Haggis

Hi Dave,

Whilst the 60mm is certainly not the best lens for the job you should get some shots. The shots below were taken in the Maldives last year on the way back from a morning's diving. Wasn't expecting any mantas to show up and only had the 60mm with me. The biggest issue was that I couldn't use flash as I had to be too far away to fit anything in frame, so it was natural light only. In hindsight I probably could have bumped the ISO up a little as many of the shots were slightly blurred - I was just too excited being in the water with these amazing animals!







Enjoy the trip!

Graham.

Loftus started a thread on correcting the fisheye effect a few weeks ago (See here). Opinion was split on who liked the original and who the corrected, I personally preferred the corrected images. I don't know about how successful topside corrections would be though.

From there it doesnt look good then.  I may just have spent money on something that isn't going to produce decent shots.  Resisted getting a fisheye as they're completely useless on land and i dislike the curve on some U/W shots.

I would disagree that you won't get decent shots but this lens certainly has it's limitations. I too fell into the same trap of thinking that I'd get more use out of this lens because it could be used topside too. I've found a +2 diopter and zooming to around 16mm certainly helps but this equates to about 26mm on a full frame camera so not necessarily as wide as you'd want to go. Stopping down to f8.0 seems to help a bit too but I don't think you'll ever get away from the softness completely. In many shots I don't think it's too bad and in some it's hardly noticeable but in others I've either had to crop it out or delete the pic. Close-up wide angles (like your second pic) tend to be the worst offenders.

Hi Cheezo,

unless you already have the 10-22 or plan to use it a lot topside I would advise against getting it for underwater work. I have found that even with the 8" dome I just can't get the corner sharpness that I want - even using a diopter.

I would suggest the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye instead. The compromise with this is that it is of course a fisheye and perhaps a less useful a lens out of the water. It's not that the 10-22 is terrible underwater and if you can live with the softness at the edges then it'll take some great shots but you'll probably find that the soft edges will start to frustrate you after a while.

Beautiful shots! Is the first one taken through the bottom of a whiskey/beer glass??