stever

looking for Aquatica housing for Canon 7D, you can PM me

getting closer is always nice, but closer than 3 ft is very difficult with a goby that's doing it's security job. at 3 ft a goby (not to mention the shrimp) doesn't fill much of the frame with 100mm. I've used the 70-200 on land with the 500d and extensions tubes for close - up of flowers and critters. quality is good and autofocus is faster than macro lenses. with a 12.5mm extension tube the 70-200 focuses from more than 5 ft down to 24 in. With enough extension tube it will work as an autofocus lens at preset focal length - both zoom and MF are serious challenges, but not really necessary for the application (but zoom would make other subjects possible as well). looking at my collection of left-over zoom rings, zoom may be possible (but probably not with extension tube, but +1 diopter may be okay). So I may make this a project. relevant advice welcome.

Any experience with this lens, housing? looking for something to get me close enough to shrimp & gobies.

any experience with this lens? does it fit in an Aquatica port/extension combination?

thanks

will it fit with some extension combination? focus gear? i want to photograph shrimp and gobies and the Canon 100 with aps c doesn't quite do it. extenders that work with the Canon 100 aren't that great. any other possibilities?

i highly recommend Martin Edge's latest edition of The Underwater Photographer. He is not in favor of longer arms (and he's pretty much tried everything). He particularly makes the case that getting the strobes far away from the dome is neither required nor beneficial. i started out using double arms - 5 in and 8in and have ended up with single 5in or less on the right and 8 in on the left for wide and macro - sometimes going a bit longer for wide, but usually single arms seems to me that large cumbersome arms and big flash are at odds with the NEX in general, strobes are not very useful for large pelagics

anyone with experience using the version 1 or 2 (what's the difference?)

i've had my external TTL converter for about 6 years and am concerned because it sits for months without use or recharge. it hasn't been used extensively and doesn't have a lot of charge cycles after a dry 2011 i'm going to Lembeh in March and will be unhappy (to say the least) if it doesn't hold a charge (when diving i normally re-charge every 5 days or so - several hundred images) any experience/advice other than charging it and taking the time to pop the flash a hundred times or so at a safe rate?

i'm a rectilinear guy and i like the 11-16. i've tried to make sure it's positioned correctly in the dome and am happy with a +2

search under my name for a post on balancing gear - about 2 years ago i'm apalled that manufacturers still pay no attention to buouancy - and suprised that photographers put up with the situation i'll try to be brief - you need a digital scale and a large garbage can full of water and some float material. i've used and modified 4th generation floats. the first step is to get the housing neutral fore-aft, left-right. i want to be able to shoot 1-handed so i want a few ounces negative on the right side and add floatation to the left to hold up the housing - the best way i found of doing this is to add an extra arm on the left with float - the position of the float and arm can be adjusted to trim left-right (4th generation makes an adapter for 2 arms on one handle0 fore and aft will generally require floats on a macro port (4th generation) and weights on a dome port - i mounted lead weights to long hose clamps around the dome hood independently put floats on the strobes and focus lights so they are neutral (modified 4th generation arm floats tie-wrapped to my Inons are perfect) then balance of the rig isn't changed by flash position or by adding or removing the focus light arms should also be made independently neutral - flotation arms are probably close enough to begin with, others may require floats handling a balanced is an improvement that needs to be experienced to be believed adding floats does not make the rig "lighter" as it still has the same mass - it vastly reduces stress on wrists in particular and allows stable one-handed shooting

i've been thinking about this lens for some time, but after my last trip where i ended up carrying my 100-400 more than usual i got serious and tested it against the 70-300L (and 70-300 and Tamron 70-300, both of which were unacceptable for IQ and other reasons). the image quality of the 70-300L is very good (although not significantly better than a good 100-400) but the handling does does not compare to the 70-200 f4 and it is not as sharp at shorter focal lengths (although probably sharp enough on the 5D2 - the difference is more noticeable on crop frame) the 70-200 with 1.4xiii is almost as sharp as the 70-300 at 300. the 1.4xiii holds up much better in the corners than the 1.4xii although there seems to be no difference in the center. the weight of the converter and 70-200 is about the same as the 70-300L i tested 2 each of the 70-300L, 70-200 f4, and 1.4xiii and found no significant differences in the lenses and converter combinations will be taking the 70-200 and 1.4xiii on my next trip in 3 weeks instead of the 100-400. from experience, i think i'd rather have the 100-400 on a boat or in a vehicle - but not walking around. to make the lens less conspicuous and easier to handle, i added the vastly overpriced black lenscoat kit, and cut 1 1/4 in off the lens hood i have also tried my 58mm 500D with step-down ring and see no significant vignetting at f8. this may make a macro lens unnecessary for some land trips

it seems like most cameras have some excess oil from manufacturing which collects dust and needs wet cleaning - a couple swabs with eclipse fluid a few times during the first couple thousand exposures. should get much better after that

why 40-70 for 1:1? i find the working distane much too short - even with the 100 it's not easy to light a 1;1 subject

i've been happy with the 11-16 with a +2 in 8 in dome. on land it's about as good as it gets for an APSC wide zoom - slightly better than the Canon 10-20