General question about Sony APS-C and Fullframe for wide-angle

[Jyk]

For me, wet lenses like the WWL-C are quite expansive. Granted you are more flexible by just using the kitlens but for me I could also get a nice glass dome port. I think this setup will get me better quality and a faster lens with better sharpnes.

From now on, I will frist complete my basic setup (second strobe and a +10 marco wet lens). Maybe I will stick to my gear or I will upgrade, it will depend how much more I will go into the hobby.

 

[Barmaglot]

I think the 10-18 does not look like a lens I would use. For me, wet lenses like the WWL-C are quite expansive. Granted you are more flexible by just using the kitlens but for me I could also get a nice glass dome port which I would think, will get me better reasults.

The port material has little to no effect on image quality. A 'nice glass dome' is heavier (i.e. less floaty) and harder to scratch (but also harder to polish) than an acrylic dome, but provided identical geometry, it will not produce any images where you'd be able to tell the difference between them.

Keep in mind that the primary problem with shooting behind a dome is depth of field. Dome ports produce a virtual image presented to the camera's lens at 3x the dome's radius from its nodal port, and this image is curved. Rectilinear lenses are designed to have a flat image plane, so when you're trying to shoot this curved virtual image, the difference in distance from your lens to the virtual image's center and corners may exceed the depth of field produced by your lens, causing the corners to go out of focus. You can counter this by stopping down the aperture to increase depth of field, and by increasing the dome size to make the curvature less pronounced. However, the domes can get only so big - the 230mm ones commonly used by full-frame shooters are near top of the scale - and when you stop down the aperture, you need to either reduce shutter speed (risking blurry subjects) or increase ISO (but then your image quality goes down in general. In addition, you will also need to dial up your strobes, and there is only so much power that they can dump downrange.

Water-contact optics such as WWL-1, WWL-C and WACP ports correct for this effect before light reaches the lens, and therefore produce better image quality overall. You may want to check out this post by Phil Rudin on Wetpixel.

 

[tarponchik]

@Barmaglot BTW, what wet macro will you recommend for the Sea Frog 67 mm thread (Sony A6000)?

 

[Divetech Cayman]

Do you think Fullframe is worth it?

No.

I wrote an article about this if you want to read my full thoughts, on the topic: https://www.divetech.com/post/are-full-frame-cameras-worth-the-cost

But to sum up, it would be very hard to determine a quality difference between a full frame camera, and a cropped sensor camera. This past 6 months, I had on loan from Nauticam & Reef Photo, both a Z50 (cropped sensor camera) and a D850 (full frame camera.) I challenged anyone to tell the difference in final quality between the images taken with each. At one point I had set up an online quiz for this purpose, but could never make it work the way I wanted. In trying to set it up, I pulled 20 shots from each camera. I was the photographer who actually took the shots and I couldn't tell which shots were taken with what camera.

I can all but promise you, you will spend ~$4,000 more on a full frame setup and not get $4,000 in additional quality over a cropped sensor.

For me, wet lenses like the WWL-C are quite expansive. Granted you are more flexible by just using the kitlens but for me I could also get a nice glass dome port. I think this setup will get me better quality and a faster lens with better sharpnes.

I would disagree with you on this. Nauticam claims their WWL-C is mathematically sharper than anything else on the market. After using it extensively, and comparing it to other combinations, I'm inclined to agree.

Tony

 

[Jyk]

@Barmaglot and @Divetech Cayman
Thanks for sharing. I was not aware that the wetlens maybe could also work against the problems of a dome port. At the moment I get many mixed messages, some say its fine, other say you need to have a very specific setup a wetlens could also have problems. Its a shame that we don't have same tests like normals lens reviews would be done, but I think there are just to many configurations possible.

For the price calculation. I just run some numbers. A setup of a A6400 would cost round about 4500€ (Camera + kitlens and wetlens, everyhing Nauticam) a Sony A7C would be around 6300€ (same setup). In the end its up to me, I allready know that it will be expansive hobby, so I just will save some money and will see what the market will offer. Its allways good to run the numbers in comparrion. For me the costs of the case will allways top everything, thats why I don't want to make compromise on the camera body, becaue I know I will run this setup for many year.

Thanks for your help . Im more confused than ever but at least less missinformed.

 

[Barmaglot]

@Barmaglot BTW, what wet macro will you recommend for the Sea Frog 67 mm thread (Sony A6000)?

That really depends on what lens you'd be using it with, and what you're trying to shoot. I'm using a Weefine WFL05S with the Sony 90mm macro lens; it brings the frame size to about 15mm across for shooting the tiniest subjects. However, if you're looking to add macro capability to 16-50mm or a similar non-macro lens, then you will generally need something not as strong, in the +5-6 range, or you will have a significant window between furthest focus with the diopter and closest focus without it.

For me the costs of the case will allways top everything, thats why I don't want to make compromise on the camera body, becaue I know I will run this setup for many year.

In my experience, the most important portion of an underwater camera system is the lighting. When shooting stills, strobes make an enormous difference. A ten year old Canon S100 compact with good strobes will easily take much better photos than a $5000+ pro camera that's shooting with ambient light. It's telling that the value of camera bodies and housings on the used market depreciates quite quickly, but look through the classifieds forum and you'll see years-old strobes selling at near-retail prices very fast. My strobes (2x Retra Pro) are by far the most expensive component of my system - with all the accessories (superchargers, reflectors, diffusers, LSD snoot), they cost me close to $3k even with pre-order discount, whereas my housing (SeaFrogs Salted Line) cost about $300, with a few hundred more for ports, and I got my camera for $800 off ebay.

 

[tarponchik]

That really depends on what lens you'd be using it with, and what you're trying to shoot. I'm using a Weefine WFL05S with the Sony 90mm macro lens; it brings the frame size to about 15mm across for shooting the tiniest subjects. However, if you're looking to add macro capability to 16-50mm or a similar non-macro lens, then you will generally need something not as strong, in the +5-6 range, or you will have a significant window between furthest focus with the diopter and closest focus without it.

Yes, I plan to use it with the 16-50/PZ.

 

[Barmaglot]

Yes, I plan to use it with the 16-50/PZ.

In that case yes, you'll want to start with something around +5-6, and if the area you dive in has really tiny stuff, add a +10-12. I use a magnetic ring adapter from Nitescuba (39.0US $ 20% OFF|Nitescuba 67mm Lens Screw Port Magnetic Mount Adapter Lock Macro Wide Angle Fisheye Lens Filter Holder Diving Quick Release Ring|Photo Studio Accessories| - AliExpress) with one female ring on the port, another on a lens dock mounted on an arm, and the diopter itself on a male ring, so when I need to put it into operation, I just grab it off the arm and slap it on the port. Flip holders (single/double/triple) are also popular.

 

[tarponchik]

In that case yes, you'll want to start with something around +5-6, and if the area you dive in has really tiny stuff, add a +10-12. I use a magnetic ring adapter from Nitescuba (39.0US $ 20% OFF|Nitescuba 67mm Lens Screw Port Magnetic Mount Adapter Lock Macro Wide Angle Fisheye Lens Filter Holder Diving Quick Release Ring|Photo Studio Accessories| - AliExpress) with one female ring on the port, another on a lens dock mounted on an arm, and the diopter itself on a male ring, so when I need to put it into operation, I just grab it off the arm and slap it on the port. Flip holders (single/double/triple) are also popular.

Excellent, I'll look into that. Thanks!

 

[stuartv]

No.

I wrote an article about this if you want to read my full thoughts, on the topic: https://www.divetech.com/post/are-full-frame-cameras-worth-the-cost

But to sum up, it would be very hard to determine a quality difference between a full frame camera, and a cropped sensor camera. This past 6 months, I had on loan from Nauticam & Reef Photo, both a Z50 (cropped sensor camera) and a D850 (full frame camera.) I challenged anyone to tell the difference in final quality between the images taken with each. At one point I had set up an online quiz for this purpose, but could never make it work the way I wanted. In trying to set it up, I pulled 20 shots from each camera. I was the photographer who actually took the shots and I couldn't tell which shots were taken with what camera.

I can all but promise you, you will spend ~$4,000 more on a full frame setup and not get $4,000 in additional quality over a cropped sensor.

I have two issues with this.

One, in your linked blog post, you said "[FF] is not worth it." That is a totally subjective statement. It totally depends on the person and their budget. I think it would be much more fair to the reader to say "FF will cost you a lot more - maybe $4500 for your initial setup. And the resulting camera rig will only be slightly more capable." It seems as though you are not disputing that a FF rig IS better/more capable than an equivalent (in terms of modern-ness of the tech) Cropped sensor rig. It's just that it's bigger, heavier, and a lot more expensive. It IS better. It's just that it's only a little better, but a lot more expensive.

And, two, your challenge to identify which photos are from a FF versus Cropped is not fair at all. Clearly, you CAN get completely professional quality images using either platform. The relevant question is, will you be able to capture some images with FF that you would not be able to capture with a Cropped sensor? (meaning, capture them at whatever minimum level of image quality you require) I think the answer to that question is yes. If you have a FF rig, there will be times when you can capture an image that is just barely of acceptable image quality for your desired purpose, where, if you were shooting a Cropped sensor, trying to capture the same image, you would not be able to (at that same level of quality). Of course, this presumes the rigs being compared are of comparable quality. E.g. a really old FF rig might not do as well as the latest and greatest APS-C rig.

If you want to do that comparison, I think you need to use both camera rigs on the same dives, and capture the same images with both. Then see if people can compare the results and tell a difference. I will bet a lot of people WILL be able to tell the difference. Unless you really cherry pick which images to put forth for comparison.

If you're shooting a 100' wreck with ambient light, a FF sensor will probably produce better results. If you're shooting any subject where you want to shoot wide open to achieve nice bokeh, the FF sensor has more potential to do better.

I could be wrong about this one, but I think if you're shooting into the sun, and you're really stopping the lens down to make a nice sunball, the larger sensor will let you capture better images of a close subject - especially if it's not close enough to illuminate with a strobe, or if you're having to use your strobes on full dump even with a FF sensor.

I used to shoot m43. Now I shoot FF. Even with FF, I am rarely able to shoot at ISO 100. I am often shooting at ISO 400 on FF. Shooting a smaller sensor to capture the same image would mean even higher ISOs - which inherently means more noise in the image (presuming equivalent levels of modern-ness to the tech - e.g. both being "latest and greatest"). A m43 sensor with the same megapixel count as a FF has 4 times the pixel density on the sensor, and it's capturing 1/4 the amount of light. It is GOING to have more noise, to capture the same image. Crop is not as bad a multiplier, but it has the same issue.

I'm not a professional, or even an expert, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.