Sony a6500 shooting in a Nauticam housing

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rks

Contributor
Messages
132
Reaction score
11
Location
Washington
# of dives
200 - 499
I just put together a new rig: a Sony a6500 in a Nauticam housing, with a 16-50mm kit lens. Dual Sea&Sea YS-D2 strobes. In addition I Have the CMC-2 Diopter and a WWL wet wide angle lens. I’m also using Nauticams Auxiliary battery pack in the housing.


Negatives: No way to manually set the camera’s strobe power to super low, or even manual, best you can do is to set a -3 stop on TTL, this means you still fire a fair amount of power out of the camera strobe. Flash sync is 1/160 which seems slow for a mirror less camera, limits ability to do into the sun shots when doing mixed light work.


Positives: In body stabilization is killer, super fast autofocus, back button focus with the Nauticam housing works very very well. The auxiliary battery means you can do 3 dives on the camera without removing it from the housing. The housing has excellent ergonomics although it does randomly seem. To push the up button (Display) which means sometimes your data shifts. The camera also will not let you set custom white balance from a sampled target while using any of the recalled settings. High ISO is super clean, I shot the entire first day at 640 without noticing in the images until I checked the camera the next morning, this gives great flexibility.


The WWL really is too large to put on the arm when not in use, but you can definitely hand it to a dive buddy if you need to take it off for a quick macro shot underwater which give great flexibility. The nauticam port for use with the 16-50 puts the zoom/focus gear on the barrel instead of tying into the more conveniently located knob on the housing’s left side. As rigged the housing makes for a pretty good range underwater, although shots at the extreme end of the diopter have a very close focus distance meaning it’s tough to get to some subjects. I now understand the need for a 100 or 90mm macro lens!


Overall I’m quite happy with the results I’m getting out of the rig, and it’s very nice to shoot with. I have two sets of the larger Stix floats on my ULCS arms and while not buoyant the housing feels good to the hands. More floats can be fitted but it makes it hard to aim the housing down as it continuously up rights itself underwater.

ILCE-6500-20170618-DSC00787.jpg
ILCE-6500-20170618-DSC00867.jpg
ILCE-6500-20170620-DSC01195.jpg
 
I just put together a new rig: a Sony a6500 in a Nauticam housing, with a 16-50mm kit lens. Dual Sea&Sea YS-D2 strobes. In addition I Have the CMC-2 Diopter and a WWL wet wide angle lens. I’m also using Nauticams Auxiliary battery pack in the housing.


Negatives: No way to manually set the camera’s strobe power to super low, or even manual, best you can do is to set a -3 stop on TTL, this means you still fire a fair amount of power out of the camera strobe. Flash sync is 1/160 which seems slow for a mirror less camera, limits ability to do into the sun shots when doing mixed light work.


Positives: In body stabilization is killer, super fast autofocus, back button focus with the Nauticam housing works very very well. The auxiliary battery means you can do 3 dives on the camera without removing it from the housing. The housing has excellent ergonomics although it does randomly seem. To push the up button (Display) which means sometimes your data shifts. The camera also will not let you set custom white balance from a sampled target while using any of the recalled settings. High ISO is super clean, I shot the entire first day at 640 without noticing in the images until I checked the camera the next morning, this gives great flexibility.


The WWL really is too large to put on the arm when not in use, but you can definitely hand it to a dive buddy if you need to take it off for a quick macro shot underwater which give great flexibility. The nauticam port for use with the 16-50 puts the zoom/focus gear on the barrel instead of tying into the more conveniently located knob on the housing’s left side. As rigged the housing makes for a pretty good range underwater, although shots at the extreme end of the diopter have a very close focus distance meaning it’s tough to get to some subjects. I now understand the need for a 100 or 90mm macro lens!


Overall I’m quite happy with the results I’m getting out of the rig, and it’s very nice to shoot with. I have two sets of the larger Stix floats on my ULCS arms and while not buoyant the housing feels good to the hands. More floats can be fitted but it makes it hard to aim the housing down as it continuously up rights itself underwater.

View attachment 421538 View attachment 421539 View attachment 421540
Hello!

I really like your setup and am looking into something similar. Do you have more posts or a link to where you have photos so I can see as a sample?

Rgds!
 
Congrats on your new set-up! The images that you shared are terrific!

I have its "older brother". I am using a Sony A6000 in a Nauticam housing and although I have only taken it on one trip, I am very happy with the results.
 
Let me see if I can put some together for you. I've not gotten out to shoot in several months now! Do you want to see more wide angle or macro?
 
Let me see if I can put some together for you. I've not gotten out to shoot in several months now! Do you want to see more wide angle or macro?
If you have both id be happy. I'm looking into a setup that I can do both with. Thanks!
 
I just put together a new rig: a Sony a6500 in a Nauticam housing, with a 16-50mm kit lens. Dual Sea&Sea YS-D2 strobes. In addition I Have the CMC-2 Diopter and a WWL wet wide angle lens. I’m also using Nauticams Auxiliary battery pack in the housing.

Negatives: No way to manually set the camera’s strobe power to super low, or even manual, best you can do is to set a -3 stop on TTL, this means you still fire a fair amount of power out of the camera strobe. Flash sync is 1/160 which seems slow for a mirror less camera, limits ability to do into the sun shots when doing mixed light work.

Positives: In body stabilization is killer, super fast autofocus, back button focus with the Nauticam housing works very very well. The auxiliary battery means you can do 3 dives on the camera without removing it from the housing. The housing has excellent ergonomics although it does randomly seem. To push the up button (Display) which means sometimes your data shifts. The camera also will not let you set custom white balance from a sampled target while using any of the recalled settings. High ISO is super clean, I shot the entire first day at 640 without noticing in the images until I checked the camera the next morning, this gives great flexibility.

Overall I’m quite happy with the results I’m getting out of the rig, and it’s very nice to shoot with. I have two sets of the larger Stix floats on my ULCS arms and while not buoyant the housing feels good to the hands. More floats can be fitted but it makes it hard to aim the housing down as it continuously up rights itself underwater.

Thanks for this write up. I have the exact same setup (minus the WWL), although I did add the Sony 90mm macro (and the port plus a port adapter) and recently had to swap out the YS-D2s for INON Z-330s. I was curious how you set up back button focus with the Nauticam housing? The reason I ask is because it seems the one camera button that's not accessible through the housing is the AF/MF - AEL button that one would typically use for BBF. How are you doing it underwater with this setup?

Thanks!!
 
Yes I have mine on one of the bayonet mounts so I can remove it if I need to underwater, generally I hand it to my dive buddy/spotter.

Hows the 90mm work for you? Which ports are you using for it? I'm considering picking up the 90mm for dedicated macro shooting as well, so super curious on your thoughts. What made you switch strobes?
 
I'm not the OP, but I recently got a 90mm for use with an A6300 in a SeaFrogs housing. Focus is near-instant on larger subjects (think 30-50cm fish), but tends to take a few seconds to acquire smaller ones. Working distance is fairly long but manageable in clear water. Current or surge can really ruin your day though; you really have to keep the camera still while it's focusing. It also eats batteries - I can reliably get 3 dives out of a battery with 10-18mm, but 90mm has me down to less than 20% after the second dive.
 
I'm curious why the 90mm would use more battery, just because there's more lens to move or does it also have stability in it? Nauticam housing has a piggy-back battery so that's not usually an issue, I'm also curious if anyone has used one of the TTL adapters TRT-electronics, they say it'll fit the nauticam housing and TTL with sony, so that would be a huge battery savings to not be charging and firing the internal flash.
 

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