A6500 + Case + Strobe - What to upgrade

[Pyndle]

Hi everyone!

I had an A6000 + One Sea&Sea YS-01 + SeaFrog case (the old ones not salted line) that only support the 16-50mm kit lense + Inon close up wet lense (+6 diopters) and a one arm rig.

I travel a lot and I upgraded the A6000 to an A6500 with more lenses, of which (relevant for diving) the Sony 10-18mm F4 and the Sony 28mm F2.

I would like to upgrade my underwater photography game as well, but not sure what to do. I don't have a set budget but the less I spend the happier I am, and I don't want to marginally improve my pictures, I want something that is game changing. For instance I regret buying that Inon close up lense, annoying to carry during the dives, I almost never put it on. Here are the options:

1) Get the new SeaFrogs cases (c. 500 usd) that can support the Sony 10-18mm F4 and the Sony 28mm F2. It includes a dry dome port and a flat port, but that would mean I have to decide before getting in the water if I shoot macro or wide.
2) Buy a wet dome port from seafrogs (c. 150 usd). I read the quality is not the best though, but I would still dive with the 16-50m and it would give me the flexibility to shoot wide (dome at 16mm) or take off the dome and go 50mm if I see a cool nudibranch or something
3) Buy a second Sea&sea YS-01 and therefore a new rig with 2 arms (c. 700 usd) and a new set of batteries/charger.
4) Do nothing, none of that is going to be really game changing and dramatically increase my shot quality, while they're all expensive and heavy/bulky to carry for someone who backpacks around the world like I do
5) Something else?

Right now I'm thinking option 2 would be the best given price / weight / size but I'd love to hear people thoughts on it?

Many thanks!

 

[Barmaglot]

Here's the thing - if you want to go wider, whether by adding a wet dome or lens in front of your 16-50mm, or by switching to a 10-18mm in a dry dome, a single strobe will start having coverage issues - you'd need a second strobe to properly light the entire scene and not end up with a hotspot and a bunch of shadows. I really appreciated having two strobes and lights after switching from 16-50mm with a wet dome to a 10-18mm in a dry dome.
Have you considered a flip holder or a magnetic mount for the close-up lens? I had my wet dome on a magnetic adapter and it's really useful - can go between semi-wide for larger subjects to narrow for smaller ones in just a few seconds. I considered getting a close-up lens plus two more magnetic adapters to park the wet lenses on arms, but eventually decided to go for the new housing with 10-18mm, 90mm, and the appropriate ports. Still, if you want to keep the weight and bulk down, macro is easier to set up for than wide-angle. There's also the option of 30mm macro lens and a ring flash.

 

[Pyndle]

Thanks a lot for your answer Barmaglot, I actually didn't think of that. So option Dome port is not really an option unless I buy another strobe... interesting!

I thought about a flip holder but never actually invested in it. It's also because I don't actually need my lense, most of the "small" stuff I wanna take pictures of is 4/5cm at least, so I end up being fine with 50mm and putting my close up lense would be too close (I like to have my subject entirely in the pic + some background).

I guess another question is how wide is the 10-18mm with a dry dome if I get the new housing. Could I ever take a subject like this? Sofyene on Instagram: “Green moray eel ”
Or alternatively, how close would I have to be from a 3m-ish shark to take a shot of the whole shark without it being a small dot in the middle of my picture? Like this: Sofyene on Instagram: “This is the kind of guys you see when you go deep in the great blue hole in Belize :)”

Is there a way to calculate how wide things are in % to compare different options? Curious to see the difference in "wideness" between the 16-50 at 16mm with a wet dome vs the 10-18 at 10mm with a dry dome. Do you think there would be a big difference in quality too?

Also another option I didn't consider is buy the second strobe used. I found a used YS-90 for 110 usd (with the arm and cord), sounds like a good bargain no?

 

[jgttrey]

I'm not familiar enough with that housing offer good advice on the specific gear. I have the Nauticam housing and various ports for my A6500 that I configure for WA or macro ahead of the dive.

However, I would make two observations:

1. For me, given where you describe you are, I'd focus on the lighting upgrades every time. The best bang for the buck unless you're a natural light person is almost always going to be improving your strobe setup. It's hard to avoid shadows and harsh unnatural lighting with only one strobe. You can do it and take very fine pictures on one strobe. It's just harder and more limiting.

I'm also a big fan of upgrading the stock diffusers and have grafted dome diffusers onto the rings for the stock diffusers for my D1s. Having smooth, shadow free lighting makes a big, big difference no matter what your setup. I've also worked up some 3D printed diffusers for the D1s in translucent PETG. They look promising, but I haven't been able to dive them yet.

I have a couple of YS-03's that my wife uses and I'm working on some 3D printed diffusers for those, but it's more complicated from a design standpoint, so those aren't ready for prime time.

So, for me, going from one strobe to two is the first place I'd start.

2. If you want best quality, you're generally going to have to decide at the outset whether its a macro or WA dive before you splash. Sure, you can get good photos swapping wet lenses, but generally not AS good. And, personally, even when I went that route, I rarely switched during the dive. The easiest all-around solution was a wet wide angle that I could zoom through and get fish portraits and close ups that were not macro, but still pretty close. But, it's all a compromise against getting a dedicated dome port and a dedicated macro set up and deciding in advance.

 

[Barmaglot]

The moray photo that you linked would be fairly easy with a 10-18mm, as morays don't move around much, and with their poor vision, they don't mind you getting close. The shark, on the other hand, looks like it was shot from a fair distance - I'm no expert, but I don't see any signs of typical wide-angle distortion; the photographer probably used at least a 50mm focal length, and maybe as much as 90mm.

For lens comparison, there are lots of calculators online, here's a pretty good one: Camera Field of View Calculator (FOV)

Note, however, that if you're shooting underwater through a flat port, your field of view shrinks by about 30% due to refraction. For example, while a 16mm lens on APS-C has a 74 by 53 degree AoV, and at 50cm distance, fills the frame with a 75x50cm subject, a flat port underwater will shrink that to approximately 52x35cm. A dome, whether a full-on dry dome or a wet attachment, will restore the lenses in-air AoV. For comparison, a 10mm lens in a dome will give you a 120cm by 80cm frame at the same 50cm distance, while a 50mm lens in a flat port will fill the shot with a 16x11cm subject. Another point of note is that 10-18mm has a considerably closer minimum focus distance than the 16-50mm - the 25cm figure in specs is quite conservative; I measured it to be closer to 17cm from the sensor, and in a dome, it can focus only a few centimeters away from the port.

Regarding image quality improvement, I will agree with jgttrey - light is the biggest differentiator, followed by dedicated lenses. I got a marked increase in quality when I went from ambient light to LED torches, and again when I added strobes, crippled as they turned out to be (SeaFrogs ST-100). Going from 16-50mm with a flat port + wet dome to 10-18mm with a dry dome was also a pretty big step, as I could get considerably closer - between that and the strobes, I started getting vivid colors that I couldn't imagine in my previous setup. I lost the limited macro capability that I had, but I'm getting that back in spades - the FE 90mm macro lens that I ordered is on a FedEx delivery truck as I'm writing this. Planning my next trip to the Philippines, I'll probably shoot wide-angle/fisheye in Subic Bay, then macro in Anilao.

 

[Pyndle]

Thank you for your answers both! I feel like I'm getting closer to making a decision It sounds like lighting should my primary focus to upgrade, even if I stay on a 16-50mm with a flat port.

Going from 16-50mm with a flat port + wet dome to 10-18mm with a dry dome was also a pretty big step, as I could get considerably closer - between that and the strobes, I started getting vivid colors that I couldn't imagine in my previous setup.

I was actually not expecting that. Do you know what is driving the step up in quality? Is it the fact that you can use another lense or the dry vs wet dome port?
The reason I ask is that I'm very disappointed at my 10-18mm on land, for a lense that costs almost 10 times the price of the kit lense, I barely see any difference between my shots (on land) at 16mm. The only added value I get from it is going at 10mm but then I have this crazy vignetting... But then I also find it hard to believe that the increase is due to going from a dry dome to a wet dome: it's essentially the same image quality no?

Now this brings up another question: what strobe should I be upgrading to? Right now I have a YS-01, would any cheaper TTL strobe (like a YS-03) be sufficient or is it worth upgrading to something more powerful? Or is there actually no point having two different strobes ?

 

[jgttrey]

I recommend staying matched on your strobes, so I'd suggest another ys-01. Using different models complicates things. Much easier to match output if the units are same model and it is a pain if the units have different recycle times.

Plus, while ys-03 is a neat little unit, you will find TTL-only units limiting. Especially with two strobe setup, it is helpful to be able to individually tweak strobe output.

 

[Barmaglot]

I don't have a real 'technical' comparison between 16-50mm and 10-18mm, but here are two shots of a similar subject (batfish) - one taken at Koh Tao, using ambient light at 47mm, the other in Red Sea, using strobes at 18mm:

Again, given the multiple differences between shots - distance, focal length, lighting, depth, etc - this is not an apples to apples comparison, and if I'd gotten closer with the 16-50mm I would've made a much better shot, but it's still pretty illustrative.

An ultrawide or fisheye lens is useful not only for shooting larger subjects up close, but also in composing a shot at very close range while including some background for contrast. Example at 10mm - as I remember, this was shot with the dome mere centimeters away from the coral:

If you want a more compact and lightweight setup for travel, you may consider the new SeaFrogs housing with a 4" dome port and Sony 16mm + VCL-ECF adapter. It's considerably smaller, lighter and less expensive than 6" or 8" dome and 10-18mm, though at the cost of losing zoom capability and adding fisheye distortion. Fisheye shots are also much more challenging to light properly; two strobes are pretty much necessary.

 

[Pyndle]

Thanks for the replies!

I guess I'm going with an extra YS-01 then. And then I don't really want to spend more to change the case (I'm gonna struggle to sell my current case), so I'll buy a dome port for 150usd and keep that 16-50mm setup. Won't be perfect but I assume I can still get decent shots at 16mm with dome + 2 strobes, and same at 50mm without the dome.

I'll head to Egypt in a month or so, I will let you know what I end up buying and how it goes underwater. Thanks for your help again!

 

[Barmaglot]

Just for the reference, I found this adapter very useful for taking the dome off and putting it on quickly, as the shot required. Since the dome is buoyant, I drilled a hole in one of its hood petals and attached a leash, which allowed me to simply let it float above the camera when shooting smaller subjects.