Jurykov

For those interested in the thread, I did find some example shots of the 12-24 F4 and 16-35 F2.8 Sony lenses underwater here. I'm thinking that the 16-35 should be enough to start with for the types of diving I typically do. It should be wide enough to do some fish schooling, turtles, etc. as well as having some zoom range in case I can't coax sharks to come close enough. In the future I may go the fisheye route rather than an ultra wide (weitwinkel) zoom. Maybe I'll wait and see if someone comes up with a native fisheye, and there's always the Metabones adapter if I end up booking any Manta encounters in the near term. Interesting. I'll have to see what it's like actually on the camera. With my current compact, I'm either shooting macro with diopter and fully zoomed, or I have the ultrawide (weitwinkel) (162 degree) wet lens, zoomed in just enough to stop the slight vignetting with my setup. It's incredibly rare that I feel the need to zoom except in those occasional 'sit on the bottom with crazy current while the sharks hang out in the channel' type of dives. In all other cases, I just try to get closer to my subject. I did order the new 24-105mm F4 lens to go with my new camera, but was only planning on using it as a walk around/travel photo lens. I'll have to see what it would take to get it into the housing. Judging by the video reviews I've seen the lens extends quite far when fully zoomed, and it's already about 20mm longer than the 24-70 already. It might need a longer extension to keep it from hitting the port. The minimum focus distance is a little short as well. I'm not sure how useful it would be to me. I think (I may be wrong, I'm still pretty new at this and trying to play catch-up) that you'd have the same issues as the 12-24mm. You'd need a very large dome in order to get good sharpness, as well as the right port extension in order to get the lens in the correct place. It should work, but could end up being very cumbersome (which may not matter with enough time spent balancing things out). I guess I'll have to wait and see when some of this stuff is actually released. At this point it's mostly just me speculating and getting myself worked up. I've been waiting on this upgrade for quite a while. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve

I stand corrected. Yes the SEL1224G seems to be a rectilinear lens. It looks like with the curved front element, and misreading some reviews I ended up confused. Very useful information. Thanks! The 12-24 lens shows up in the latest N100 A7 and N100 A9 charts that I'm looking at, but not in the N85 E-Mount chart. Conversely, the 8-15mm Canon with metabones shows up in the E-mount chart, but not in the other Sony charts. It looks like by using the Metabones adapter and the right port extension, any of the Canon lenses should work though. I'll have to consider it a little more. This setup would spend a lot of time as my carry-on, and the thought of packing the 230mm port around gets less appealing the more I think about it. I suspect the same. It seems like the 16-35 is a lot more common configuration, and I'm finding plenty of great looking images posted from that combination. I guess it comes down to what types of subjects I want to shoot the most. For the really wide stuff, I'll definitely have to give some consideration to the adapted Canon lenses. Thanks for the reply though. Some really good information there, and you've definitely given me something to think about. Any other Sony shooters, feel free to chime in!

Thanks Damselfish. I appreciate the feedback. I was doing some size comparisons and that 230mm port is massive... I'm going to have to make a hard choice to jump up to the bigger port. It's going to really cut into my travel allowance I agree with you on the Nauticam housings though. They are pretty amazing. Very comfortable, and sturdy. I've only had very minimal problems with mine, and only needed the bare minimum level of maintenance over five years to keep it going. How do you like the WWL-1? I wonder how it compares to using the 28mm with fisheye adapter. I did see some comparisons for that combo in the forums here, but it's hard to know which I'd like better. I was using the UWL-04 wet lens with my RX-100 and got fairly good results, but you really needed a bright/sunny day in order to have enough light to adjust the aperture enough to make it really crisp. Shooting video with it was frustrating as you'd need to swap to video mode and set the aperture manually before you started recording if you wanted things to not be fuzzy. It's too bad that even when you're shooting in manual mode, as soon as you pressed the video button it would go into full auto mode and go wide open. It made it hard to shoot quick videos when something exciting happened in front of you. I guess I should just commit to shooting photos, and leave the video shooting to my wife. Then again, being able to fire my strobes more than once every 4 or 5 seconds would probably make me want to shoot video less. Or maybe I can strap a gopro on top? But now with a 230mm dome, strobes, focus/video lights and a gopro strapped on, you are really giving up the advantages of the 'small' mirrorless setup. I'm really interested in hearing if anyone has tried the 12-24mm F4 Sony lens underwater. I'm still trying to figure out how it would perform compared to using the 16-35mm F2.8 lens with all else being equal. It's hard to know whether the fisheye lens behind a curved dome would perform better, or a rectilinear lens that is supposed to be sharper, yet it's behind a curved port. Price wise, I know which way makes sense, but... I'll keep doing research. If anyone has tried the 12-24 on an A7 or A9 camera I'd love to see some of your shots!

I have a Sony A7Riii on pre-order and am trying to nail down everything I'll need for my underwater setup. I've been shooting an RX100v1 for the last few years. It's served me very well, but I'm finding myself more and more frustrated with soft corners in wide angle, as well as really slow strobe recycle time. Watching your subject swim away while you mash the shutter and curse at the lack of strobe power settings in the camera is getting really old. Last year I rented an A7Rii setup with the 90mm macro, and the 28mm prime with fisheye adapter for a one week liveaboard in the Caymans. I really liked the system. The flash trigger is AMAZING! Compared to the internal flash on my RX100 getting a few frames/sec out of this was a huge improvement. It also takes incredible hi res pictures that were very sharp. Almost too high res, I ended up with nearly 200GB of photos in one week of shooting. I had to do some serious culling when I got home. There were a few things holding me back from getting one of my own. Battery life was my number one issue, especially shooting macro. After a single dive, I would come back with 50-60% battery depending on what focusing mode I was using. I could probably get two dives out of a battery, but I ended up swapping it out most dives just in case something great happened on the next dive. Focusing was also not as fast as I wanted. It was definitely an improvement over my compact camera, but for the kind of investment I was looking at, it didn't seem like enough. Enter the A7Riii. Based on the pre-release hype, it looks like Sony has improved on my two biggest complaints. The new camera looks really great, and I think I'm finally ready to pull the trigger. I realize that the housings for this haven't even been officially announced yet, but I'm daydreaming about it, and want to be sure I'm ready to get the right gear once it becomes available. I already picked up the 90mm macro lens, and have some wet diopters that I'll use with it. I'm happy with the great image quality this lens delivers, and am hoping that the improved focus of the A7Riii will reduce the occasional hunting that I saw with this lens on my rental. I'm not so sure about my wide angle options though. I've searched the forums, but it seems like most of the posts are from near the A7Rii release, and there are a few more lenses on the market now. The 28mm prime with fisheye adapter worked fine on my rental and I missed the ability to zoom a lot less than I expected, but it looks like there are better options out there now. Looking at the Nauticam port charts for the A9, it looks like if I wanted to use the 12-24mm fisheye, I would need to go with the 230mm dome port. It looks like I can use the 230mm port with both Sony 16-35 lenses as well, but if I rule out the 12-24 fisheye I could get away with a smaller port. The 28mm lens with WWL-1 wet lens looks like an interesting choice too for a small, travel friendly option. I'm leaning towards just grabbing the 12-24mm fisheye and larger dome and being done with it. I'm looking for maximum corner sharpness, and my understanding is the bigger the dome the better. I'm also leaning towards the wider lens as with 42mp on the new camera I should be able to crop as needed if things end up too wide. Does anyone have the weight difference between the two domes? I'm seeing 2.63kg for the larger one, but not finding consistent answers for the smaller. Any idea of the real world difference between the 12-24 vs either of the 16-35 lenses underwater? Any reason to pick the expensive F2.8 16-35 over the F4? Do I really need the F2.8 if I'm going to be shooting F8 or higher all the time anyways with the dome port? Will the 16-35 lenses perform well under the larger dome, or with them not being fisheye lenses will they work better with the smaller one? Any thoughts on using adapted Canon lenses? As I'm new to ILCs I don't have any old glass to try and adapt. I'm guessing I'd be better off sticking with Sony. Any reason to consider the WWL-1 option other than cost/weight savings? The WACP from Nauticam also looks pretty impressive. Looking at preliminary pricing, unsure about availability, and the fact that no one seems to have tried it with Sony cameras yet is keeping it out of the running. Maybe next year. Any other must have accessories? I'm already in for the flash trigger and vacuum valve, but maybe there's something else that would improve my experience with Nauticam that I haven't considered? I realize that neither the camera, or the housing are out yet. Hopefully someone will have some input based on their A7Rii or A9 experience. Sorry for the wall of text... I was actually quite surprised to not see any mention of the new camera here already. Maybe it's just me that's excited? I used the RX100 for nearly five years, and expect to get a similar amount of time out of this setup so I want to be sure I get it right. Hopefully with some advice I can start collecting parts.

Hello all! Derek from California here (originally from Canada). I've been shooting underwater for a few years with my RX100, and figured it's time for an upgrade. I came here for advice.