wat it's worth, I ordered the m46 version to use on my fantasea housing and it looks to be a much lower volume lens and I don't know hoe that will play out.
Also, BTW, Spring is upon us here in Chile, and while the air temps will rise, the water will remain cool. So if anybody out there wants me to test their rig, I'll be more than happy to comply
. (hint hint Fantasea!)
Looking at the lens today... I could not see any of the very tiny droplets... so I did the next best thing... I just put the lens in cold water... waited about 5 minutes .... cleaned and dried the lens to make sure there was no outside fogging.. and then looked thru the lens...
While underwater, you get the corners (I believe that is due to them being the fastest cooling when on the camera)...if you do this, you get a light fog on the back glass (the surface that cools fastest....difficult to image... because you get reflections.. but easy to see if you hold it up to the light, and look slightly off center...that "lens flare" people are seeing is mostly light off of the fogged surface..
after about an hour, you could still see it...it is the white hazy, blotchy stuff:
Note: am surprised how the appearance changed.. it started out fairly smooth looking and gradually went to what you see below.
Put some warm air on the back lens...and it goes away... well down to the point it is hard to see.
As it is the same as it was on the first dive, I believe it is not a leak, but moisture trapped inside when it was assembled.
I understand that if the conditions are just right.. or if you wait long enough... or if you chill the unit down for a day and then quickly get it to the bottom that one will not see that much of an issue... however...most people don't have all those choices
To be blunt.. if the lens fogs... from the inside, someone messed up. There should not be any moisture inside that air space...telling people they need to store the unit in a dry place is seriously stupid..how could that possibly effect a sealed space? (and then saying one should keep it cool and wet before the dive). As is the very concept of "well, if you just handly it in exactly this way, you will not have an issue. I guess someone needs to tell all the shore divers they cannot use it during the summer.
Having seen this same issue on several units.... I don't think there is anything special about mine...
And I am still waiting for someone to admit that they have a problem, step up to the plate and just say "if you see this condition.. you have (fill in the blank)...which we will correct"
I am sure that some of them were made of cooler, dryer days, and are not as bad...
While underwater, you get the corners (I believe that is due to them being the fastest cooling when on the camera)...if you do this, you get a light fog on the back glass (the surface that cools fastest....difficult to image... because you get reflections.. but easy to see if you hold it up to the light, and look slightly off center...that "lens flare" people are seeing is mostly light off of the fogged surface..
after about an hour, you could still see it...it is the white hazy, blotchy stuff:
Note: am surprised how the appearance changed.. it started out fairly smooth looking and gradually went to what you see below.
Put some warm air on the back lens...and it goes away... well down to the point it is hard to see.
As it is the same as it was on the first dive, I believe it is not a leak, but moisture trapped inside when it was assembled.
I understand that if the conditions are just right.. or if you wait long enough... or if you chill the unit down for a day and then quickly get it to the bottom that one will not see that much of an issue... however...most people don't have all those choices
To be blunt.. if the lens fogs... from the inside, someone messed up. There should not be any moisture inside that air space...telling people they need to store the unit in a dry place is seriously stupid..how could that possibly effect a sealed space? (and then saying one should keep it cool and wet before the dive). As is the very concept of "well, if you just handly it in exactly this way, you will not have an issue. I guess someone needs to tell all the shore divers they cannot use it during the summer.
Having seen this same issue on several units.... I don't think there is anything special about mine...
And I am still waiting for someone to admit that they have a problem, step up to the plate and just say "if you see this condition.. you have (fill in the blank)...which we will correct"
I am sure that some of them were made of cooler, dryer days, and are not as bad...
I'm on my second Fantasea housing now (differnet cameras, the second was an upgrade) and I would not hestitate to go to another fantasea housing next time I upgrade camera. I can say from personal experience that fantasea does respond to customer questions. While I've never complained about a product, I have had questions about making them better and they have always responded quickly and favorably.
I don't have a big eye lens, yet, I just oredered one from Jack and it should reach me here in Chile next week, so I can't comment on their fogging yet. But I have had a similar expierence with a Sea&Sea WA lens. It used to fog on me all the time (but it would fog from the center outward, but it is a WA lens not a fisheye, maybe the difference in glass thickness, but I don't know how WA lenses are designed), until I read some posts that helped me figure out how to keep it form happpening. Basically it's the same tecniches as used to keep a housing from fogging, but taken more extreme. What I do is I bring an extra cooler (matter of fact, the cooler I use is one that can be plugged in to give refrigeration). Once I reach my boat I fill the cooler with the cold seawater that I'll be diving in and drop my housing with the WA lens into the cooler (and I plug the cooler in) for the trip out to the dive site. I guess if access to such a setup is impossible, some icepacks would work to keep the water as cold as possible. I leave the setup in the cooler until I'm in the water and when I'm ready to recieve it, then ask for it to be handed to me. With my current S&S lens this has helped tremendously in keeping the fogging at bay. Wether it's a production defect or not, I don't know and cannot comment. I do know that I've found a way to live with it, and I hope that my bigeye lens does not have the same problem. For wat it's worth, I ordered the m46 version to use on my fantasea housing and it looks to be a much lower volume lens and I don't know hoe that will play out.
Also, BTW, Spring is upon us here in Chile, and while the air temps will rise, the water will remain cool. So if anybody out there wants me to test their rig, I'll be more than happy to comply
I think you have been sold the same bill of goods with your lens as with the Big eye...all they had to do was put the unit together in a dry environment....if they don't then one will have to do all the things your's did...imagine if every piece of equipment that had an air space did the same thing...you would have to keep your watch, your computer, you pressure gauge all on ice before getting in the water or they would fog...no shore diving with long walks allowed... only some dive boats can be used...no inflatables or open boats allowed. Window makers figured this one out a long time ago...or every double pane window would be fogged all winter long.
I once bought a very expensive 500 meter dive watch that had a warning that stated "sudden changes in temperature could cause the watch to leak)...sudden changes like jumping in cold water... I sent it back.
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