Clive

Amphibico was very prompt with their reply and helped me quite a bit when I had troubles with my local customs. I would hate to see them gone. Keep the same team, I will still support them should they come back.

Although I cannot help you with either but does it matter which housing and which dome? I am also interested in building a housing and just buy the lens. Your thread might just help my build too.

The main problem will be vignetting. Bringing the lens closer to the camera lens won't be a problem...moving it further away will.

I read about the vignetting part from a review from Wagsy as well. If I understand Drew's mail well, I will have a threshold distance to move the camera. Within this threshold too far from the port and I will have vignetting (no problems with focus I am assuming). Too near to the lens I will sacrifice usable wide angle, again I assume the will be not problems with focus. Is this right?

I used a stepdown ring to fit it on the camera and found out after the first shot that the centre is sharp but on the edges it looks out of focus.Next thing I like to do is try to move the camera back or forward to see if this will improve the picture.

I will be interested in your feedback after moving the camera. Please let us know if it improves.

Thanks Drew. As always your replies are helpful and full of depth.

Optimized lens distance is definitely an issue for the housing. It's like adding a wide angle adapter. The optics have to work and they generally do because they function within the same threshold.

I am actually curious as to what happens if the lens distance is not optimised? Will the picture be out of focus? If so, then can we adjust the focus or zoom to compensate. I suppose if this then possible it would be within the threshold as you mentioned. Or will there be distortion which cannot be compensated by the camera?

With many reviews on WA lenses having "full zoom through focus" is this the result of optimised lens distance?

I figured the only reason to use a diopter on a fixed lens video camera is to shoot something up close. Using a diopter means there'll always be diffraction and CA, goes without saying. I guess it should be clearer.

Although I have been shooting UW video for a while I have not gone into the depth that the people here are. I guess you can say that something that "goes without saying" to the knowledgeable "goes without knowledge" to the illiterate At least now I know a little more.

Why can't you use the peaking function on the camera to aid focus through the viewfinder? I can't remember how it looks through the amphibico but peaking should be visible.

At times looking through the VF is difficult , especially when I have a habit of leaving the camera recording on the ground    As such I am thinking of getting an external monitor. Honestly, I have never used peaking instead I use zebra     I guess peaking is an option. Is that how everyone else is focusing?