Zen 200mm vs 230mm on Nauticam D800

[Colin 4]

If you've used both ports: Zen 200mm and Zen 230mm domes on the D800 Nauticam housing with Nikon 16-35mm and Sigma 15mm lenses I'm after your feedback...

 

Can I get away with the smaller of the two ports? Obvious factors to me are price and portability but are there significant differences in UW image quality in relation to sharpness, edge sharpness and other factors?

 

Thanks,

 

Colin

 

 

 

[ChrigelKarrer 52]

I used the Athena 170mm vario dome and now the original Hugyfot Minidome with my Sigma 15mm on my Hugyfot D800 housing.

Both domes worked fine with the Sigma 15mm with f/sops above 7, BUT the Athena dome was vignetting so badly to render the Athena dome useless.
As the Sigma is a very short lens you should verify that your housing/port combination will be short enough to take pictures without vignetting.

regarding the ZEN dome, ask thy directly, Ryan is always very helpful and up to date.

Chris

[Phil Rudin 313]

I think most would agree that for a wide rectilinear zoom or fixed focal length lenses the ZEN 230mm port will give the best image quality on the 35mm size sensor. With like AOV lenses the 200mm is enough for APS-C sensors and the 170mm is enough for 43/M43 sensors given the proper port extension.

For fisheye lenses much smaller ports like the ZEN 100mm will work well except in the case of "full frame" 35mm where you could use the 200mm dome with ease.

For split shots the larger the dome port the better for all sensor sizes.

Phil Rudin

Edited September 2, 2013 by Phil Rudin

[Colin 4]

Thanks Chris and Phil. Since results may vary using the same port size across different brands of housing (because of minor variations in the port focal node distance), I'm particularly interested in feedback on use experience with the specific combination of Nauticam Nikon D800 housing with the Zen 200mm and Zen 230mm domes. I currently get passable results on DX sensor with the Tokina 10-17 and 180mm dome.

Colin

[Drew 0]

Colin, the physics is constant across all manufacturers. The distance node point from to the virtual image has to be optimized so it's really about optimized setups.

I have used the NAD800 with the 230mm (Nauticam's, which is basically the Zen glass) with the 16-35mm VR, and from f7.1 up, the corners go from above average to good, as reported by many others.
The 200mm Zen dome I used with the 16-35L II on a NA5D2 (the lenses are similar in mfd with 1cm difference for the Canon) and the corner performance was average at f7.1 (slight softness) up and only good from f11.

If you must absolutely have the best picture with the sharpest corners for the 16-35, get the bigger dome. If you shoot more with the fisheye and can accept not so great corners at less than f11, then get the 200mm.
The weight and size different between a 230mm and 200mm isn't that big. The corner performance and DOF gain is much bigger.

[Colin 4]

Thanks Drew.