Sony A6500 Housing/Port/Lens Options

[Hoag]

The Aquatica housing looks amazing but is unfortunately out of my budget.

Life is full of compromises and only you will know what is your right choice, but have you considered the A6300? It shoots 4K video and although it doesn't have IBIS, it may lower the cost to the point where the Aquatica (or Nauticam) housings become viable for you.

 

[rks]

I've had several ikelite housing and always been very pleased with them. Good stuff. The major thing pushing me to the aquatica is the vacum pump mechanism to ensure there are no leaks. You can retrofit one to Ikelite if you remove a control that you're not using.

 

[JackConnick]

Fantasea is coming out with a pretty nice housing that competes with Ikelite price-wise and is smaller. It fits the a6300 and a6500. $979, plus ports.

More info here: http://www.sonydive.com/products.php?id=2207&title=FA6500

 

[BFRedrocks]

I just received my Sony a6500 and spent the weekend above water playing with it. I got the 16-50mm PZ "kit" lens and the 55-210mm Sony lens with it, with the 55-210mm lens solely for above water use (there's no port available for it as far as I can tell). So far the pictures look great and the camera is amazing (although there are so many settings to consider, at one point I went into information overload watching videos for all the settings "suggestions").

As for my underwater setup that I am building, I went with the Nauticam housing, 2 YS-D2 strobes, the port to fit the 16-50mm lens, and the Nauticam CMC-2 diopter and holder. The CMC-2 has less magnification and is way easier to handle than the CMC-1 if you aren't experienced in super macro shooting underwater. At some point I will get the Sony 90mm macro lens, but that's a bit pricey for starting out with this setup for now. Also, that requires a decent size dome, and I'd prefer to keep the setup somewhat smaller to start. I probably won't get the setup underwater until the summer, so for now, it's just going to look pretty.

Anyway, I know you said the Nauticam was out of your budget, but for now, I'm guessing the 16-50mm plus a diopter should give you some good flexibility to get going (I don't know your underwater photography experience).

 

[Skating101]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Hoag: IBIS is more important than the type of housing (IMO) especially for video.

rks: I've owned an Ikelite DSLR housing and they seemed to be quite good quality, the lack of a vacuum pump seems acceptable?

Jack: I mentioned the Fantasea housing my original post however they currently have no other port options besides the Sony 16-50mm and 30mm macro. I've contacted Fantasea enquiring about additional port options but have not received a reply yet.

BFRedrocks: Thanks for the info regarding your camera, I wanted to purchase the 90mm however it seems to be a far more specific use (super macro) thats why I chose the 50mm f1.8 with the CMC, not sure how good it will be for macro though, maximum magnification will be around 0.8x.

 

[Skating101]

Update to this post, Fantasea have replied and stated that they will be providing a dome port for the Sony 10-18mm lens estimated arrival May.

 

[JackConnick]

There's a link at the bottom of the page I posted for their upcoming ports:
http://www.fantasea.com/FA6500/Ports/FA6500PortChart.pdf

No pricing on them yet.

 

[Skating101]

Yup thanks Jack, they updated their port list a few days ago, previously it only mentioned the 16-50mm and 30mm macro.

 

[rks]

One nice thing about the Ikelite (and the Aquatica as well since they offer Ikelite strobe bulkhead) is you're using the wired strobes, this means you won't be firing the internal strobe on the camera which means the battery will last longer, and you don't have to wait for the internal strobe to recycle either.

 

[rks]

One nice thing about the Ikelite (and the Aquatica as well since they offer Ikelite strobe bulkhead) is you're using the wired strobes, this means you won't be firing the internal strobe on the camera which means the battery will last longer, and you don't have to wait for the internal strobe to recycle either.

Follow up. I received my Aquatica housing for the a6500 and promptly sent it back. It's not quite clear from their promotional material but the Ikelite bulkhead only does manual control of the flashes, not TTL. It's just a generic hot-shoe.