a6300 Nauticam port and lens for wide angle?

[rs86]

Hi all,

I'm about to buy a sony a6300 with nauticam housing, mainly for wide angle and fisheye photography (reefscapes, shipwrecks, over-under, etc.). I am torn between the following setups:

Sony 16-50mm + Nauticam's Wet Wide Lens (WWL-1)
Sony 10-18mm + 7" N85 Acrylic dome port
Sony E16mm + fisheye converter + 4.33" N85 acrylic fisheye port

Any advice on the best setup for the widest angles that is also suitable for the subjects I want to shoot? The fisheye setup is of course widest, but I'm worried that the small size of the port (4.33") won't be ideal for over-under shots. Is the fisheye lens option also useable on the 7" dome port?

IBy the way I also looked at the tokina 10-17mm with metabones converter, but I read that focusing with this setup is terrible, so that's not an option.

Thanks for any advice you can provide!

 

[Hoag]

Hi rs, I went through the exact same thought process recently when I upgraded from a 1st gen Micro 4/3 camera to a Sony A6000. I ended up with the 10-18 with the 7inch dome port.

Here is some of the thought process that led me to that conclusion:

I wanted a small system, but not at the expense of image quality. I had read wildly mixed reviews about the 16mm f2.8 lens, but none of the reviews were "glowing reviews". It seemed that the lens varied dramatically in quality from one lens to the next. The good ones were OK, and the bad ones were horrible. Soft images, especially at the edges or in the corners seemed to be the most common problem. Despite it being a very small set-up with the 4.33" dome, I ruled it out. Next I looked at the "kit" lens. I happened to have a pretty good one and I am pleased with the images that I get from it. What I don't like about it in an underwater environment however is that if the camera "goes to sleep" (to preserve the battery), so does the lens. This introduces a time lag that may cause me to miss a shot that I would have otherwise captured. I miss enough shots on my own, I don't need the camera to further limit me. I also wanted something wider that 16mm (on the A6300, this will give the same FOV as a 24mm would on a full frame camera). Because of these two factors, I eliminated the 16-50mm kit lens. I did like that with a max focal length of 50mm, although not a true macro, it would meet my needs for macro (getting in close) without the need for a macro specific lens.

This left me with the 10-18mm f4 OSS as the best option for me. The majority reviews on this lens were really good. It gave me a very wide lens that was reasonably fast. Although the 7" Dome would be bigger than I had hoped for my set-up, as I mentioned, I also wanted good image quality. The 7" dome is also better suited to "Over/Under" shots. Since I plan on using this lens exclusively to shoot wide angle, I do not plan on getting the zoom ring. I will shoot it at 10mm and if I need to, I will crop the image in Lightroom.

...and finally, the "other option":
If you opt for the 10-18mm lens, and can live with the wide extreme of your setup being 16mm on some dives, don't rule out the Sony/Zeiss 16-70 f4 OSS lens. It gives you the equivalent of a 24-105mm zoom. In his review, Ken Rockwell said "The Sony Zeiss 16-70mm OSS is the best midrange zoom made for Sony's NEX APS-C cameras. It excels optically, electronically, ergonomically and mechanically." It focuses to about 12 inches so it can be used as a "macro" (yes I know it is not a true macro lens). Oh, and by the way, it uses in the same 7" dome port that the 10-18 lens uses. The Sony/Zeiss 16-70 could also be a viable option as your main lens.

Right now, I have the 10-18mm lens, but I also plan on picking up the 16-70mm one (with a zoom ring) before my next trip in the fall. That way, I will have a complete system and only need one port.

I hope that helped, and didn't muddy the waters (so to speak) even more.

 

[rs86]

Hi Hoag,

thank you so much for your detailed answer. So perhaps it is a good idea to go with the 10-18mm and 7" dome port after all, as I plan on shooting a lot of over-under shots as well.

What do you think about this setup:
Zen 170mm glass dome port
Sony E16mm + fisheye conversion lens

This gives me the fisheye option (although as you mention not the best quality), and, if I'm not mistaken, I can add a 30mm Nauticam extension ring and can then use the dome port with the 10-18mm as well... This will provide a lot of flexibility with a single dome...

Thanks again!

 

[Hoag]

First of all, Zen dome ports are extremely high quality. If you want to opt for an appropriate Zen port, I certainly will not try to dissuade you.

It appears that you are willing to spend a significant amount of money on your system and I have not heard enough good things about the 16mm lens to convince me that it is the ideal lens. The FOV for the two lenses are actually very similar (105 degrees for the 16mm with Fisheye converter versus 109 degrees for the 10-18mm at 10mm). For only a difference of 4 degrees in Field of View, I opted for what I believed to be the lens with the better optics.

As an aside, I have shot a couple Over/Under pics with a fisheye lens (a Panasonic 8mm fisheye on my Olympus M4/3 camera) and it was a nightmare to try to correct the distortion because of the different optical properties of the air and the water. This is the only one that I was happy with the end result.